“Full stack” means doing both FE and BE in context where distinction between FE and BE is meaningful, and frontend is usually reserved for browser engine targets. Is UI work on C# so different, that it requires introduction of frontend dev role? If not, you are not “full stack” developer just because you do UI on C#. It’s the type of work that is not different from what people did in 1990s, when neither BE, nor FE or “full stack” terms didn’t exist, and everyone was simply an application developer.
UI development in C# can vary considerably depending on what platform and patterns you're targeting. You can do a native Windows UI, mobile, web, ect.
> Is UI work on C# so different, that it requires introduction of frontend dev role?
First, where Xaml is the most up-to-date native Windows UI API, and primarily C#, it's not "different," it's normal.
But, to answer your question: That depends on the kind of application you're making, organizational priorities, and the need for slickness.
For example, if you're making a quick and dirty CRUD web app, it doesn't make sense to have a separate UI role. Razor or Blazor (the two ways to do HTML in C#.) will be plenty. This will basically be like what was done in the 1990s. It's extremely easy for a competent C# programmer to learn Blazor (and HTML) and make a functional web application. (As long as you don't care about if it's pretty.)
If you're making a pretty web app, the need for a separate role again relies on organizational priorities. In my case, my job is C# in the browser (through Blazor compiled to WASM) all the way to the database. (The definition of "full stack.") I established the patterns we use in in-browser C#, and the components, but I hand off day-to-day UI work to a developer with less experience than me.
Getting back to organizational priorities: We could have a dedicated "UI" role if we wanted significantly more polish in our UI. For our company, the fact that our current team can generally handle any area of the stack is far more valuable than someone who can make a pixel perfect UI but get confused in the database.
Likewise, we aren't going to agonize over our UI like some organizations do. If an organization is going to do that, they probably need a dedicated UI developer role.
> If not, you are not “full stack” developer just because you do UI on C#.
So you do target browser and then you are a full stack developer. Do you feel yourself an expert in modern browser technologies, keep yourself updated on latest developments in JS, CSS etc and at the same time can do a hardcore backend work? If yes, congratulations, you are rare as unicorn. No jokes, it’s not easy to find such engineer.
I keep myself updated enough. For certain details I rely on other team members to fill in my gaps; much like I fill in their gaps.
I'm also not a unicorn, nor is anyone else on my team. We're generalists with various amounts of career experience, and we all learn from each other. Our UI is neat and functional.
You do not need to be a unicorn to make a reasonably good looking web application as a full-stack developer. If our company lasts long enough where we need to make the UI super pretty, and need to optimize our backend to handle massive scalability, then we will seek more specialized developers and specialize ourselves.
