I waste way too much of my time on YouTube and sometimes I really wonder if sitting for hours on my couch watching other people doing things is really the life I want. (⚠️Spoiler alert: no it's not)
In December 2025, I had a small reward for my laziness. The recommendation algorithm suggested me a video from Arnaud Lemaire
https://medium.com/@lilobase, who is CPTO at Sunday, called: “From code to consequences.“
One of the topics addressed in the video is that developers should be able to navigate, fix, and develop features in all parts of the codebase, backend and frontend included. According to him, it's the bare minimum.
He gives an anecdote about an absurd situation his team fell into: At some point of the year, the backend developers were crushed by deadlines and too much work, but in the meantime, the frontend devs, who were waiting for the backend to be ready, had nothing to do.
The video started to be hard to watch for me because, as a senior backend developer, I am sometimes in similar situations.
I don't review frontend PRs. Why would I ? Other people could do it better than me.
If all frontend developers are on holiday and some important frontend task comes up, I just wait for them to be back.
I've never thought it was an issue. Nobody complained. Many developers in my company and elsewhere are acting the same. Why would I change? There are already so much knowledge to have as a senior backend developer: databases, message brokers, caches, web servers, programming languages... How could find the time and the energy to learn even more ?
I think what I was missing, is that being fullstack does not necessarily mean to be expert in everything. You can think about your knowledge as something being in a T-shape.
You can decide to go deep in one domain and to know only the basics in another. But are you okay with knowing nothing about a topic? Do you accept knowing so little that you aren't able to complete even the simplest task in that area?
After spending 6 years without touching a single line of frontend code, I think it's time for me to change.
Wish me luck 😁