The Real Skill AI Won’t Replace
Because someone has to clean up after the AI’s code suggestions.
Ah yes, the mythical full stack developer. Fluent in Kubernetes and CSS. Can debug a flaky WebSocket connection and make the button pop just right in Safari 14.3. Also, fluent in four frontend frameworks, three ORMs, and—if you’re lucky—your company’s internal tooling written in Bash and tears.
It sounds impressive. Until you realize “full stack” is just corporate for “three jobs, one salary, no support.”
The original promise of full stack was noble: break down silos, build end-to-end features, own your code. But somewhere along the way, it mutated. Now it means you’re responsible for everything from designing the API schema to fixing the div that renders weird on IE11. Oh, and could you also write some Terraform while you’re at it?
Let’s be honest: in 2025, “full stack” mostly means “we can’t afford to hire a team, so here’s a to-do list that spans five specialties.”
But here’s the twist: I still think you should aim for T-shaped skills. Just not the way HR thinks you should.
Because here’s what’s changed: we’ve now got an army of AI copilots ready to autocomplete half your job—badly. They’ll hallucinate types, suggest incorrect regex, and cheerfully rename your variables while subtly breaking the logic.
If you want to survive this stack, you need to know enough frontend, backend, infra, and AI prompt engineering to know when the machine is lying to you.
Being “T-shaped” doesn’t mean you’re an expert in everything. It means you can go deep where it matters (ideally in your core domain), and navigate the rest well enough to not get wrecked. It means you know when to trust ChatGPT’s code suggestion, and when to back away slowly and grep the logs yourself.
In other words: it’s no longer “full stack vs backend vs frontend.” It’s humans who can collaborate with AI vs humans who are about to get buried in merge conflicts and synthetic bugs.
So yeah, full stack as a job description might be a scam. But being versatile? That’s survival.
Especially if your AI sidekick starts suggesting you replace your Postgres schema with a single JSON blob. Again.