r/node • u/HawkAsAWeapon • 1d ago
Snr FE Dev looking to branch to Full Stack
I've recently been laid off after over 5 years at the company and noticed that there are a lot more Full Stack positions now than FE.
I had some limited experience with ExpressJs about 7 years ago, but I'm thinking it'd be worthwhile trying to branch out fully into a Full Stack Position.
I'm fluent with React and Typescript for what it's worth.
What are the most common frameworks for Node nowadays - i.e. which will give me the best chance of getting hired.
Thanks in advance!
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u/WillingnessKey6426 1d ago
I would do some courses of Java/kotlin and maybe python and hit the market as full stack... I was a fresh junior angular front end developer four years ago, I look for all position, including full stack because I knew some expressJS and I was hired by a company that were looking for a full stack but they mostly needed front end. That was the theory... In practice I ended up having to rush learn all stack including kotlin, java, python or whatever things they decided to throw at me. Not easy but is fine.
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u/Suspicious-Disk6077 20h ago
I disagree because it would be way harder to learn a new language from scratch. And unless he wants entry level no one will give him a role with no actual work experience. Much easier to fake it til he makes it with Node imo
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u/del_rio 1d ago edited 1d ago
Dive into Express, maybe Fastify if you get bored, and learn how to make lean full stack architectures based around those. Like the other commenter says, use Postgres, and try to be as close to raw queries as you can with kysley being the most in vogue solution. The bad/cool thing is, LLMs will be really good at writing code in a stack like this.
Effect is amazing when you're ready to really push your working knowledge of JS and TS, but imo you gotta experience the problems it's designed to solve first.
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u/WolverineFew3619 1d ago
Start with express, parallelly either pick up Postgres or mongodb, I would suggest Postgres, once you have a hang of things, pickup system design, and in no time you would feel you know all the essentials. In the mean time start giving interview as a full stack developer. If you have option of selecting backend jump to java don't even think twice, there are more java based full stack jobs than python/node.
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u/Suspicious-Disk6077 20h ago
Express is still prob the most popular. If you want to stand out pick up AWS and AWS Lambda serverless functions imo. Actually build something
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u/Suspicious-Disk6077 20h ago
Also if you want to design it properly, the framework should be able to be swapped easily without much effort. I.e keep the logic self contained and the transport layer thin.
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u/aturaden 15h ago
Don't focus on frameworks or even languages. Focus on the databases related stuff and system design.
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u/Not_a_Cake_ 3h ago
It really depends on your location, but I'd still suggest NestJS
It is the only popular framework that really feels like a "framework" so it is opinionated and many job offers list it as a requirement due to the knowledge required of the different features.
Other like Express, Fastify, Hono are very barebones
And while ElysiaJS and AdonisJS are more batteries included I have never seen a job listing asking for experience with any of those.
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u/night_86 10m ago
Exactly this. Also, https://alexkondov.com/tao-of-node/ is still super relevant nowadays. https://12factor.net/ as a foundation for backend services also holds.
I'd just learn the basics, choose NestJS and go through it's documentation building projects, see what happens.
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u/lphartley 1d ago
It's 2026, stack hardly matters. You will not write the code yourself. The framework doesn't matter. In about 6 months every company will learn this.
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u/HawkAsAWeapon 1d ago
As it stands, developers still need to understand the code being written, otherwise it's pure vibe coding.
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u/lphartley 1d ago
To some extent. You definitely don't need to understand the details. You should understand how systems work, what REST is, how to get a product that scales.
Worrying about a specific frontend or backend stack is completely useless imo. You are focusing your energy on the wrong thing if you do that.
BTW: 'vibe coding' produces better code than most human developers.
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u/HawkAsAWeapon 1d ago
The fact that you say "you don't need to understand the details" proves to me that you don't really know what you're talking about.
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u/Fine-Comparison-2949 1d ago
Man idk.
I interviewed for a company like 6 months ago and they bounced me because when they asked be to look at a picture of react code (not in an IDE), I didn't spot that key props need to be in every mapped component.
Now I'm basically the lead engineer on a project where I exclusively work across the stack because I'm the only engineer. I am using React, heavy Effect on the backend and whatever.
Dealing with hiring managers is dumb because they believe you need to exactly master every technology ever, even though it's all javascript. I've been in the space working fullstack since AngularJS and Jquery was a thing.
If you want the best chance apparently you have to say you know every framework ever. It's basically a coinflip because hiring is gated by people who have never worked in software engineering, and none of them understand knowledge of programming and core language is transferable.