Want to be a full stack developer and DevOps?

Firstly, what is a full stack developer? Meet Nicky and Andrew from ISW to find if this is the role for you.

ISW is a Tasmanian IT company with a head office in Hobart but with offices all over Australia. ISW deals in developing customised software for clients.

At ISW, Nicky’s role requires taking ideas and requirements that people have and building an efficient system that perhaps adapts to their needs, expanding as needed. It’s a fast moving industry that is always evolving so it’s important to stay ahead of technology.

Andrew agrees. “My job is about problem solving – it’s taking the problem and discussing it; working it through to come to a solution. We’re always using the latest technologies it’s always great to see how they can be applied to do that.”

Basically, a full stack application developer’s role is to get applications running and keep them running. For Nicky and Andrew, their main responsibilities include all aspects of software development, testing and deployment. From designing an automated deployment pipeline to fixing a UI bug for a client. For Andrew, working in DevOps is abou automating systems in the way that they run, setting up servers, pushing code to the servers and running it in a way that makes it ready for production or ready for testing. It’s coding for deployment.

Nicky says: “the role full stack developer implies that we can write the front end system, the bit that people use, and code the backend servers and do the DevOps part that joins those together and makes that a running system.”

“We listen to feedback from clients, we work with stakeholders to develop new functionality, or new features and design those all the way through to testing and then deploying them to the production environment.”

To be in this role, the main thing you need is attention to detail. However, to be truly successful you should have a passion for the creative process and be able conceptualise complex systems.

Sound like you? If you’re a student, sign up for the IT’s Your Career work experience program.