Full Stack Developer Job Description: Guide, Sample Template & More

Specialization is definitely crucial in software programming — everyone has their own niche and their own role to perform in the inception of any software product or service. However, every team also needs a “jack of all trades” — someone with enough knowledge and wide expertise to assist with every stage of development, and enough versatility to assist every member of the team when necessary. 

In web development, this is someone who can handle both the client-side and server-side development — a full stack developer, capable of handling the front end and the back end. 

Considering their vital role in the development of any web application, there’s a huge demand for top-tier full stack developers; hiring managers and tech recruiters are constantly on the hunt for the very best people who can contribute a lot to their teams. 

If you’re looking for such a person for your company, you’ll need to write an excellent full stack developer job description — after all, it’s the first interaction most job candidates will have with your company, and you want it to be as captivating as possible to attract the best people to your open positions. 

You need to make sure it’s informative, but not cluttered. And if that seems like a tough task, there’s no need to worry — we’ll provide you with an in-depth guide right here! Read on below to find out about:

• Our in-house template for full stack engineer job descriptions;
• Our detailed guide on creating the most attractive job description for technical roles;
• Some practical advice that will ensure your job ad is a standout among countless others.

Let’s dive in! 

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Sample Full Stack Developer Job Description Template

Before we move onto our guide on writing your very own job description for full stack developers, it’s probably best for you to get a “lay of the land”. With that in mind, we’ll provide you with a sample description. Don’t hesitate to copy, paste, and change it to your liking — but before doing so, make sure to read about all the individual sections first!

Senior Full Stack Software Developer, Remote, US Time Zones Only

About Us
WebCreate is a Silicon Valley-based tech startup. Our goal is to help small and midsize businesses quickly create their Internet presence with an easy-to-use web design platform. Some of the most promising startups in the world have used our services in the last half-decade, and we’d like you to help us become even better! WebCreate is an equal opportunity employer, fully dedicated to our growing team’s wellbeing and the values of diversity and equality. 

What You’ll Do
As a senior Full Stack Developer at WebCreate, your role will be to help us with both back and front end programming. You’ll be responsible for designing and developing front end web architectures, improving the responsiveness of web applications, and helping graphic designers with their work on our web design features. You’ll have the opportunity to foster a project from its initial conception all the way to the final product. 

Responsibilities: 
• Ensuring application responsiveness 
• Working on a project from inception to finished product
• Developing and designing APIs
• Meeting both consumer and technical needs
• Keeping up with the latest developments in web application technology
• Ensuring cross-platform optimization of web applications for mobile devices 
• Developing back-end web applications
• Developing front end web architecture 

Necessary Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field 
• Proficiency with front-end languages like CSS, HTML, and JavaScript;
• Proficiency with back-end languages such as Java, Ruby, PHP, Python, and .Net

Nice-to-Have Qualifications:
• Knowledge of JavaScript frameworks like Amber, React, and AngularJS;
• Knowledge of database technology such as MongoDB, Oracle, and MySQL

Compensation & Benefits
• Unlimited vacation time
• Stock options, 401(k), retirement plans, 
• Competitive salary
• Comprehensive (dental, vision, life insurance) medical plan
• Remote work stipend on an annual basis
• Paid professional improvement courses and gym memberships

Apply Now!
Here at WebCreate, we have a small team of experts that foster a growth-oriented startup atmosphere. Our number one priority is the personal satisfaction and well-being of our awesome developers, which is why we offer remote work options and a bunch of other neat benefits. If you want to work with people that care about each other as much as they care about their products, contact us about one of our open positions! 

Now you’ve got some notion of what an effective job description for full stack engineers looks like — it’s straight to the point and yet informative. Still, our description sample isn’t a doctrine.

You’re free to change it according to your particular needs and the specifics of your open position and company. Still, there are some sections you should include in some shape or form — and we’ll go over them in more detail below. 

Check out our entire set of tech job descriptions and choose the one which fits your hiring needs best:

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How to Write a Full Stack Developer Job Description

As we’ve mentioned above, we’ll go over all of the necessary sections that most great full stack software engineer job descriptions have. Before we begin, though, there are a couple of things you should keep in mind. 

