The time taken to become a full-stack developer

How much time does it take you to become a full-stack developer?

This completely depends on you, but there are a few other factors that decides how soon you can become a full-stack developer. These are some of the factors —

1. where you start ( front-end or back-end)— Generally, people who start with back-end development, become full-stack developers sooner than people who start as front-end developers. A back-end developer becomes a full-stack developer within 3–4 months.
2. Technology— the technology you start with also matters. Earlier, to become a full-stack developers had to learn two programming languages to become a full-stack developer. For example, to work on back-end, you needed to learn PHP, Python, Ruby, etc plus JavaScript to work on front-end. But, now, if you start with JavaScript, you don’t need a second language to work on back-end, you can work on front-end as well as back-end with just JavaScript.
3. You experience in coding— Your experience in coding also matters, if you start afresh you would have to first get familiar with programming concepts that alone can take up to 3–4 months.

So you see, there are factors like above that actually decide how fast you can become a full-stack developer.

Since you’ve asked this question, I presume that you’re planning to become a full-stack developer. So I will recommend you to to start by learning JavaScript.

You will have two advantages here—

1. Now, JavaScript is used for both front-end and back-end. So you won’t have to learning a new language for back-end development, instead you can start working on front-end back-end, by simply learning JavaScript.
2. There are currently better opportunities for developers skilled in JavaScript than any other technology. Take a look at the graph below—

The above graph is from Stack Overflow Developer’s Report 2018. As you can see, the number of developers using JavaScript is more than any other language. The popularity of JavaScript is because of the increasing number of JavaScript-based frameworks. Currently, Node.js, Express.js, Angular, React, Vue are some of the popular frameworks.

The reason for popularity of these frameworks is because of the scalability these frameworks offer. Node.js ( a back-end technology) is a primary driver for applications like Uber, PayPal, LinkedIn, eBay and more companies.
Simialrly, Angular ( used for front-end development) is leading the race in front-end development frameworks.

In fact, start-ups and other smaller companies are now moving from older technologies to Node.js and other JavaScript-based frameworks to avoid any future scalability issues. Good scalability means websites and web apps built with these frameworks can handle large traffic better than any other technology.

All in all, if you want to become a full-stack developer, you should begin with JavaScript. You can start working on front-end as well as back-end easily. Plus, you will find more and better in full-stack development.

To be a full-stack developer using JavaScript, you essentially need to learn MEAN stack, if you’re familiar with JavaScript, it would take you 4–6 months to learn it.

Here I would recommend you to use edWisor. You can learn complete MEAN stack development while working on projects.

If you’re unfamiliar with JavaScript, you can learn that too here, and go on to learn Node.js, Express.js, Angular and other JavaScript-based frameworks. So give it a try.

A lot of companies also hire full-stack developers through edWisor based on the projects, people do here.

I hope this helps.