The end-to-end web developer is a rare find though it would seem like she should be all too common. The term refers to developer that can write quality code at every tier of a web application. For a Java developer, that means being able to write good HTML, Javascript, CSS, JSP, Servlets (though they appear in many forms), EJB (and their various kinds), JDBC (or Hibernate), SQL and a little system administration too. It sounds like a common set of skills and many employers claim to require them, but often these skills are difficult to gain and some jobs make it difficult to practice.

Before I dive into the ethereal land of opinionated-qualification-make-believe, please consider how your company divides its teams. Many companies have their developers work on specific tiers of the application. Some developers work on the UI, others write EJB services and some focus on database development. Employers may want to see a wide range of qualifications on a resume, but may quickly lock a developer into a specific tier or role that doesn't take advantage of those other skills. This organizational style also makes it difficult to grow skills outside of a developer’s immediate role.

Another style operates on a functional slice basis. The concept is that a developer is responsible for one or more features and writes the UI, middle and back tiers. Obviously, this organizational style takes advantage of the developer's entire range of skills. This style does not preclude specialists, such as expert UI and database engineers. The specialists may do fit-and-finish work, perform design reviews and set the direction for the particular tier. A developer in this organizational style is able to practice a wide range of skills daily.

The first approach encourages specialization and the second is generalization. An end-to-end developer coming from the first approach may have some skills but was afforded limited opportunity to grow them. The multidisciplinary requirements of the second approach requires a lot of upfront knowledge that is difficult to attain without being in such an environment previously.

Back to being an end-to-end developer. Why are end-to-end developers valuable? Startup and small companies often have a wide range of development needs but may lack a significant budget to hire specialists for each tier. Generalists fill those gaps though they can command a higher initial salary, they are still less expensive than hiring two or more specialist developers.

Are generalists more skilled than specialists? This is an extremely difficult question to answer. Specialists are focused on a given subject and should be more knowledgeable on that subject. Yet a generalist may have actually worked with that technology for longer and at a greater depth than the specialist. An example of this is a UI specialist with two years of Tapestry experience compared to a generalist with four years experience in the same technology.

Years of experience is not necessarily an accurate gauge of the developer's depth of knowledge though. The only way to tell if a developer has the experience necessary to do the work is by probing through the interview process. This is necessary when dealing with generalists and specialists alike.

The generalist vs specialist argument is one of personal choice and there is no right or wrong answer. There are advantages to both and the rule of staying current with evolutions in technology remains the same.

The concept of the end-to-end developer is fascinating as the developer should be able to write an entire web application on her own. Such a developer is proven when she has actually built something on her own and made it publicly available. It doesn’t need to be earth shattering or massively successful, it just needs to solve a problem and be accessible to the world.

But there are other, less obvious skills being learned too, like self-determiniation, time management and follow-through. Many job descriptions look for a self-starter: some go-getter developer that can work with little supervision, lead a team and finish what they agreed to in a reasonable time. If a developer spends the time to learn to every tier of web application development, builds something and makes it public then she meets pretty much all the listed requirements except for leading a team. Thankfully, team leadership is a learned skill.

One item that should be clarified is the difference between the hobbyist and end-to-end developer. There is a reluctance to hire a developer that learned specific skills through a hobby project rather than a commercial project. There are some good reasons for this, such as hobby projects usually don’t require a developer to focus and develop a project for eight, or more, hours a work-day. It’s hard for a developer to gain breadth and depth, in a vacuum, working on a hobby only a few hours a day or week. The big difference is that a hobbyist doesn’t have to finnish, the end-to-end developer does and then works harder on it and makes it into something big.

It would be reasonable for someone to look at this and say “he’s just trying to justify hobbyists.” There might be some truth in that. Yet look out at the successful sites and think about how many of them emerged from little more than hobbyist developers. How many blogs are little more than hobbies and yet we glean great information from them. A big difference between the hobbyist and the end-to-end developer is that the former is interested in learning something but has no real goal beyond that while the latter has a goal, finishes and makes it public.

Finishing makes the difference.