First, ensure that all of the most important information for your job candidates is found at the beginning of the ad — if they don’t have to scroll through everything to find out the basic stuff, they’ll be compelled to stay and learn more. Also, you don’t have to include the sections below in this particular order — this is just a basic outline that you can switch up as you like. 

1. Job title

This is the first step towards writing any job description — the job title. And though it may seem an unimportant part in the overall job ad, it’s actually one of the most significant ones. It’s the first thing all potential applicants will see once they start browsing job boards — which means it’s the thing that has to differentiate you from everybody else who’s after the same candidates.

Take special care when writing your job title — here are two examples:

Senior Full Stack Web Developer – Web App Development — JSON, HTML5, CSS (Remote)

Bad Example:

Full Stack Developer

Sure, you want to be brief and the job title definitely shouldn’t be too long — but it should still contain all the relevant information people need before applying for your open position. The best candidates don’t like wasting time, and they want to know the precise role they’re applying for. 

With that in mind, include important qualifiers like:

• A more specific area (Web App Development)
• The type of developer you need (Full Stack, back end, front end, etc)
• The seniority level of the position (Senior, Junior)

This is the basic info, though you can include other stuff to share some more information right there in the title:

• The location (hybrid, on-site, remote)
• Specific languages and frameworks (HTML, CSS, etc)
• The company division 

2. About us

Today, full stack developers are in huge demand — meaning that the best candidates out there have their pick of open positions across a large number of companies. It’s very much a “buyer’s market” out there, so it’s wise to treat your company’s job description more like a job interview of your own.

In this job market, you’re the one who needs to leave an impression on the full stack developer, not vice versa — which means you want to write an enticing description of your company. And that’s what the “About us” or the “About the company” section is for — it gives potential candidates a taste of the company culture, the specific work you do, and the values you promote. 

Here’s an excellent example from a full stack developer job description in an Atlassian job ad on Indeed:

More about Atlassian

Creating software that empowers everyone from small startups to the who’s who of tech is why we’re here. We build tools like Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, and Trello to help teams across the world become more nimble, creative, and aligned—collaboration is the heart of every product we dream of at Atlassian. From Amsterdam and Austin, to Sydney and San Francisco, we’re looking for people who want to write the future and who believe that we can accomplish so much more together than apart. At Atlassian, we’re committed to an environment where everyone has the autonomy and freedom to thrive, as well as the support of like-minded colleagues who are motivated by a common goal to: Unleash the potential of every team.

3. Role summary

A-list full stack software developers will definitely appreciate knowing as much about their role as possible beforehand. With that in mind, including a “What You’ll Do” or “Role summary” section is always a great idea. Just like you described the company in a paragraph or two above, you can do the same for the job role here — a high-level overview for interested candidates. And don’t try to describe every single thing they’ll do here, as there’s a separate “Responsibilities” section coming up. 

Here’s a great “Position Summary” section from a job ad posted on Indeed by Columbia University:

Position Summary

Acgen (Automated Cohort Building and Genetic Analysis Toolkit) is a web-based platform for quickly building patient cohorts from electronic health records form New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Designed to be accessible to researchers of all backgrounds, Acgen allows anyone, regardless of background training, to design patient cohorts, filter for important features or traits, and run genetic studies. There is an immediate opening at Columbia University Irving Medical Center for a full stack web developer.

4. Duties and responsibilities

After you’ve given your job candidates a quick overview of what the position entails and they’re still interested enough to read on, it’d be great to give them a more in-depth look at their duties and responsibilities in this role. 

Some recruiters combine this “Duties and responsibilities” section with the one above — if you go down that route, just make sure that the specific duties stand out. The generally accepted practice is to use bullet-point lists to ensure maximum visibility and readability.

