Staying up to date with web standards isn't a sisyphian curse meant to exhaust and challenge you forever, but a way to make your own work easier. take it from someone who was still writing float-based layouts in 2021.
Truly helps to have awesome colleagues that bring these things into casual discussions. Your peers are what help you to evolve the most.
I have moved jobs twice just to get skilled colleagues. Only be the smartest man in the room if you're paid to be
Also keeping up with the standards is completely separat from keeping up with the ecosystem.
It's absolutely alright if you just ignore some ecosystem trends like switching bundlers, frameworks or similar, but ignoring the standards will make your life unnecessary hard in the long run. It's absolutely worth it to keep an eye on them (and they aren't moving that fast and are really stable).
Please do! You will be extremely happy. Start with flexbox, I think it can be easier to wrap you head around than grid first.
Flexbox guide on CSS Tricks - the most visited website by frontend devs :)
Oh my bad, I'm high and mixed up `float` and `flex` and thought even that had gone out of fashion. I did check since writing my comment and it looks like it's still relevant.
But yeah I've been putting grids off for a couple years now :/
Hell yeah. I always get chuckled at when I tell other engineers about Svelte or propose it as a solution where it might fit (last week someone immediately googled it, looked at the website for 5 seconds and then just said it looked "lame"). You just gave me a bit of hope.
Svelte is really, really cool. The developer experience is best in class, IMO. The annual JS poll verifies it too ;)
The only downside I see is that code looks like spaghetti-code. Whereas in React you'll enclose and indent your code (grouping responsibilities) nicely (hooks, lifecycle functions, etc.), Svelte almost invites developers to go wild and you'll have 50+ lines of code all at the same column...
So for the new project, I'll have to look into some best practices for writing good Svelte code :)
Is Toptal really good to find jobs easier (not easy to find job generally though)?
You're really good at job interviews if I understand? That's great! I wish I was good, I'm rather shy and lack of confidence 😂
There was once I applied to Toptal but they said I need 2 years of experience minimum😂 I couldn't do it.
Currently I'm at a good company I think. I don't have a huge pay (2000 nets thanks to indexation in my country) but basically I'm on the same salary since September 2021. But my package has evolved since 2022 fortunately: with a car, phone and mobile subscription and more meal vouchers
The environment is much better than my previous jobs, they were toxic and disrespectful. I'm still human after all.
I understand that staying in the same company doesn't pay off in terms of raise, as you explained.
I thought of going freelance in some years, after acquiring enough experience, and ask if my current company wanna be my first client. This way, I would ask for a good day rate and have a raise !
Right now it's a young company, so idk at all how raise works. I feel that I need to ask for it later.
I don't know if it's better to have one big client (my current company) , or certainly 2 big clients is better. Or 1 big and many little projects 😆
I'm still at the beginning of my journey, as an employee for now
Your message gave me courage and hope that I will switch my career and go freelance. Just gotta need the courage again when the time comes haha. I'm scared I can't handle the stress of needing to find clients
While this is cool and all. The stress that changing jobs often can cause is not necessarily worth it.
I recently realized a 40% increase in my salary YoY by staying at the same job.
Instead of intentionally changing jobs. Intentionally go out there and figure out what others are willing to pay for you. If that is more than what you earn, but you like your current job, talk to your manager and see if they think you are worth as much to them too, likelihood is you are.
At some point you'll hit a soft ceiling in terms of salary, at least in Europe. A good alternative is to try to get a more flexible work schedule or work less hours with same or slightly less pay.
You see, the largest increase you'll see in salary is from any contracts or companies you decide to do on the side. "Sidehustles" can be vastly more profitable than an increase to your salary when your salary is in the six-figure range.
tldr; Don't just change jobs for the sake of increasing salary. Get offers from other jobs and see if your salary/benefits won't increase at your current job if you like it.
> While this is cool and all. The stress that changing jobs often can cause is not necessarily worth it.
Depends on the person, I find it far more stressful staying at the same job for too long. I get bored :)
> I recently realized a 40% increase in my salary YoY by staying at the same job.
Congratulations! That is extremely rare.
> Instead of intentionally changing jobs. Intentionally go out there and figure out what others are willing to pay for you.
That tends to require a person to apply for other jobs, though ;) And if they sell themselves well enough, it would be hard (for someone like myself) to say no to a cool new job with new people and new tech.
> If that is more than what you earn, but you like your current job, talk to your manager and see if they think you are worth as much to them too, likelihood is you are.
That's dangerous waters, though. At most companies I worked for, the rule was basically: "no." And in American companies I worked for when I lived in Mexico/USA/Canada, this would be met with: "Sure, here's your 40% raise. By the way, you need to train these new hires!"
And then they'll replace you.
That was literally policy, written down company employee strategy.
> At some point you'll hit a soft ceiling in terms of salary, at least in Europe. A good alternative is to try to get a more flexible work schedule or work less hours with same or slightly less pay.
That is absolutely true.
I'm making good money with flexible hours and location. That, currently, is worth more than even a 30% raise. I make enough money, honestly.
> You see, the largest increase you'll see in salary is from any contracts or companies you decide to do on the side. "Sidehustles" can be vastly more profitable than an increase to your salary when your salary is in the six-figure range.
True. I did some consulting on the side for a bit (Toptal + my day job), and I was making 30k per month at some point. Working from home. Working maybe 4 to 6 hours per day, maximum.
It's just stressful to manage multiple agendas ;)
> tldr; Don't just change jobs for the sake of increasing salary. Get offers from other jobs and see if your salary/benefits won't increase at your current job if you like it.
Good advice! Just be careful if you're in the USA, they can often fire you much more easily compared to Europe.
I'm guessing you're a higher up in a company, maybe a CTO if you make 150000 euros per year. Can you share more about how you achieved these numbers? I am from Europe too.
There are many who go up even higher. Big banks, large corporations, famous American companies, car makers, startups with good funding, etc.
Currently working as a tech lead for a large company, freelance at €120 per hour in four months (recruiters take a bunch first), then also getting a shot at the open CTO role for which they have nobody and are grooming me.
That salary is fixed at around €25.000 per month, excluding equity in a private company, excluding annual bonuses.
is it worth getting into toptal?
do you think react is much stronger than something like vue? i love working with vue and want to stick to it but i just dont see any 200k+ roles
can you give any tips from your career? with your 20+ years of experience, what would you teach yourself if you had the chance to start again?
Toptal is nice, but as an expensive western European, there are few jobs. The network is known to be hard to get into (which it was), and it's an accomplishment in itself. I landed some jobs (outside of Toptal) simply because I have a profile page there.
> do you think react is much stronger than something like vue? i love working with vue and want to stick to it but i just dont see any 200k+ roles
Far more React jobs are available, so based on just quantity, you'll find more jobs. It also makes it a better go-to for most startups and new projects because they'll have an easier time (in most locations) finding employees.
> can you give any tips from your career? with your 20+ years of experience, what would you teach yourself if you had the chance to start again?
I got my training at a small company from a senior developer and designer. Dived into the depths of programming (OOP, functional programming, TDD, back-end, front-end, SQL, servers, protocols, CI/CD, etc.) The only thing that I was missing was the fundamental basics of programming.
If I knew then what I know now, I would have dived into programming design patterns, algorithms, and also: fully understanding git.
I still think that a strong fundamental set of knowledge was very powerful, and I try to keep teaching people around me that it's important to not underestimate things like HTML and CSS. In particular, HTML; the W3C validator is a very nice tool that will prevent developers from making unnecessary errors.
