Frontend, Backend vs Full-Stack

Companies hiring engineers are placing an increasingly greater emphasis on the importance of product skills.

But how do engineering positions and responsibilities shift under this trend?

Companies tend to approach engineering team staffing in two ways:

• Separate frontend and backend roles into distinct positions (Frontend Engineer, Backend Engineer)

• Combine both roles into a single position (Full-Stack Engineer)

So, does the shift towards product engineering mean that more engineers should become full-stack to meet the demand?

Maybe.

But I’d argue that an even stronger split between frontend and backend engineers could better meet the need for product skills. Here’s why.

Domain depth.

Both frontend and backend engineering have tremendous depth.

Yes, an engineer can pick up a backend or frontend framework quickly and start shipping.

But there’s a difference between shipping something and shipping something that’s reliable and maintainable.

That gap is significant.

The two domains also differ so much in nature that proficiency in one doesn’t translate into the other.

Best practices for building a data table UI are quite far apart from those for defining a data model.

Now add product management skills into the mix, and it’s even harder to find someone proficient in all three.

Shallow expertise across multiple areas tends to lead to the same outcome:

Split in the ownership of the product outcomes. A product-focused person drives early discovery and requirements, while a more technically specialised person makes it happen.

Frontend Product Engineering & Backend Product Engineering.

An alternative approach is for frontend and backend engineers to expand their roles to include product responsibilities relevant to their respective domains.

While it would widen the gap between roles, it would enable the depth required to deliver better solutions.

Frontend engineers could naturally expand into UX/UI design.

Many frontend engineers already have an eye for usability and interaction patterns.

It’s not hard to imagine one who talks with users to understand the interaction they’re looking to achieve, proposes wireframes, and implements them, rather than simply following a Figma.

Backend engineers can expand into business processes and domain modelling.

Many backend engineers already think in terms of systems and processes.

It’s not a stretch to imagine them taking a more active role in understanding a business process and translating it into an automated system.

As the demand for product-minded engineers grows, roles may evolve not into “one role that does it all,” but into specialised product-focused roles.

Frontend and backend engineers with deeper ownership of product outcomes.