My Journey as a Fullstack Developer
Reflecting on my career path, the challenges I've faced, and the lessons learned along the way in fullstack development.
If you told younger-me — the kid spending hours in Photoshop 7, carefully slicing images for rounded corners (lol, before border-radius was a thing) — that one day I’d be writing APIs and scaling apps, I would’ve laughed and gone back to designing fake CD covers. But yeah… that’s how it started. I’ve always had an eye for design, so messing around with graphics, covers, and layouts was my playground.
🎨 From Photoshop to HTML/CSS
Naturally, design pushed me toward the web. HTML and CSS became my jam (and my nightmare). Aligning stuff was like dark magic back then. Tables for layout? Floats everywhere? And don’t get me started on IE6… 🥲
But I loved the creative part — making something look good, making sure it felt right. That’s probably when I first learned a baby version of UX: 👉 “Can your mom navigate this app?” If the answer was no, you failed. Simple as that.
✨ The jQuery Era (aka Web Animations Got Fun)
Then came jQuery. And omg… the power. Animations! Slide toggles! AJAX without headaches! Suddenly I could make stuff move and feel alive. For a while, every project I did had way too many fade-ins and accordions 😂. But hey, it was magic at the time.
🧱 PHP + WordPress World
After that, I leveled up into PHP. WordPress became my playground. Building themes, customizing plugins, breaking sites and fixing them again — I learned a ton. It wasn’t just “make it pretty” anymore, it was “make it work.”
This is also when I started touching databases (hello MySQL 👋) and realizing how messy backend logic could get. Still, PHP gave me my first taste of real development.
🤝 Hacking with the Facebook API
Somewhere in this mix, I got into making Facebook apps (back when that was the cool thing). Using the API, I hacked together little apps that pulled profiles, posted to walls, and generally made me feel like a genius. It was messy, but so fun.
⚙️ The Node.js Awakening
Then came Node.js, and my brain basically exploded. Writing JavaScript on the server?? Building APIs?? Deploying on AWS (and immediately regretting the bill)? Total game-changer.
That’s when I went from “frontend guy who dabbles in backend” → full-blown fullstack dev life. Suddenly I was juggling React, Express, databases, deployments, UX, performance, security, everything. Chaos, but the good kind.
// baby steps
$("#menu").slideToggle();
// fast forward → fullstack chaos
app.use("/api", authMiddleware, apiRoutes);
app.use("/", serveStaticFiles);
🧩 The Struggles (and Lessons)
- Design & UX: Making things pretty is easy, making them usable is harder.
- State Management: React and Redux both made me cry.
- Performance: Optimizing both ends of the stack felt like whack-a-mole.
- Security: Realizing my early login systems were wide open 🤦.
- Scalability: 10 users fine, 1000 users = 🔥.
🛠️ Tools That Changed Everything
- Photoshop 7: Where it all began 🖼️
- jQuery: The OG magic wand ✨
- WordPress: My messy but lovable training ground
- Git: Saved me from “final_final_reallyfinal.zip” hell
- TypeScript: I fought it, then fell in love
- Tailwind CSS: Bye-bye CSS class naming wars
✨ Looking Back
It’s wild to think about the path: from slicing images in Photoshop to animating menus with jQuery → hacking WordPress themes → building Facebook apps → running Node.js APIs → and now, doing fullstack dev like it’s normal.
It’s been messy, funny, frustrating, and ridiculously rewarding. And honestly? I wouldn’t change a thing.
The journey never ends — you just keep leveling up, trying new tools, and asking the same old question: 👉 “Can your mom navigate this app?” 😅