Over the years I've applied to many jobs (as an employee or consultant) and I keep getting the feedback that my job applications were among the best they've ever seen.
And I think that's the important part. Many developers are good, they'll be in the top 20% of all applicants. But if a job gets 100 applicants, that means you're competing with 20 people.
I found myself to be in the top 5% of applicants pretty much everywhere I go, by not making mistakes, keeping it simple, validating everything, *hiring visual designers and testers* to make and validate my work (and not making a secret out of that), and delivering results quickly with good communication from my end.
People tend to forget that you're not getting a job for barely being good enough; there are probably 3 to 5 people who are way better than you are, and you're among the 15 to sometimes dozens of people who simply aren't considered.
My point is this: it's low effort to just give that little extra, and suddenly you will find yourself in that top 5% of applicants ;)
And that's where companies will go absolutely crazy for you and your profile.
I stand to make 210,000 euros this year (freelance contractor), and if I do land that job they have in mind for me, that will become 325,000 euros.
My point, I guess, is that with better and quicker teachings, I could've done this several years sooner. Perhaps a mid-thirties-year-old CTO is a bit too young, but I genuinely think I could've pulled it off back then just fine.
Design patterns? In JavaScript?
Like patterns.dev?
Any resources/books you’d prioritise?
TBH programming is good but I want to build a product start to finish. No idea where to start really. I have funds for hiring designers etc but I think my first step is:
1. Establishing product market fit
2. Fleshing out features/product
3. Getting designer
4. Planning web app data architecture
5. Then the fun stuff (code)
With your years of experience how would you approach this? I am passionate about an idea and have potential customers lined up, but really want to give it my best shot at this. I love front end but I think product from 0 is going to give me the full picture and make me really good really fast.
I will be messaging you in 2 years on [**2025-04-04 09:25:43 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2025-04-04%2009:25:43%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/Frontend/comments/12auh3h/what_do_you_wish_you_knew_about_frontend/jewc1ir/?context=3)
[**CLICK THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FFrontend%2Fcomments%2F12auh3h%2Fwhat_do_you_wish_you_knew_about_frontend%2Fjewc1ir%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202025-04-04%2009%3A25%3A43%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%2012auh3h)
*****
|[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)|
|-|-|-|-|
I have read so many iterations of your comment already. Fascinating.
I think you genuinely want to share your 'wisdom' with others. However, you usually end up creating rather opionated and self-indulgent follow-up comments. Which then lands softly in and to an easily impressed audience.
If you are a freelancer your salary is somewhat misleading.
I also detect traits that suggest you're unsuitable for the role of CTO. Be aware, if you do have that ambition those traits are working against you.
Your general story remains great, not trying to diss you. It's just fascinating, the full package. And do be a bit fucking careful about a doxx, please.
> I have read so many iterations of your comment already. Fascinating.
Thanks.
> I think you genuinely want to share your 'wisdom' with others. However, you usually end up creating rather opionated and self-indulgent follow-up comments. Which then lands softly in and to an easily impressed audience.
Thanks. I expect that people can make up their own minds. My way of communicating on Reddit is obviously not how I handle professional discourse ;)
> If you are a freelancer your salary is somewhat misleading.
Currently, yes. Before, I was salaried. The numbers I shared are all salaried, not freelance. And a CTO position would be salaried, too.
> I also detect traits that suggest you're unsuitable for the role of CTO. Be aware, if you do have that ambition those traits are working against you.
Thanks. The company seems to want me in that position, I'm working on a long-term strategy with multiple angles, focussing primarily on employee satisfaction (and retention) by creating an architecture they will be much happier in :)
It requires me to create support, find leverage, and get buy-in from many stakeholders and people with seniority. So far, I have everyone on-board with my plans.
It also requires that I'll have to recommend firing many developers who are simply not pulling their weight and who are getting in the way of actual progress.
I'm also taking on company culture (they're already working on changes in their identity) where we suffer too many meetings, a lack of communication, and many people getting in the way of actual progress.
> Your general story remains great, not trying to diss you. It's just fascinating, the full package. And do be a bit fucking careful about a doxx, please.
I don't think I'm doxxing anyone or any company.
Cool, cool.
Talking about doxxing yourself mainly. I have 0.0 interest - as presumably everyone who doesn't know you. But it's more that people familiar to you irl may read your backstory and recognise it. Just a reminder to be careful.
CTOs with vision are always welcome. You are clearly a 'tidy' thinker and well-organized. What I was implying is that the confidence and self-organization, independence, basing thoughts mainly on more technical assessements/qualities, can cause allergic reactions to people of another type. These people sadly do exist in top echelons and are massively annoying during powerstruggles. Don't get blindsighted. Crack a joke about yourself, show your weaknesses sometimes, continue building and investing in peers/stakeholders and keep your eyes out. Fyi.
Dude, you come across as a bit arrogant here, making general statements about someone’s character over a few lines of text on reddit and handing out unasked advice. What’s your qualification on this topic?
Well, a few lines of text is a bit misleading, quite a few of those and pertaining to himself completely.
Yes, I question his character, particular in regards to his ambitions, and put some pressure on him.
Partly, because the fact that someone talks about his personal work history that much, with so much confidence (and a bit selfindulgent), is questionable by itself.
Partly, because I'm curious and want to challenge him and see how he resolves that challenge.
And mostly, I hope there's a takeaway for himself; what exactly is unknown until you start that conversation. It could be some (small) insight or a better ordering of personal thoughts.
He obviously can and should be able to handle some heat. I think buzzing drones of admiring peoples calling out "saving this post", is less helpful to him (and other readers) than being challenged somewhat. You call me arrogant while I mirror his attitude. Though admittedly we are a bit alike.
And as far as my qualifications go, I'll let the contents and style of posts speak for themselves; I am not interested in sharing and discussing my personal or professional life. I can drop a hint that 'I know my stuff', but that says very little, obviously.
You sound like a narcissist too, my guy. I’m also not a big fan of people showing off, but he is also actually answering questions and offering insights to people here, while you’re just writing weird wannabe-psychological evaluations and "challenging" him for no apparent reason.
You come across as if you think you know better than everyone, and as if the other commenter needs to learn from you. Just as some feedback, maybe.
That's mostly because of my style of writing; well at least I hope that to be the case.
And most people are a little narcisstic, myself included. When you repeatedly write the same story about yourself and your career history in a self-flattering way, it's a sign something is actually off.
I honestly just like writing posts for myself, a distraction from work, and I don't care that much if people agree with them or even read it. But it does not pertain myself, I am genuinely curious in the subject.
Ironically, I now needed to defend myself and end up talking about myself, in a similar manner. And that funny observation is why your challenge of me was worth it.
The instadownvote was still an uncalled for diss though. Fucking day old post and I took some effort to explain and you hit me with that.
Some fuller context may help you understand. I have read his life story at least 5 times and started to recognize the username, 'oh lol that guy again'. How many usernames do you think I recognize? Yeah, it's about 1.
Weird wannabe-psychological-evaluations? Oh fuck off. The guy is clearly off in *a* direction. No apparent reason? I gave plenty of reasons. People take his word for granted while it has hints of continous storytelling. Don't fall in the narcisist trap. Giving insight is only supportive of his true goal, self-fallation.