Here’s an excellent example from a full stack developer job ad by Pandell Technology via Indeed:

Your Responsibilities:

• Review, analyze, program, and deploy software products
• Use tools as provided for proper software source code management and business operations
• Provide software design and architectural input
• Reviewing code and having your code reviewed
• Mentoring and being mentored by other Pandell developers

5. Must-have skills and experience

In this part, also referred to as “job experience” or “core qualifications”, you’ll list some of the must-have abilities and skills candidates need to possess in order to be considered for the position. Here’s a really descriptive example from Cognizant via LinkedIn:

• Strong developer with 6-9 years of professional experience working with required technologies
• Expert in Python Django frameworks
• Expert on UI Frameworks like VueJS and ReactJS
• Expert in using MySQL or MongoDB
• Knowledge on API-Driven Webpages
• Good working knowledge on networking protocols like IGP OSPF BGP
• Good understanding on basic graph algorithms
• Good to have PHP knowledge
• Good to have Javascript/JQuery experience
• Material Design and Bootstrap frameworks knowledge

6. Nice-to-have skills and experience

There’s a difference between candidates that are good enough and the ideal candidate — and while hiring the latter is great, it’s important not to turn away the former either. That’s why listing too many formal requirements for your position isn’t always optimal — if there are some skills whose absence isn’t a deal breaker, list them in a separate “nice-to-haves” section below the main requirements. 

Here’s an example of a Lead Full Stack Developer Job Ad posted by Verizon on LinkedIn:

Even better if you have one or more of the following:

• Bachelor’s degree in CS or related field.
• Experience as a Site Reliability Engineer and support an SRE framework across multiple teams.
• Knowledge of modern software development methodologies and ability to adapt them.
• Knowledge of modern programming best practices for OOP, thread concurrency, performance optimization, automation and API design.
• Experience with Web infrastructure, integrations, web services and REST API.
• Experience in working with high-available mission critical large scale web applications.
• Technical Leadership and excellent communication skills.

7. Educational requirements

Today, formal educational backgrounds are less important for the field of software development than they were a couple of decades ago. The rise of the Internet has democratized education to such an astounding degree. 

Fast forward to the 2020s, and people without any kind of college degree are able to obtain the knowledge and skills necessary to become full stack developers online. With that in mind, it might be a good idea to forgo any educational requirements in your job ad — that way, you get access to the widest possible pool of adequate candidates.

Of course, plenty of companies still use formal education as a filter — and if your company’s policies are the same, then you need to clearly list the required:

• Level of education — Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, etc
• Specific fields of study — Computer science, computer engineering, etc.

8. Workplace description

We’ve already concluded that full stack engineers can pick and choose their ideal workplace. And that means you need to sufficiently advertise your own workplace as such to keep their interest piqued. 

There are plenty of details regarding your workplace that potential candidates want to know about — especially now that the pandemic has made global remote work more widespread than ever, particularly in software development. 

With that in mind, make sure your workplace description contains details about the role’s location — is this an in-person position, or is it fully remote? Hybrid solutions are fast becoming the norm, where people have the option of working from home at least a couple of days each week. 

Besides that, candidates will also be interested in the scheduling, especially for remote roles. Some companies offer completely asynchronous schedules, allowing employees to work whenever they want. However, in most cases, some overlap for important meetings is necessary. 

9. Compensation, benefits, and perks

Now, we arrive at the part that most candidates will scroll to immediately after clicking on the job ad title — the list of compensations and benefits. All full stack developers want to know all the monetary and non-monetary compensation your company offers for this position. 

Here are some of the most common benefits tech companies provide:

• Equity, ownership, and/or stock options
• PTO (Paid Time Off) policies
• Stipends for professional growth
• Necessary hardware and software for work
• Retirement savings and 401(k) programs
• Health coverage: mental health, vision, dental, medical, etc.
• Annual salary range
• Regular company lunches, happy hours, and other social events
• Sick leave policies
• Referral bonuses
• Parental leave policies
• Paid subscriptions: magazines, gym memberships, etc
• Remote work office reimbursements 
• Company team building retreats
• Performance bonuses

10. The “Looking ahead” timeline

Unlike most other sections of your job description that we’ve described here, this one isn’t strictly necessary. However, if you want your job ad to be as detailed as possible, you can include a “What You’ll Be Doing” timeline that shows the roughly expected employee journey in the first couple of months in their new position. This is generally more important for junior and mid-level roles because they don’t always know what to expect, but it can be a nice addition to senior job ads as well. 

