@IngoMontoya, the advice you’re giving regarding interviews is appropriate for people who have degrees coming of college. That’s not the case here. csuniv wants to get a job as fast as he can, and the best way to do that is to focus on web and/or mobile development. Those tend to be less corporate and easier for someone without a degree to get a job in. There won’t be time to study theoretical aspects of CS like algorithm performance, and he shouldn’t be pursuing jobs that require that kind of knowledge.
Developers who can do full stack are more marketable than those who confine themselves to either the front or back end, but it takes a very long time to be good at both ends. I’ve never worked with anyone that I consider “great” at both the front and back end. (Although I know lots of programmers who think they’re great at both.) I came out of a graphics background doing programming for flight simulators, 3D modeling, GIS mapping, image processing, etc., and am very comfortable doing front-end development. But I always feel squeamish when doing complicated database programming on the back-end. What I normally see is the opposite - most programmers prefer working on the back end, which doesn’t involve anything in the way of “art”, and they make a mess on the front end, which is a combination of art and science.