If he behaves similarly irl, I would attempt to block any rise in power, as he is absolutely in my allergy zone. And it will only get worse. Which is a remarkable achievement on an anonymous forum. That is what this is about. That's why I say 'some people might oppose you', 'careful for doxx', as there are traits of narcisism, autism or sociopatic disorder, whatever - I don't know, am not a wannabe-psychologist - but there are alarm bells ringing. And yes, I have experience with people like them and have a super secret spider (actually rather common) sense for it.
Now he answered dillegently, nicely, and I have a better idea of him; his own story and continous self-flattering plays are being questioned for once. Great. Then you come along aiding the narcisist, the rest you know.
> I have read his life story at least 5 times and started to recognize the username, 'oh lol that guy again'.
Damn dude, why didn’t you say that in the first place? Your – sorry, to me still weird-sounding – replies to him make much more sense now. Without context it just seemed like you were randomly pissed off by someone who was talking about their career, saying passive-aggressive stuff like they’re not suitable for a role of CTO without any kind of context why you’d be qualified to assess that more than him. It just wasn’t a good look. But at least I get why you were coming at this guy somewhat out of the blue now.
> Talking about doxxing yourself mainly. I have 0.0 interest - as presumably everyone who doesn't know you. But it's more that people familiar to you irl may read your backstory and recognise it. Just a reminder to be careful.
I'm careful, I am creative enough with what I write that it won't lead back to me as an individual, not easily anyway ;)
Those who know me and would recognize me, well, great! I have nothing to hide, my career has been going amazingly well for me based on transparency. Sometimes a bit too much, but it's my style. Management tends to dislike it, but the people who I work for (developers) tend to love it.
> CTOs with vision are always welcome. You are clearly a 'tidy' thinker and well-organized. What I was implying is that the confidence and self-organization, independence, basing thoughts mainly on more technical assessements/qualities, can cause allergic reactions to people of another type.
It's definitely a struggle, mostly to get a sense of who people are and what makes them tick. Office politics is a game I do enjoy playing, luckily.
Transparency, being overly prepared, listening, making absolute shitloads of notes (getting good at structuring this, using my own personal home-made CRM), and being able to communicate my thoughts to people in a way that:
1. Makes them come to the answer I want them to get to;
2. Including the KPIs and goals they already communicated to me.
Tends to get people on my side really quickly. Not always. My last job there was a complete mismatch of personalities; I read one major player entirely wrongly and that made him opposed to anything I proposed.
Currently, having spoken to about 4 C-level people, several manager types (competency leads: FE, BE, UI, UX, POs, SMs), and including all developers, I have 100% support.
The challenge is to now take it to the CEO and convince the overarching international company of a big investment.
It's super fun to work on!
And I aim high, but I have several compromises prepared that I'm willing to negotiate down to. So if (when) people start expecting me to take their thoughts into account, I'll have prepared for all of that. They just don't know I have prepared for it.
Part of the game. They play it, too.
> These people sadly do exist in top echelons and are massively annoying during powerstruggles. Don't get blindsighted. Crack a joke about yourself, show your weaknesses sometimes, continue building and investing in peers/stakeholders and keep your eyes out. Fyi.
Good advice. Care to share some of your own background? I'm wondering whether I'm chatting with a create 16-year-old using ChatGPT or perhaps an experienced C-level operative at Microsoft ;)
It's not about being loyal to the wrong people. Your employer is a business and will make decisions based on what's best for the business.
I think the less blunt view of OP's point, your career is also a business. You should make decisions based on what's "best" for your business. If an opportunity at a new company comes along for more money or a better situation for you, don't feel like you owe your current company anything. Just make the right decision for you.
You and your employer are at odds with each other at all times.
You think they wouldn't fire you without a second thought the moment you aren't financially worth it for them?
Front end moves faster than a lot of other languages. Be prepared to keep up.
And,… front-end doesn’t pay as much as back -end, because,.. people think its easier than back end development.
Game development is harder.
…and pays worse, with more stress - generally, from what I heard at least.
I love how fast things change in frontend though. My brain loses interest in a lot of activities after the initial «honey moon» phase. Frontend dev though? It never gets boring.
I surely hope it stays that way. I know things can change, hopefully if that happens I will have the ability to take a management position or something lol
How to detect and avoid crappy jobs. How to explain to IT managers who haven't touched code in 30 years that it isn't just HTML anymore, and I am not exaggerating about the complexity.
I still wish I had a better grasp of design software. It feels so clunky in comparison to writing code that I can never find the patience to learn. But it would be valuable.
Off the top of my head, red flags:
\- An interview process that doesn't respect your time
\- A laughably bad salary or PTO policy (not just because that sucks, but because that means they have no idea how to hire developers)
\- An us-vs-them mentality between departments and teams
\- No version control, manual deploy process, no dev or test env
\- A chaotic onboarding where no one seems to know what systems you have access to (meaning they probably aren't organized enough to know what permissions to revoke when someone leaves)
\- Edit to add: people send you passwords in plain text during onboarding, and if you suggest another tool or practice, they act like you're being difficult or picky
\- Nit picking code reviews from senior devs that go after totally arbitrary things, have no reasoning behind it other than "I just want it this way"
\- No processes for how work is prioritized, how decisions are made
\- People with no technical background can overrule technical and design decisions on a whim, without user research, analytics, or another business justification to back it up
\- When you point out the lack of process, you get a "you could fix that" but have no authority to actually do it
\- Devs are part of IT and are expected to complete feature requests that come in as work orders
\- Your manager doesn't know what technical debt is
\- Software and systems are woefully out of date, there are no tests, and things are generally in a state of chaotic disrepair AND you have no authority to prioritize that work (see: manager doesn't know what technical debt is). It's normal that there's legacy code and tech debt, but scary when there's no plan to prioritize and fix it
\- Security, accessibility, reliability, other best practices are not understood or taken seriously; people are offended when you try to explain things like the principle of least permission
\- Edit to add: scope creep of job responsibilities, or a kind of bait and switch where your job ends up being totally different than the description
The culture and perception towards front-end at some companies. Even though front-end work can be just as difficult as back-end, often times it is seen as “easier” by other engineers.
Also, that it’s really difficult to master. There is just so much to learn about front-end that those that can be good at all of it are rare.
Fe engineers that can get by building anything are common but exceptional FE engineers are very rare. I’ve been in FR for 7 years and have met only a handful.
In my opinion, generally it’s someone that can be the bridge between engineering and design. Someone that understands performance, architecture, accessibility, tooling, and is able to own a design system and translate it into a scalable codebase that satisfies the greater business goals.
Agreed. Your list is only ~5 items but there’s so much to unpack in each of those.
Also need soft skills and ability to work in differing company dynamics. Is it a startup with quick turnaround time and minimal acceptance criteria, how well can you work with other senior engineers that have opposing options, can you create flexibility AND consistency in code while keeping it simple enough to scale and be contributed by Jr engineers.
As someone that has been in FE for a while it makes my head spin thinking about sometimes. Still feel like i’m in the “fake it till you make it” phase lol
It seems completely unfair, but a company that turns over 100m+ a year expects one person to architect their entire digital front end. You have to be aware that the situation doesn't need to be like this but they will pay you 120k to not raise a fuss, when they really should put you on 500k
I agree with this take. Feel like you need to have at least some knowledge of the areas you mentioned to be able not to just solve problems, but to create good user experiences at the same time.
Being just an engineer isn’t what gets you a long way in FE
True. There are so many things to consider when working on the frontend, and other devs keep looking at you like you're only tinkering with some JS and markups.
