[fit2rule]

Full Stack in the modern context has been re-defined from what it used to be - its now more referred to in the context of web software development.

But in the 80's and 90's, it used to refer to someone who could handle development at any level of a stack of OS/Framework/API's - from either building their own new API/Framework, to using it, to using others, and so on. A Full-Stack Linux developer wouldn't have any problems busting out the kernel sources to add features/fix/debug, compiling libraries (add/fix/debug), building user-space apps (dev/fix/debug), etc.

But these days you mostly only hear it in relation with web technologies.

[marssaxman]

I don't recall hearing the term at all in the '80s or '90s; I first encountered it some time in the last decade, around the time people working on web sites started to use "developer" as a synonym for "web developer".

[fit2rule]

I heard it in the late 80's/early 90's, referring to Unix-based developers who could write a kernel module, device driver, user space daemon, user app - in fact I think I remember it referring to OSI and POSIX at first (i.e. can develop anywhere on the POSIX/OSI stack). I think its risen to popularity in the Facebook-era, but it certainly existed as a phrase and a concept in the 80's/90's.

[marssaxman]

That makes sense; I had no contact with the posix world back then.