You hear all the time that your company is about to hire javascript developers. All the job portals you visit are filled with web developer vacancies, and half of your friends take programming courses. Certainly, you understand that web development is pretty popular, but the main and most basic question remains: what do web developers do exactly?
If you want to have a quick web development 101 course and start understanding what web development is all about, you’re in the right place. We’re about to give answers to all of your questions, so let’s get straight into that:
Who are web developers?
Web developers use coding languages and technologies like CSS, JavaScript, HTML, etc., to build web applications and websites. They are mainly two types of web developers, frontend developers, and backend web developers. If the developer is good both at front and backend development, he can also work as a full stack developer who basically takes care of it all.
Let’s take a look at each of these kinds separately:
Frontend developers
Frontend developers are the ones who take care of the visible parts of the websites or apps. In other words, they build the pages, menus, forms, and all other features that can be seen on your browser’s screen.
When you hire front end web developer, the main responsibility is to make sure that the visitors can interact with the webpage easily. They are the ones who take care of the website’s appearance, so anything you see or interact with on the website is built by frontend developers. To create a good webpage, they use a combination of different technologies, programming languages, and design.
Some of the most common frontend languages are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Here is a list of the tasks the frontend developers might engage in on their full-time job:
- Optimization of the website’s user experience
- Using Javascript, HTML, and CSS to build website features and
- Improving the site interaction by developing certain tools that will make the page work on any browser
- Making the website SEO-friendly
- Testing and fixing bugs
- Maintaining the user interface
By the way, for beginner programmers, frontend development languages are a pretty popular choice. This is because the languages are easy to learn and implement. If you’re interested in web development, you can start your journey by learning some of the frontend technologies with the help of online courses.
Backend developers
Now, let’s explore the non-visible parts of website development. Creating the user interface is fun, but there are also many technical aspects in making the websites that should be taken care of. This is exactly what backend developers do.
The main responsibility of backend programmers is to build and maintain the website’s infrastructure to make the web pages and applications function properly. But let’s first understand what exactly is the website infrastructure consists of:
- Databases: this is where the application or website data is stored. This data can also be used to provide the user with dynamic updates.
- Server scripts: these are the instructions that allow the app or website to communicate with the external servers and databases to retrieve data.
- Application Programming Interfaces (APIs): the collection of protocols and routines which allow applications to communicate through different platforms. An example can be sharing an article to Twitter or Facebook by only hitting the “share” button.
Some of the common tasks for backend developers are:
- Creating and managing databases
- Developing content management system and maintaining it
- Integrating API
- Taking care of the website’s security settings and preventing hacks
- Integrating cloud computing
- Building web server technologies
Certainly, backend development is not for everyone, but it has its charm too. If you think you’re interested in the more technical perspective of website development, you can start your journey with a good backend development course.
Full Stack Developers
Full stack developers are basically the mixture of the two. They perform both frontend and backend duties. So for those who are not sure whether they are more into front or backend development, the full stack can be a perfect choice—however, most of the time, you need to be more experienced to become a full stack developer.
That’s really all there is to web development. Now you know precisely who web developers are and what are their main responsibilities. So next time you meet a web developer, be that a frontend, backend, or a full stack one, you’ll have a general understanding of what their 9-5 job looks like.