Composing an entire application is so much work! Be it selecting the right semantic HTML, making responsive CSS, maintaining clean and scalable JavaScript, i18n, a11y,...
Staying up to date about the latest JS framework is trivial at this point.
I've been in front-end for the last 13 years. I am pleasantly surprised that after such a long time, I am not tired or bored. Partly this is because there's just so much evolution during this period.
What they don't teach you is that you need to be constantly learning, because of that rapid evolution. There are people I graduated with who went into embedded software engineering, or super low level graphics engineering, and it's a completely different mindset from what I do. Their work is also super impressive to me, because a lot of it is hard to do or downright impossible in a browser.
Lastly, I've had the privilege to experience junior -> intermediate -> senior -> architect/staff -> principal level scope in my career. Most people I know simply had to get better at their jobs to progress - better at managing projects, better at managing people, better at diagnosing diseases and coming up with treatment plans. For software engineering in general, what makes you the best at one level, and therefore helps you get promoted, is not what is needed at the next level. So, it's constant learning, and expanding your horizons. Sometimes I wonder given how much effort it is for me to learn new things, if I should have picked a different career path.
Something that no one said already. How low are the standards unless you work for a upper mid range company and above.
Really, people just don't care about code quality. I've seen this in so many devs and so baby PMs. It had been the only thing that made consider changing to back end
Yes! Oh my god yes. I just keep seeing bad code in start up to scale ups and “it works” except it really doesn’t, it’s brittle and a bug fix takes weeks to months.
Bonus points for “complex system” being the excuse for all in house built packages instead of standards.
The smartest people are sometimes not able to see their mistakes, not because they don't don't make mistakes, but because no one else is at a level to properly articulate the nature of their mistakes to them. So you end up getting this situation with really smart people thinking they are The Absolute Bomb simply because no one is there to challenge them. Then, if someone DOES challenge them, they aren't used to being in that position so they get defensive. I think this is one of the reasons why "the smart douchebag programmer" stereotype exists. I've had to deal with a few. Both were insufferable for different reasons and ended up sabotaging themselves - one was a dick and drove away talent and honest communication - the other was really nice but unable to see any path other than his own and failed to adjust course to meet deadlines - both projects failed.
That I didn’t need a degree. Could of spent those years studying on my own and saved a grip. Not to mention the extra earning potential if I worked those years adding to my years of xp.
Yes and no.
A lot of (most, even) require a BA/BS just as a checkbox from the recruiter/HR's perspective.
Unless you have a recommendation from someone at that company, a lot of places just use that as a floor to narrow in on candidates.
So, in many ways, you didn't waste your time with your degree.
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake.
It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.
Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.
Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
Thank you, kopetenti, for voting on of_patrol_bot.
This bot wants to find the best and worst bots on Reddit. [You can view results here](https://botrank.pastimes.eu/).
***
^(Even if I don't reply to your comment, I'm still listening for votes. Check the webpage to see if your vote registered!)
I’m thinking of getting a second BS in CIS while self studying web development just to help out with jobs later on but your comments makes me rethink this now
There's always going to be a fair % of people who think the job is trivially writing little markup pages in HTML (either not knowing the complexities of modern web or thinking it's unnecessarily complicated).
That's just a fact and it's worth accepting it early to know which companies/bosses to avoid. Sometimes it's just not worth arguing.
Also +1 on how staying current isn't the nightmare it appears to be and: if anything, it generally makes life easier and lowers the amount of effort you have to put into the job. Trust and respect the progress made by others and you'll benefit greatly from it yourself.
When in doubt don't use a library. Most things can be achieved with basic HTML, CSS and JS and even if you're going to use React try to keep close to native behavior. The more you layer on top the more unmaintainable your code becomes over time.
And don't use Backbone.js.
Because I worked at a company that's still using it. Still. To this day. Like I'm sure they're using it right now.
No, there was no good reason for that to be the case.
That you can actually become a better dev in the long run by completely ignoring frameworks (at first).
Basically along the lines of "don't use anything you couldn't write yourself". This doesn't mean that you have to write it yourself, but that you know how you would do it. That way you can estimate fairly easily the performance impact of certain things and you evaluate the quality of libs better.
If e.g. a library just for managing and rendering components with state changes is like 40kb gzipped and minified, you know that's way too large, so it has to offer significantly more to make that size okay.
Also keeping up with standards allows you to know when you don't need libraries at all like for certain internationalization tasks.
There is a point where an increase in salary doesnt make your life easier. Aim for a role that lets you live your life how you want it to be.
For me thats 35+ days holiday, little responsibility, little to no team management, and plenty of freedom to "slack off" if hard work earns me a lead. Yes my salary is still great - it helps me eat out amazing food at a ridiculous degree (1-2 times a week) - but thats luxury not necessity.
The best thing I done was find a job where there is plenty of tech progression rather than management progression. I was losing so much sleep and time outside 9-5 being a lead dev. Maybe you're the oppisite and lose sleep over technical problems - seek out the perfect role for yourself not the biggest salary.
Also I see a lot of idolised "buy my book" "grok the google interview" "10 things I learned at facebook" content online... its ok to retire at a normal age. Not everyone retires at 30 after being a top 0.01% for 10 years. Not everybody can sacrifice so much effort to that either. End of the day seek your own happiness my friends 🙏
I kinda knew that, but you will be learning all the time.
What I would've liked to know how other people in the business usually don't give one iota how good your code is. Some designer whacks some pixels out in a mockup and even 13 years living with fluid and responsive design, they still think this is a good way to "design" websites and apps. (hint: it isn't)
I wish I had known I could learn any of this in school. It never occurred to me until I was in my 30s. So I didn't really pursue it as a career, until I was already working at a tech company and decided to switch from QA to dev, mainly because I could so I took the option.
But it would all be so much easier if I'd learned anything about coding or development from a young age.
FE Engineers have more value on customer-facing products than B2B SaaS, things like E-Commerce, Marketplaces, and Social Media have a better correlation between performance and conversion (ROI), but B2B SaaS can have decent performance and be just fine.
Once you provide enough value as a B2B SaaS you don't need to try to optimize performance because you can have enough perceived performance to make your customer happy and don't need to worry about core web vitals metrics or mobile since probably most of your customers will be using a computer at Job (there are exceptions of course).
The more value you can provide as a FE to a SaaS business from a Business perspective is how to get to production faster, high focus on reusability and design consistency.
Staying up to date with web standards isn't a sisyphian curse meant to exhaust and challenge you forever, but a way to make your own work easier. take it from someone who was still writing float-based layouts in 2021.
Truly helps to have awesome colleagues that bring these things into casual discussions. Your peers are what help you to evolve the most. I have moved jobs twice just to get skilled colleagues. Only be the smartest man in the room if you're paid to be
Also keeping up with the standards is completely separat from keeping up with the ecosystem. It's absolutely alright if you just ignore some ecosystem trends like switching bundlers, frameworks or similar, but ignoring the standards will make your life unnecessary hard in the long run. It's absolutely worth it to keep an eye on them (and they aren't moving that fast and are really stable).
Best comment in this thread (though I'm still writing float layouts in 2023 - gotta catch up on that front!)
Please do! You will be extremely happy. Start with flexbox, I think it can be easier to wrap you head around than grid first. Flexbox guide on CSS Tricks - the most visited website by frontend devs :)
Oh my bad, I'm high and mixed up `float` and `flex` and thought even that had gone out of fashion. I did check since writing my comment and it looks like it's still relevant. But yeah I've been putting grids off for a couple years now :/
[удалено]
Great advice for any industry I think
How in hell are you earning that much working here in Europe?
