As a college student I have noticed that many universities emphasize learning one programming language while there students are in their undergraduate computer science degrees. The benefit of learning one language versus learning many languages is intended to allow the students to understand the more complex concepts in programming by knowing and understanding one language really well. However, the disadvantage of this approach is that for many college students, they only know one programming language fluently by the time the graduate and enter into an entry level job as a software developer. After talking to established developers and programmers in the computer science field I learned that college programs are teaching primarily the concepts, but in-order to be successful in the work place it's important to know your "tools". One of the software developers I interviewed likened software development to craftsmanship, stating in short that a good craftsman knows his tools, in the same way a good developer knows his programming languages. According to an online job recruiting site, the national average salary for full-stack developers/engineers is approximately $115,960 a year, and some make as much as $150,000 per year, depending on the company and location. Software developer jobs have a national average salary of $85,000 a year. While language specific jobs like a Java developer has an average annual salary of $70,000 a year.
You may still be asking yourself why it's such a big deal to learn multiple programming languages when the salaries are still decent for single language developers. The reason is...
You may still be asking yourself why it's such a big deal to learn multiple programming languages when the salaries are still decent for single language developers. The reason is...
"...the national average for full-stack developers is approximately $115,960 a year, and some make as much as $150,000 per year."
The reason is ,primarily, because the number of jobs available for full-stack developers is about 3000% higher than that of single language developers. While it's true you may not have any problem finding a job as a single language developer, the options and the salaries are much, much higher as a full-stack developer. Being a full-stack developer is also a great way to separate yourself from every other software developer, simply means you know your stuff, and the computer science world that means dollar signs. Companies big and small are searching for developers who are proficient in many languages.
The term full-stack developer has been thrown around in this article, and incase you don't know what that term means, here's an explanation. A full stack developer is someone that knows all processes, or at least had experience in most used programming languages, techniques and computer science areas. So it's safe to say you won't come out of college having full experience in a plethora of programming languages, but if you spend time outside the class-room studying and programming in other languages than your already ahead of the game and one step closer to becoming a full-stack developer.
The term full-stack developer has been thrown around in this article, and incase you don't know what that term means, here's an explanation. A full stack developer is someone that knows all processes, or at least had experience in most used programming languages, techniques and computer science areas. So it's safe to say you won't come out of college having full experience in a plethora of programming languages, but if you spend time outside the class-room studying and programming in other languages than your already ahead of the game and one step closer to becoming a full-stack developer.
"A full stack developer is someone that knows all processes, or at least had experience in most used programming languages, techniques and computer science areas."