What Is a Front End Developer?
A front end developer is an IT enthusiast mainly a software engineer who creates the parts of a website or web application that you browse on your internet browsers. These individuals have a crucial role in crafting web pages and implementing a user-friendly interface which you interact with.
Web pages basically act like a window for users to access various in-built features and hyperlinks. Whatever that you see and interact with on the internet is actually designed by these front end developers. They design it in a way that it’s user friendly, easy to interact, good, and works well. They mainly use languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to do this.
Front End Developer Career- Roles and Responsibilities
Now, as we have briefly introduced what front end developers are, we shall understand their responsibilities that they fulfil in front end developer career. Front end developers can be considered as the crafters of webpages and play a very important role in web development. They shape the entire web page and web applications as per user experience. Their roles and responsibilities include
1. Planning the layout and designing the User Interface (UI):
This is the foremost role which they play in an organization. Front end developers first plan the entire layout of the web page, keeping in mind the requirements of the users and the available resources of the organization. They create the layout and structure of the website, including how different sections, buttons, and images will appear on your screen.
2. Writing Code: After planning
To create the basic layout of the page they use programming languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and also add various features like visual elements, animations, text specifications, etc. This step is the most crucial one and can take several days to complete.
We have different languages that help a front end developer to complete this task, HTML structures the Document, CSS styles it, and JavaScript makes it interactive. Thus, the task of developing a website comes into action with this step.
3. Cross-Browser Compatibility
Now, the webpage which has been developed so far should be such that it runs on all browsers and its layout doesn’t change in different browsers. Front end developers are the ones who ensure the website functions correctly across different web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
4. Ensuring Responsiveness
Front end developers make sure the website looks and works well on all devices. They ensure that the code runs successfully on all devices and browsers and doesn’t give any error on different devices like phones, tablets, and computers.
5. Performance Optimization
They optimize web pages by ensuring the speed and efficiency. This involves minimizing load times i.e the time taken by the page to loads it’s different elements like images and further ensure a smooth user experience. This involves techniques like minification and lazy loading.
6. Testing, Debugging and Quality Assurance
Front End Developer also tests the website to find and fix any errors or issues that could affect its working. This includes conduct regular A/B testing and quality checks to ensure the smooth working of web pages and rectify bugs or issues that may arise.
7. Maintaining and Updating
After a website is live and exposed to the users, front-end developers may need to update it and add new features to it, as per the user requirements and the latest trends in technology.
Front End Developer Skills
Now, we will study about the basic skills needed to start a front end developer career. The skills are as follows:
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): HTML is the first and most important language that one should learn to start a front end developer career. It is a fundamental language that provides a structure to your content. HTML is considered as the backbone of web content that helps you to design the basic layout of web pages.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): This language helps you to style your webpage. The knowledge of CSS is very essential for styling web pages and making them more attractive. Using CSS features helps you to add colors, images, videos, and more to develop a visually appealing design.
JavaScript: This programming language is essential if you are looking to start a front end developer career. It helps you to increase the interactivity of your webpage and is essential for adding interactive elements like sliders, pop-ups, and form validations to a website.
Responsiveness Design: Front-end developers should be skilled to ensure that the website looks and works well on all devices. They must ensure that the code runs successfully on all devices and browsers and doesn’t give any error on different devices like phones, tablets, and computers
Version Control/Git: Front-end developers often use Git to track changes in their code and collaborate with other developers. Thus basic hold on GitHub is also an essential skill to start a front end developer career.
Cross-Browser Development: The webpage should run on all browsers and its layout should not change in different browsers. Front end developers should have such skills to ensure the website functions correctly across different web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. They should know how to make their websites work consistently across different web browsers.
Communication: Strong communication skills are important for collaborating with UI/UX designers, back-end developers, and other team members.
UI/UX Principles: They should have a strong hold on basic UI and UX design principles. This skill is very important in order to collaborate effectively with UI/UX designers and ensuring a user-friendly interface
What Is The Career Path Of A Front End Developer?
Now, we have reached that section of our article where we will discuss the front end developer career path. If you are someone who is looking for a career in web development, here is a quick guide teaching you how you can start your journey:
STEP 1: Learn The Basics Of Web Technologies
As we have already discussed the languages essential for web development, one should start by learning these fundamental languages. including HTML, CSS, and JS. These are the core technologies used in front end development.
STEP 2: Set Up A Development Environment
After learning all the essential languages you must enhance your experience with these fundamental languages by writing codes. This can be done on certain IDEs that allow you to compile and edit it. Therfore, install any code editor like VS Code or Atom to write your code.