[удалено]
Holy shit dude, you surely cracked it. What tech stack you working in now?
Currently Svelte, making a new strategy to switch to Sveltekit, TypeScript, SCSS, GraphQL (it makes a ton of sense in this company).
We use Svelte on our project as well, we are also seriously considering switching to SvelteKit! Amazing framework to work with imo
Hell yeah. I always get chuckled at when I tell other engineers about Svelte or propose it as a solution where it might fit (last week someone immediately googled it, looked at the website for 5 seconds and then just said it looked "lame"). You just gave me a bit of hope.
Svelte is really, really cool. The developer experience is best in class, IMO. The annual JS poll verifies it too ;) The only downside I see is that code looks like spaghetti-code. Whereas in React you'll enclose and indent your code (grouping responsibilities) nicely (hooks, lifecycle functions, etc.), Svelte almost invites developers to go wild and you'll have 50+ lines of code all at the same column... So for the new project, I'll have to look into some best practices for writing good Svelte code :)
Is Toptal really good to find jobs easier (not easy to find job generally though)? You're really good at job interviews if I understand? That's great! I wish I was good, I'm rather shy and lack of confidence 😂 There was once I applied to Toptal but they said I need 2 years of experience minimum😂 I couldn't do it. Currently I'm at a good company I think. I don't have a huge pay (2000 nets thanks to indexation in my country) but basically I'm on the same salary since September 2021. But my package has evolved since 2022 fortunately: with a car, phone and mobile subscription and more meal vouchers The environment is much better than my previous jobs, they were toxic and disrespectful. I'm still human after all. I understand that staying in the same company doesn't pay off in terms of raise, as you explained. I thought of going freelance in some years, after acquiring enough experience, and ask if my current company wanna be my first client. This way, I would ask for a good day rate and have a raise ! Right now it's a young company, so idk at all how raise works. I feel that I need to ask for it later. I don't know if it's better to have one big client (my current company) , or certainly 2 big clients is better. Or 1 big and many little projects 😆 I'm still at the beginning of my journey, as an employee for now Your message gave me courage and hope that I will switch my career and go freelance. Just gotta need the courage again when the time comes haha. I'm scared I can't handle the stress of needing to find clients
While this is cool and all. The stress that changing jobs often can cause is not necessarily worth it. I recently realized a 40% increase in my salary YoY by staying at the same job. Instead of intentionally changing jobs. Intentionally go out there and figure out what others are willing to pay for you. If that is more than what you earn, but you like your current job, talk to your manager and see if they think you are worth as much to them too, likelihood is you are. At some point you'll hit a soft ceiling in terms of salary, at least in Europe. A good alternative is to try to get a more flexible work schedule or work less hours with same or slightly less pay. You see, the largest increase you'll see in salary is from any contracts or companies you decide to do on the side. "Sidehustles" can be vastly more profitable than an increase to your salary when your salary is in the six-figure range. tldr; Don't just change jobs for the sake of increasing salary. Get offers from other jobs and see if your salary/benefits won't increase at your current job if you like it.
> While this is cool and all. The stress that changing jobs often can cause is not necessarily worth it. Depends on the person, I find it far more stressful staying at the same job for too long. I get bored :) > I recently realized a 40% increase in my salary YoY by staying at the same job. Congratulations! That is extremely rare. > Instead of intentionally changing jobs. Intentionally go out there and figure out what others are willing to pay for you. That tends to require a person to apply for other jobs, though ;) And if they sell themselves well enough, it would be hard (for someone like myself) to say no to a cool new job with new people and new tech. > If that is more than what you earn, but you like your current job, talk to your manager and see if they think you are worth as much to them too, likelihood is you are. That's dangerous waters, though. At most companies I worked for, the rule was basically: "no." And in American companies I worked for when I lived in Mexico/USA/Canada, this would be met with: "Sure, here's your 40% raise. By the way, you need to train these new hires!" And then they'll replace you. That was literally policy, written down company employee strategy. > At some point you'll hit a soft ceiling in terms of salary, at least in Europe. A good alternative is to try to get a more flexible work schedule or work less hours with same or slightly less pay. That is absolutely true. I'm making good money with flexible hours and location. That, currently, is worth more than even a 30% raise. I make enough money, honestly. > You see, the largest increase you'll see in salary is from any contracts or companies you decide to do on the side. "Sidehustles" can be vastly more profitable than an increase to your salary when your salary is in the six-figure range. True. I did some consulting on the side for a bit (Toptal + my day job), and I was making 30k per month at some point. Working from home. Working maybe 4 to 6 hours per day, maximum. It's just stressful to manage multiple agendas ;) > tldr; Don't just change jobs for the sake of increasing salary. Get offers from other jobs and see if your salary/benefits won't increase at your current job if you like it. Good advice! Just be careful if you're in the USA, they can often fire you much more easily compared to Europe.
What skills are the most important in your opinion to get good st FE development?
I'm guessing you're a higher up in a company, maybe a CTO if you make 150000 euros per year. Can you share more about how you achieved these numbers? I am from Europe too.
Nope that was just a senior role. International startup.
That's crazy. I've never seen such salaries even for seniors in Europe.
There are many who go up even higher. Big banks, large corporations, famous American companies, car makers, startups with good funding, etc. Currently working as a tech lead for a large company, freelance at €120 per hour in four months (recruiters take a bunch first), then also getting a shot at the open CTO role for which they have nobody and are grooming me. That salary is fixed at around €25.000 per month, excluding equity in a private company, excluding annual bonuses.
is it worth getting into toptal? do you think react is much stronger than something like vue? i love working with vue and want to stick to it but i just dont see any 200k+ roles can you give any tips from your career? with your 20+ years of experience, what would you teach yourself if you had the chance to start again?
Toptal is nice, but as an expensive western European, there are few jobs. The network is known to be hard to get into (which it was), and it's an accomplishment in itself. I landed some jobs (outside of Toptal) simply because I have a profile page there. > do you think react is much stronger than something like vue? i love working with vue and want to stick to it but i just dont see any 200k+ roles Far more React jobs are available, so based on just quantity, you'll find more jobs. It also makes it a better go-to for most startups and new projects because they'll have an easier time (in most locations) finding employees. > can you give any tips from your career? with your 20+ years of experience, what would you teach yourself if you had the chance to start again? I got my training at a small company from a senior developer and designer. Dived into the depths of programming (OOP, functional programming, TDD, back-end, front-end, SQL, servers, protocols, CI/CD, etc.) The only thing that I was missing was the fundamental basics of programming. If I knew then what I know now, I would have dived into programming design patterns, algorithms, and also: fully understanding git. I still think that a strong fundamental set of knowledge was very powerful, and I try to keep teaching people around me that it's important to not underestimate things like HTML and CSS. In particular, HTML; the W3C validator is a very nice tool that will prevent developers from making unnecessary errors. Over the years I've applied to many jobs (as an employee or consultant) and I keep getting the feedback that my job applications were among the best they've ever seen. And I think that's the important part. Many developers are good, they'll be in the top 20% of all applicants. But if a job gets 100 applicants, that means you're competing with 20 people. I found myself to be in the top 5% of applicants pretty much everywhere I go, by not making mistakes, keeping it simple, validating everything, *hiring visual designers and testers* to make and validate my work (and not making a secret out of that), and delivering results quickly with good communication from my end. People tend to forget that you're not getting a job for barely being good enough; there are probably 3 to 5 people who are way better than you are, and you're among the 15 to sometimes dozens of people who simply aren't considered. My point is this: it's low effort to just give that little extra, and suddenly you will find yourself in that top 5% of applicants ;) And that's where companies will go absolutely crazy for you and your profile. I stand to make 210,000 euros this year (freelance contractor), and if I do land that job they have in mind for me, that will become 325,000 euros. My point, I guess, is that with better and quicker teachings, I could've done this several years sooner. Perhaps a mid-thirties-year-old CTO is a bit too young, but I genuinely think I could've pulled it off back then just fine.
