From Changing Button Colors to Building Full-Stack Dreams: My MERN Journey (So Far)

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”

This quote stuck with me when nothing else made sense—when APIs failed, React broke, the backend scared me, and I felt like giving up.

Hi, I’m a developer-in-progress, and this is the story of how I (accidentally) became a full-stack developer using the MERN stack—after swearing I’d never even touch the backend.

Spoiler: I’m still learning. But that’s the fun part.

It All Started with the Love for Frontend

I started off with HTML, CSS, and pure joy.

Building pages. Styling layouts. Making things look beautiful.

It felt like art.

I didn’t care about databases, logic, or the mysterious word called “backend.”

Honestly, it scared me.

Frontend was creative. Fun. Safe.

And I told myself:

"This is what I’ll do. I’ll become a frontend developer. I don’t need anything else."

Then Came React… and My First Reality Check

I thought React would be just HTML + JavaScript magic.

But I was wrong.

useState, useEffect, props.

Components talking to each other like secret agents.

Conditional rendering that somehow broke everything.

I was confused, overwhelmed, and on the edge.

I followed tutorials, copied code, and still couldn’t figure out why my app re-rendered a thousand times when I typed into an input.

React haunted me.

There were nights I genuinely thought:

"Maybe I’m not cut out for this."

But I pushed through.

Because when you finally see a component work exactly how you want—it’s magic.

I Had My Plan: Become a Great Frontend Dev

After struggling through React (and winning some battles), I made a decision:

"Okay. I’m sticking to frontend. I’ll master React. Become really good at this."

I started learning routing, managing state, building layouts, and styling animations.

I was finally enjoying myself. Frontend felt like home.

And then… came the moment that changed everything.

The Sweet Turning Point: My Internship Realization

During my internship, I was doing what I loved—building frontend components, fixing layouts, tweaking designs.

Then one day, I overheard someone say—almost jokingly:

"Frontend devs just change button colors and fix UI… their work is done in a minute but looks like a lot."

They didn’t mean it harshly. It was a casual comment.

But it hit me hard.

Because I knew how long I had spent choosing the right shade of blue that wouldn’t strain users’ eyes.

How many hours I had debugged CSS that broke on mobile.

How much thought it took to make something look simple.

Color choices aren’t just guesses—they’re aesthetic judgment calls.

And frontend is not just visible—it’s visibly judged.

That moment didn’t break me. It woke me up.

It made me wonder:

"If I can build the UI so carefully… what’s stopping me from learning how the whole system works?"

That realization pushed me to try backend. Not to prove anyone wrong—just to see how far I could go.

Enter the Backend: My Second Storm

I won’t lie. Backend felt like entering a new universe.

Express? Middleware? Ports?

MongoDB? Schemas? Queries?

And CORS?

My first API didn’t work.

It returned undefined.

Then a 500 error.

Then it crashed.

At one point, I deleted my entire backend folder out of frustration.

But I started again.

This time with more patience.

I read slowly. Googled more. Broke things. Fixed them. Broke them again.

And then—my first working API.

A response with a 200 status.

That moment changed everything.

No, I Didn’t Do This Alone

Behind every successful res.json() was:

- An AI answering oddly specific questions

- A YouTube dev explaining something I rewatched four times

- A blog post that saved me at 3 a.m.

- And a lot of trial, error, and rage refreshes

I didn’t just learn backend.

I learned resilience.

And Then It Hit Me…

I had become… a full-stack developer.

Accidentally.

Unintentionally.

But honestly?

I loved it.

Not because it was easy.

But because now I could build complete things.

Start to finish. Idea to execution.

Tools That Helped Me Survive (and Grow)

- VS Code – where 99% of magic (and bugs) happen

- Postman / Thunder Client – API therapists

- MongoDB Compass – to visualize database chaos

- Git + GitHub – my time machine

- ChatGPT, Google & YouTube – my problem-solving trio

Mistakes That Made Me Better

- Infinite loops in useEffect

- Accidentally dropping the entire MongoDB collection

- Calling res.send() twice

- Breaking layout by closing a div wrong

- Feeling “behind” because of other devs’ progress posts

Each mistake taught me something valuable. And those lessons stuck.

Where I’m Headed Now

Right now, I’m:

- Building a full-stack app (an interview prep platform)

- Getting deeper into backend concepts (auth, JWT, RBAC)

- Learning deployment (Render, Vercel, Netlify)

- Still learning React, because honestly… it never ends

- Slowly falling in love with backend development

From Me to You: Read This Carefully

If you’re reading this and wondering if frontend is “easy” or “not real development”—let me stop you there.

Frontend takes hours of design thinking, responsiveness handling, and UI decisions that AI cannot help you with.

AI can write backend logic.

But it won’t know how to style a card that emotionally connects with a user.

It won’t understand visual rhythm, spacing, or contrast.

So yes—being a frontend developer is a skill. A powerful one.

And when you combine that with backend? That’s a superpower.

Let’s Build This Dev Space Together

If you related to this, share your thoughts in the comments.

Tell me where you are in your journey.

Let’s grow together—one line of code at a time.