Here’s a short but informative example from VMWare’s job ad posted on LinkedIn:

During the first 6-12 months you will:

• Demonstrate strong technical skills in authoring simple and robust technical design that takes into account supportability and zero-defect considerations.
• Demonstrate application development skills using Oracle technologies, (Oracle Database, SQL/PLSQL)
• Demonstrate a strong foundation of Java and other skills in the J2EE technology stack
• Partner with Finance Product Owners to deliver strategic projects
• Demonstrate strong debugging skills and analysis of complex Oracle PL/SQL programs
• Engage in performance tuning of issues encountered with long running SQL queries and PL/SQL programs.

11. Additional full stack job description sections

Now that we’ve described some of the most important job description sections you can include, let’s take a look at some additional information you can provide for an even more detailed job ad:

Hiring process — If your company uses a multi-step approach to hiring for senior positions, provide candidates with more details about the hiring process so that they know what to expect. For example, if there are technical aptitude tests in the form of whiteboard interviews or live coding exercises, they’ll want to prepare a bit beforehand. 

Crucial dates — If the job board doesn’t automatically display the expiration date for your job ad, make sure you specify it in the ad copy itself. And you may want to include other key dates, such as the start date for the position. Just make sure they’re clearly visible and separate from the text-heavy paragraphs. 

Company culture — All full stack developers appreciate a decent work-life balance — which is why you want to advertise your company culture as employee-centric and non-toxic if you’re going to attract any reasonably skilled candidates. With this in mind, a separate “Company culture” section could be useful for highlighting the immaterial benefits of working for your company. 

Tech stack — When hiring full stack engineers, it’s particularly important to make sure they have all the information about your entire tech stack. After all, they need to know whether the languages and frameworks you’re working on are within their wheelhouse of skills and expertise. 

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Tips for Writing an Attractive Job Description for Full Stack Developers

1. Make it skimmable

Everyone wants their ideal job candidates to pay attention to the job ad they’re applying to. And when it comes to in-demand positions like full stack developers, you need to do everything in your power to keep them interested or else they’ll quickly close the tab containing your job ad. 

Considering that, make sure you’re not pushing anyone away with overly complicated, hard-to-read, overly lengthy job ads. High-quality applicants appreciate readable and skimmable job ads, as they’re usually time-poor even when on the job hunt. 

So, use headers, subheaders, bullet points, and short paragraphs to convey information to potential candidates efficiently and effortlessly. If all applicants can surmise whether they’re qualified for the position by quickly skimming the job ad, you’ll have a much better pool of candidates in the end. 

2. Be inclusive 

If you want the best candidates to even entertain the prospect of working for your company, you need to establish a rapport with them right away. Your job ad needs to have all of the qualities and values that you strive to maintain within the company itself — and one of the main ones is inclusivity. 

Inclusiveness is not only fair and humane, it’s also the best policy for your company — it ensures that you’ll have access to the widest possible pool of candidates. Keep this in mind while writing your job ad, and make sure the language used throughout it is inclusive. You need to use the language in the job description to subtly showcase your company’s dedication to diversity and inclusivity — not turn people of color, non-male applicants, and other minorities with careless phrasing. 

3. Speak to your F/S dev applicants directly

As we’ve mentioned just now, the language you use throughout your job description largely determines whether high-quality candidates will engage with it and actually apply for the job. With that in mind, make sure you’re addressing your applicants directly to make the ad more readable, personable, and attractive.

Instead of saying:

“The ideal candidate will…”

Say something like:

“In this role, you will…”

4. Finish with an enticing CTA

When you’re looking for in-demand roles like full stack developers, your job description is essentially a sales pitch — so treat it as such. As a sales pitch, it will need an energetic and attractive call to action (CTA) in the end to hype top-level candidates enough so they take the time to apply.

Write something short and compelling to take them through that final step towards clicking on the “Apply Now” button.

You can also try Arc, your shortcut to the world’s best remote talent:

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⚡️ Vetted and ready to interview
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