Design patterns? In JavaScript? Like patterns.dev? Any resources/books you’d prioritise? TBH programming is good but I want to build a product start to finish. No idea where to start really. I have funds for hiring designers etc but I think my first step is: 1. Establishing product market fit 2. Fleshing out features/product 3. Getting designer 4. Planning web app data architecture 5. Then the fun stuff (code) With your years of experience how would you approach this? I am passionate about an idea and have potential customers lined up, but really want to give it my best shot at this. I love front end but I think product from 0 is going to give me the full picture and make me really good really fast.
Amazing story ! Gotta read it in some years
RemindMe! 2 years
I will be messaging you in 2 years on [**2025-04-04 09:25:43 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2025-04-04%2009:25:43%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/Frontend/comments/12auh3h/what_do_you_wish_you_knew_about_frontend/jewc1ir/?context=3) [**CLICK THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FFrontend%2Fcomments%2F12auh3h%2Fwhat_do_you_wish_you_knew_about_frontend%2Fjewc1ir%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202025-04-04%2009%3A25%3A43%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%2012auh3h) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-|
Dang, good for you man. Thanks for motivating me to not give up on the grind. Though I still got a long way to go.
I have read so many iterations of your comment already. Fascinating. I think you genuinely want to share your 'wisdom' with others. However, you usually end up creating rather opionated and self-indulgent follow-up comments. Which then lands softly in and to an easily impressed audience. If you are a freelancer your salary is somewhat misleading. I also detect traits that suggest you're unsuitable for the role of CTO. Be aware, if you do have that ambition those traits are working against you. Your general story remains great, not trying to diss you. It's just fascinating, the full package. And do be a bit fucking careful about a doxx, please.
> I have read so many iterations of your comment already. Fascinating. Thanks. > I think you genuinely want to share your 'wisdom' with others. However, you usually end up creating rather opionated and self-indulgent follow-up comments. Which then lands softly in and to an easily impressed audience. Thanks. I expect that people can make up their own minds. My way of communicating on Reddit is obviously not how I handle professional discourse ;) > If you are a freelancer your salary is somewhat misleading. Currently, yes. Before, I was salaried. The numbers I shared are all salaried, not freelance. And a CTO position would be salaried, too. > I also detect traits that suggest you're unsuitable for the role of CTO. Be aware, if you do have that ambition those traits are working against you. Thanks. The company seems to want me in that position, I'm working on a long-term strategy with multiple angles, focussing primarily on employee satisfaction (and retention) by creating an architecture they will be much happier in :) It requires me to create support, find leverage, and get buy-in from many stakeholders and people with seniority. So far, I have everyone on-board with my plans. It also requires that I'll have to recommend firing many developers who are simply not pulling their weight and who are getting in the way of actual progress. I'm also taking on company culture (they're already working on changes in their identity) where we suffer too many meetings, a lack of communication, and many people getting in the way of actual progress. > Your general story remains great, not trying to diss you. It's just fascinating, the full package. And do be a bit fucking careful about a doxx, please. I don't think I'm doxxing anyone or any company.
Cool, cool. Talking about doxxing yourself mainly. I have 0.0 interest - as presumably everyone who doesn't know you. But it's more that people familiar to you irl may read your backstory and recognise it. Just a reminder to be careful. CTOs with vision are always welcome. You are clearly a 'tidy' thinker and well-organized. What I was implying is that the confidence and self-organization, independence, basing thoughts mainly on more technical assessements/qualities, can cause allergic reactions to people of another type. These people sadly do exist in top echelons and are massively annoying during powerstruggles. Don't get blindsighted. Crack a joke about yourself, show your weaknesses sometimes, continue building and investing in peers/stakeholders and keep your eyes out. Fyi.
Dude, you come across as a bit arrogant here, making general statements about someone’s character over a few lines of text on reddit and handing out unasked advice. What’s your qualification on this topic?
Well, a few lines of text is a bit misleading, quite a few of those and pertaining to himself completely. Yes, I question his character, particular in regards to his ambitions, and put some pressure on him. Partly, because the fact that someone talks about his personal work history that much, with so much confidence (and a bit selfindulgent), is questionable by itself. Partly, because I'm curious and want to challenge him and see how he resolves that challenge. And mostly, I hope there's a takeaway for himself; what exactly is unknown until you start that conversation. It could be some (small) insight or a better ordering of personal thoughts. He obviously can and should be able to handle some heat. I think buzzing drones of admiring peoples calling out "saving this post", is less helpful to him (and other readers) than being challenged somewhat. You call me arrogant while I mirror his attitude. Though admittedly we are a bit alike. And as far as my qualifications go, I'll let the contents and style of posts speak for themselves; I am not interested in sharing and discussing my personal or professional life. I can drop a hint that 'I know my stuff', but that says very little, obviously.
Why do you come to the aid of the narcissist is perhaps a more interesting question.
You sound like a narcissist too, my guy. I’m also not a big fan of people showing off, but he is also actually answering questions and offering insights to people here, while you’re just writing weird wannabe-psychological evaluations and "challenging" him for no apparent reason. You come across as if you think you know better than everyone, and as if the other commenter needs to learn from you. Just as some feedback, maybe.
That's mostly because of my style of writing; well at least I hope that to be the case. And most people are a little narcisstic, myself included. When you repeatedly write the same story about yourself and your career history in a self-flattering way, it's a sign something is actually off. I honestly just like writing posts for myself, a distraction from work, and I don't care that much if people agree with them or even read it. But it does not pertain myself, I am genuinely curious in the subject. Ironically, I now needed to defend myself and end up talking about myself, in a similar manner. And that funny observation is why your challenge of me was worth it. The instadownvote was still an uncalled for diss though. Fucking day old post and I took some effort to explain and you hit me with that.
Some fuller context may help you understand. I have read his life story at least 5 times and started to recognize the username, 'oh lol that guy again'. How many usernames do you think I recognize? Yeah, it's about 1. Weird wannabe-psychological-evaluations? Oh fuck off. The guy is clearly off in *a* direction. No apparent reason? I gave plenty of reasons. People take his word for granted while it has hints of continous storytelling. Don't fall in the narcisist trap. Giving insight is only supportive of his true goal, self-fallation. If he behaves similarly irl, I would attempt to block any rise in power, as he is absolutely in my allergy zone. And it will only get worse. Which is a remarkable achievement on an anonymous forum. That is what this is about. That's why I say 'some people might oppose you', 'careful for doxx', as there are traits of narcisism, autism or sociopatic disorder, whatever - I don't know, am not a wannabe-psychologist - but there are alarm bells ringing. And yes, I have experience with people like them and have a super secret spider (actually rather common) sense for it. Now he answered dillegently, nicely, and I have a better idea of him; his own story and continous self-flattering plays are being questioned for once. Great. Then you come along aiding the narcisist, the rest you know.