STEP 3: Master HTML ,CSS and JavaScript By Making Projects
Understand the various advanced features of HTML including – HTML attributes, HTML Tags, HTML Code and further familiarise yourself with CSS thoroughly. While HTML will help you develop the basic structure, CSS will ensure proper styling of the webpage by offering styling properties and different layout techniques. Afterward, when you finally come to javascript, start with the basics of JS, including variables, data types, functions, and control structures, and step by step advance to more complex features like DOM manipulation, event handling, Express JS, NodeJS, Angular JS and much more.
STEP 4: Testing and Debugging
Learn the testing process of webpages on different scales and explore browser developer tools for testing web pages. We have various testing frameworks like Jest, Jasmine for testing and debugging webpages.
STEP 5: Certification and job hunting
There are plenty of Web development certifications available online that will help you to learn all the skills related to front end development. These certificates will give you an edge in the process of starting a Front end developer career. These would help you to build a strong resume and thus can easily help you to land into a development role as per your skills.
Gain experience and expand your network while working at entry level roles and you can get promotions to more senior level roles under the same organization and different ones too.
Front End Developer Salary
Front end developer career have different roles and positions and each role have different work and duties to perform. We will now understand these roles and the salary expected in these positions.
Junior Front-End Developer
After staring a front end developer career, you will be working as a junior developer. Here you would have simple roles like writing basic code, fixing bugs, and working under the guidance of a team of senior developers. The salary range for this position will fall between ₹3,00,000 to ₹5,00,000 per year
Mid-Level Front-End Developer
As you gain experience of a minimum of 2-3 years in your front end developer career. You will be promoted to this position where you would have more complex tasks to perform. You would have to deal with more complex projects, coding an entire section of websites, optimizing performance, and ensuring cross-browser compatibility. Mid-level front end Developer salary range would fall between ₹6,00,000 to ₹10,00,000 per year.
Senior Front-End Developer
As a senior Front End Developer with around 5-7 years of experience you will now be responsible for leading projects and mentoring junior developers who will be working under you as trainees. The tasks further include collaborating with designers, back-end developers, creating seamless user experiences, and handle testing of the product. According to the recent glass door survey, The senior Front end developer salary range would fall between ₹9,00,000 to 22,00,000 per year.
What’s The Future of Front End Developers Career?
Now, the common question that many of you will be having is – “Is front end developer a good career?” You would strongly agree with this fact after going through this section of the article. We will now see the future of front end developer careers in this tech-dominated world.
Increased Demand: Even in the pandemic we had recently, the demand for front end developers is still standing strong and will remain strong in the future as well. With more businesses going digital, skilled developers will continuously be needed to create user-friendly webpages. Almost every industry have its own application or webpage, thus it is clear that the requirement for a front end developer will always be there in the market.
AI and Machine Learning Integration: AI is the talk of the town these days. Almost every webpage has its on AI supported chat boxes. This integration of AI and machine learning into web applications will give a boost to Front-end developers jobs who are skilled to work with AI-driven tools. For gaining this demanding skill set you can also enroll in our
Cybersecurity: This is also a very important aspect of web development. As web security is getting more and more important, companies are looking for skilled front end developers who must know how to secure web applications and protect user data.
Remote Work Opportunities: As most of the companies have shifted towards remote work, this definitely has increased opportunities for front-end developers to work for companies while sitting in the comfort of their homes. You can literally be residing in any part of the country and can work for company online. This technique offers greater flexibility and access to global jobs worldwide.
Thus, by considering these points we can say that the front end developer career has a lot of future scope with good working environment and higher salary packages.
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Full Stack Developer Career FAQs
What are the different types of developers in the IT world?
There are 3 major types of developers:
a. Front End Developer: They work on designing application or websites basic structure and visible user interfaces.
b. Back-end developer: These developers deal with the "behind-the-scenes" aspects and are responsible for integration of databases, that enable an application to operate efficiently.
c. Full Stack Developer: These individuals can handle the entire design process from scratch.
How does front-end development differ from back-end development?
Front-end development focuses on the user interface and experience, while back-end development involves integration of databases, and application functionality. Front-end deals with what users see, back-end manages how it works behind the scenes.
What is the difference between HTML and CSS?
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is used to structure content on the web, like headings, paragraphs, and images. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is used to style that content, controlling things like colors, fonts, and layout. HTML does the structuring part whereas CSS styles it.