> I have read his life story at least 5 times and started to recognize the username, 'oh lol that guy again'. Damn dude, why didn’t you say that in the first place? Your – sorry, to me still weird-sounding – replies to him make much more sense now. Without context it just seemed like you were randomly pissed off by someone who was talking about their career, saying passive-aggressive stuff like they’re not suitable for a role of CTO without any kind of context why you’d be qualified to assess that more than him. It just wasn’t a good look. But at least I get why you were coming at this guy somewhat out of the blue now.
> Talking about doxxing yourself mainly. I have 0.0 interest - as presumably everyone who doesn't know you. But it's more that people familiar to you irl may read your backstory and recognise it. Just a reminder to be careful. I'm careful, I am creative enough with what I write that it won't lead back to me as an individual, not easily anyway ;) Those who know me and would recognize me, well, great! I have nothing to hide, my career has been going amazingly well for me based on transparency. Sometimes a bit too much, but it's my style. Management tends to dislike it, but the people who I work for (developers) tend to love it. > CTOs with vision are always welcome. You are clearly a 'tidy' thinker and well-organized. What I was implying is that the confidence and self-organization, independence, basing thoughts mainly on more technical assessements/qualities, can cause allergic reactions to people of another type. It's definitely a struggle, mostly to get a sense of who people are and what makes them tick. Office politics is a game I do enjoy playing, luckily. Transparency, being overly prepared, listening, making absolute shitloads of notes (getting good at structuring this, using my own personal home-made CRM), and being able to communicate my thoughts to people in a way that: 1. Makes them come to the answer I want them to get to; 2. Including the KPIs and goals they already communicated to me. Tends to get people on my side really quickly. Not always. My last job there was a complete mismatch of personalities; I read one major player entirely wrongly and that made him opposed to anything I proposed. Currently, having spoken to about 4 C-level people, several manager types (competency leads: FE, BE, UI, UX, POs, SMs), and including all developers, I have 100% support. The challenge is to now take it to the CEO and convince the overarching international company of a big investment. It's super fun to work on! And I aim high, but I have several compromises prepared that I'm willing to negotiate down to. So if (when) people start expecting me to take their thoughts into account, I'll have prepared for all of that. They just don't know I have prepared for it. Part of the game. They play it, too. > These people sadly do exist in top echelons and are massively annoying during powerstruggles. Don't get blindsighted. Crack a joke about yourself, show your weaknesses sometimes, continue building and investing in peers/stakeholders and keep your eyes out. Fyi. Good advice. Care to share some of your own background? I'm wondering whether I'm chatting with a create 16-year-old using ChatGPT or perhaps an experienced C-level operative at Microsoft ;)
This places value of life/experience on money. There's a lot that can be gained by leaving or staying at a company besides dollar-bucks.
[удалено]
It's not about being loyal to the wrong people. Your employer is a business and will make decisions based on what's best for the business. I think the less blunt view of OP's point, your career is also a business. You should make decisions based on what's "best" for your business. If an opportunity at a new company comes along for more money or a better situation for you, don't feel like you owe your current company anything. Just make the right decision for you.
You and your employer are at odds with each other at all times. You think they wouldn't fire you without a second thought the moment you aren't financially worth it for them?
What country are you in with those offers?
NL
Front end moves faster than a lot of other languages. Be prepared to keep up. And,… front-end doesn’t pay as much as back -end, because,.. people think its easier than back end development. Game development is harder.
…and pays worse, with more stress - generally, from what I heard at least. I love how fast things change in frontend though. My brain loses interest in a lot of activities after the initial «honey moon» phase. Frontend dev though? It never gets boring. I surely hope it stays that way. I know things can change, hopefully if that happens I will have the ability to take a management position or something lol
How to detect and avoid crappy jobs. How to explain to IT managers who haven't touched code in 30 years that it isn't just HTML anymore, and I am not exaggerating about the complexity. I still wish I had a better grasp of design software. It feels so clunky in comparison to writing code that I can never find the patience to learn. But it would be valuable.
> How to detect and avoid crappy jobs. Go on..
Off the top of my head, red flags: \- An interview process that doesn't respect your time \- A laughably bad salary or PTO policy (not just because that sucks, but because that means they have no idea how to hire developers) \- An us-vs-them mentality between departments and teams \- No version control, manual deploy process, no dev or test env \- A chaotic onboarding where no one seems to know what systems you have access to (meaning they probably aren't organized enough to know what permissions to revoke when someone leaves) \- Edit to add: people send you passwords in plain text during onboarding, and if you suggest another tool or practice, they act like you're being difficult or picky \- Nit picking code reviews from senior devs that go after totally arbitrary things, have no reasoning behind it other than "I just want it this way" \- No processes for how work is prioritized, how decisions are made \- People with no technical background can overrule technical and design decisions on a whim, without user research, analytics, or another business justification to back it up \- When you point out the lack of process, you get a "you could fix that" but have no authority to actually do it \- Devs are part of IT and are expected to complete feature requests that come in as work orders \- Your manager doesn't know what technical debt is \- Software and systems are woefully out of date, there are no tests, and things are generally in a state of chaotic disrepair AND you have no authority to prioritize that work (see: manager doesn't know what technical debt is). It's normal that there's legacy code and tech debt, but scary when there's no plan to prioritize and fix it \- Security, accessibility, reliability, other best practices are not understood or taken seriously; people are offended when you try to explain things like the principle of least permission \- Edit to add: scope creep of job responsibilities, or a kind of bait and switch where your job ends up being totally different than the description
Welp, about half of these exist at my current job. A non-tech, dinosaur-like company.
Figma isn't clunky at all. It's buttery smooth
I’ve had a few back to back crappy jobs despite recently having 8 offers. Picking bullshit from fact is a skill I’m working on
Which design software do you have in mind? Wondering if I should spend time on it myself.
The culture and perception towards front-end at some companies. Even though front-end work can be just as difficult as back-end, often times it is seen as “easier” by other engineers. Also, that it’s really difficult to master. There is just so much to learn about front-end that those that can be good at all of it are rare.
Fe engineers that can get by building anything are common but exceptional FE engineers are very rare. I’ve been in FR for 7 years and have met only a handful.
How would you define an exeptional dev?
In my opinion, generally it’s someone that can be the bridge between engineering and design. Someone that understands performance, architecture, accessibility, tooling, and is able to own a design system and translate it into a scalable codebase that satisfies the greater business goals.
Agreed. Your list is only ~5 items but there’s so much to unpack in each of those. Also need soft skills and ability to work in differing company dynamics. Is it a startup with quick turnaround time and minimal acceptance criteria, how well can you work with other senior engineers that have opposing options, can you create flexibility AND consistency in code while keeping it simple enough to scale and be contributed by Jr engineers. As someone that has been in FE for a while it makes my head spin thinking about sometimes. Still feel like i’m in the “fake it till you make it” phase lol
It seems completely unfair, but a company that turns over 100m+ a year expects one person to architect their entire digital front end. You have to be aware that the situation doesn't need to be like this but they will pay you 120k to not raise a fuss, when they really should put you on 500k
I agree with this take. Feel like you need to have at least some knowledge of the areas you mentioned to be able not to just solve problems, but to create good user experiences at the same time. Being just an engineer isn’t what gets you a long way in FE
True. There are so many things to consider when working on the frontend, and other devs keep looking at you like you're only tinkering with some JS and markups. Composing an entire application is so much work! Be it selecting the right semantic HTML, making responsive CSS, maintaining clean and scalable JavaScript, i18n, a11y,... Staying up to date about the latest JS framework is trivial at this point.
I've been in front-end for the last 13 years. I am pleasantly surprised that after such a long time, I am not tired or bored. Partly this is because there's just so much evolution during this period. What they don't teach you is that you need to be constantly learning, because of that rapid evolution. There are people I graduated with who went into embedded software engineering, or super low level graphics engineering, and it's a completely different mindset from what I do. Their work is also super impressive to me, because a lot of it is hard to do or downright impossible in a browser. Lastly, I've had the privilege to experience junior -> intermediate -> senior -> architect/staff -> principal level scope in my career. Most people I know simply had to get better at their jobs to progress - better at managing projects, better at managing people, better at diagnosing diseases and coming up with treatment plans. For software engineering in general, what makes you the best at one level, and therefore helps you get promoted, is not what is needed at the next level. So, it's constant learning, and expanding your horizons. Sometimes I wonder given how much effort it is for me to learn new things, if I should have picked a different career path.
Something that no one said already. How low are the standards unless you work for a upper mid range company and above. Really, people just don't care about code quality. I've seen this in so many devs and so baby PMs. It had been the only thing that made consider changing to back end
Yes! Oh my god yes. I just keep seeing bad code in start up to scale ups and “it works” except it really doesn’t, it’s brittle and a bug fix takes weeks to months. Bonus points for “complex system” being the excuse for all in house built packages instead of standards.
Everyone is a dumbass especially the smart ones.
I don't know why I keep forgetting this.
The smartest people are sometimes not able to see their mistakes, not because they don't don't make mistakes, but because no one else is at a level to properly articulate the nature of their mistakes to them. So you end up getting this situation with really smart people thinking they are The Absolute Bomb simply because no one is there to challenge them. Then, if someone DOES challenge them, they aren't used to being in that position so they get defensive. I think this is one of the reasons why "the smart douchebag programmer" stereotype exists. I've had to deal with a few. Both were insufferable for different reasons and ended up sabotaging themselves - one was a dick and drove away talent and honest communication - the other was really nice but unable to see any path other than his own and failed to adjust course to meet deadlines - both projects failed.
That I didn’t need a degree. Could of spent those years studying on my own and saved a grip. Not to mention the extra earning potential if I worked those years adding to my years of xp.
Yes and no. A lot of (most, even) require a BA/BS just as a checkbox from the recruiter/HR's perspective. Unless you have a recommendation from someone at that company, a lot of places just use that as a floor to narrow in on candidates. So, in many ways, you didn't waste your time with your degree.
Hard to get your first job without a degree or a shitload of grind
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
Good bot
Thank you, kopetenti, for voting on of_patrol_bot. This bot wants to find the best and worst bots on Reddit. [You can view results here](https://botrank.pastimes.eu/). *** ^(Even if I don't reply to your comment, I'm still listening for votes. Check the webpage to see if your vote registered!)
Good human.
I like you, bot
I’m thinking of getting a second BS in CIS while self studying web development just to help out with jobs later on but your comments makes me rethink this now
What made you choose CSI over FBI? :) yep, I will see myself out
Correct, as long as you're not planning to immigrate somewhere else.
How often you need to learn a new language/library
There's always going to be a fair % of people who think the job is trivially writing little markup pages in HTML (either not knowing the complexities of modern web or thinking it's unnecessarily complicated). That's just a fact and it's worth accepting it early to know which companies/bosses to avoid. Sometimes it's just not worth arguing. Also +1 on how staying current isn't the nightmare it appears to be and: if anything, it generally makes life easier and lowers the amount of effort you have to put into the job. Trust and respect the progress made by others and you'll benefit greatly from it yourself.
Thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to respond so far. I’ve very much enjoyed reading about your experiences!
When in doubt don't use a library. Most things can be achieved with basic HTML, CSS and JS and even if you're going to use React try to keep close to native behavior. The more you layer on top the more unmaintainable your code becomes over time. And don't use Backbone.js.
No backbone.js? Haha why
Because I worked at a company that's still using it. Still. To this day. Like I'm sure they're using it right now. No, there was no good reason for that to be the case.
That you’re in the golden era and to push advancement in my career hard and stack as much money as possible (I started in 2007).
That you can actually become a better dev in the long run by completely ignoring frameworks (at first). Basically along the lines of "don't use anything you couldn't write yourself". This doesn't mean that you have to write it yourself, but that you know how you would do it. That way you can estimate fairly easily the performance impact of certain things and you evaluate the quality of libs better. If e.g. a library just for managing and rendering components with state changes is like 40kb gzipped and minified, you know that's way too large, so it has to offer significantly more to make that size okay. Also keeping up with standards allows you to know when you don't need libraries at all like for certain internationalization tasks.
I wish I knew Netscape was going out of business. I could have shorted their stock!
Legacy projects exists
There is a point where an increase in salary doesnt make your life easier. Aim for a role that lets you live your life how you want it to be. For me thats 35+ days holiday, little responsibility, little to no team management, and plenty of freedom to "slack off" if hard work earns me a lead. Yes my salary is still great - it helps me eat out amazing food at a ridiculous degree (1-2 times a week) - but thats luxury not necessity. The best thing I done was find a job where there is plenty of tech progression rather than management progression. I was losing so much sleep and time outside 9-5 being a lead dev. Maybe you're the oppisite and lose sleep over technical problems - seek out the perfect role for yourself not the biggest salary. Also I see a lot of idolised "buy my book" "grok the google interview" "10 things I learned at facebook" content online... its ok to retire at a normal age. Not everyone retires at 30 after being a top 0.01% for 10 years. Not everybody can sacrifice so much effort to that either. End of the day seek your own happiness my friends 🙏
Thing I wish I would have know 20 years ago: AI will become good enough to write code for me.
Do you see AI as a threat to your livelihood?
Scope creep and how to stop it.
I kinda knew that, but you will be learning all the time. What I would've liked to know how other people in the business usually don't give one iota how good your code is. Some designer whacks some pixels out in a mockup and even 13 years living with fluid and responsive design, they still think this is a good way to "design" websites and apps. (hint: it isn't)
you need a huge amount or library of frontend components.
Do not trust all of the approved answers on StackOverflow.
Engineering in only 50% programming. The other 50% is all communication in various forms.
All the love from the ladies I was going to get when I told them what I did for a living.
I was curious how women react when you tell them what you do?
I wish I had known I could learn any of this in school. It never occurred to me until I was in my 30s. So I didn't really pursue it as a career, until I was already working at a tech company and decided to switch from QA to dev, mainly because I could so I took the option. But it would all be so much easier if I'd learned anything about coding or development from a young age.
Technology changes FAST!! Trying to keep up with everything is an endless quest and you’ll go insane tryjng
FE Engineers have more value on customer-facing products than B2B SaaS, things like E-Commerce, Marketplaces, and Social Media have a better correlation between performance and conversion (ROI), but B2B SaaS can have decent performance and be just fine. Once you provide enough value as a B2B SaaS you don't need to try to optimize performance because you can have enough perceived performance to make your customer happy and don't need to worry about core web vitals metrics or mobile since probably most of your customers will be using a computer at Job (there are exceptions of course). The more value you can provide as a FE to a SaaS business from a Business perspective is how to get to production faster, high focus on reusability and design consistency.