Contents
What is a Front-End Design of the Website?
First of all, in web development, it can be differentiated into two categories: front end and back end. Front-end of website is called the “client side” whereas back-end is called the “server side”. Front end is called the client side because it is the part where users see and interact directly. It is everything the users see on the screen – menus, navigations, buttons, graphics, and many other features on the website. To simply put, the front end is the combination two different elements: the graphic design and the user interface. The graphic design will be created by the designers and the web developers will use the web languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to implement the designs onto the website. So, creating this visual part is called the front-end design of the website and the front-end engineer’s job is to make sure that these visual elements of the website are functional and to provide users with a rich interactive experience.
What Does a Front-End Engineer Do?
Front-end engineers are primarily responsible for a website’s appearance and are vital to the success of the website. They focus on making a user friendly and attractive website and they work to enhance the user experience to ensure it is flawless. For example, front-end engineers have to make sure that all of the website’s performance, fonts, menus, graphics, animations and buttons are working correctly. Their goal is to provide a satisfactory user experience without any issues or errors.
Front-end engineer is a position that requires teamwork. They are very involved in users experience and work closely with designers and clients to help create the best possible solutions for customers. Front-end engineers bring concepts into life by working closing with the web designers to create user friendly websites by creating fun and exciting features like games, animations, and navigations.
The detailed duties may vary according to the organization, but the common tasks and responsibilities of a front-end engineer are usually as follows,
- Prioritizing and optimizing user experience. Working closely with clients to develop ideas for a new website or repair and maintain an existing website.
- Bringing concepts to life by using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
- Understanding the concept and having the ability to implement the information throughout the site.
- Developing and maintaining user interface.
- Creating tools that improve user interaction with the website regardless of the browser and implementing designs on mobile websites.
- Optimize web applications with responsiveness, scalability, clean navigation, and speed.
- Managing software workflow.
- Monitoring the website to make sure that the website is performing smoothly and make corrections and adjustments timely as needed.
- Following SEO best practices.
- Testing the website for usability and troubleshooting and fixing any bugs.
Front End Web Development Languages
The part of the website that user interact is called the front-end. It includes everything that a user experiences: font and text colors, style, buttons, graphs and tables, animations, navigations, menus and many more. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are the three languages used for the front-end development and are the heart of front-end design of the website.
HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
HTML is the building block of websites and the foundation of all web development starts with the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). It is the standard programming language used to mark contents so the browser will display the texts, images, and other elements and appear correctly on the webpage. For example, the image on a blog post would appear as an <img> in HTML code, so the browsers will know that they need to display and image. Internet users navigate the web using the method called HyperText. Users are brought to new pages by simply clicking on special texts call hyperlinks. Markup is what HTML tags do to the text inside of them; they mark it as a specified type of text.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Cascading Style Sheets, also known as CSS, is the language for describing the presentation of the webpages and is used to format the layout of webpages. It is a language for specifying how documents are presented to users: how they are styled, laid out, etc., A document is a text file structured by using a markup language like HTML, SVG or XML. CSS can be used to define text colors and styles, text sizes and boxes and many other aspects of a webpage that could only be defined in a page’s HTML. Without CSS, all websites would look the same and boring. By using CSS, the web developers can control how HTML elements look in the browser, presenting their markup using whatever they like. CSS can be used for very basic document text styling like changing the color and the size of the headings and links. It can be used to create layouts and even be used for effects such as animations. CSS allows developers to give website a unified appearance and a critical feature for branded sites.
JavaScript
JavaScript is a text-based programming language that can be used for both client side and server side to make webpages more interactive. It is used for web development in web applications, game development and many more. JavaScript allows developers to implement dynamic features that cannot be done with only HTML and CSS. JavaScript is mainly used for web-based applications and web browsers, but it can also be used beyond the web in software, servers, and embedded hardware controls. Some of the basic things that JavaScript is used for are adding interactive behavior to web pages, creating web and mobile applications, building web servers, and developing server applications, game development and many more. One of the main reasons that developers prefer using JavaScript over other programming language is because JavaScript is the most popular language, and it is the only language that is native to the web browser. Plus, it’s a fun language to learn.
Skills and Tools Required to Be a Front-End Engineer
A degree is not always need to become a front-end engineer, although having one will help in landing a job easier. So, it’s not necessarily needed to have college degree to be hired as a front-end engineer as long as they have the required skills and qualifications. So, taking an online web development course or getting an associate degree will be equally effective to work as a front-end engineer. Some people choose to self-study about the front-end development as there are plenty of free sources and a lot of information available online. Of course, having a bachelor’s degree will open up more job opportunities to web developers who want to advance their career to back-end or management positions.
Regardless of the education, these are some of the basic skills needed in order to become a junior front-end engineer.
HTML and CSS
As mentioned above, HTML and CSS are the heart of the web development. HTML gives structures to the webpage while CSS helps style the HTML elements with colors, fonts, animations, typeface and many more. Therefore, it is no doubt but to learn these first before doing anything else. Otherwise, nothing would begin.
JavaScript
With just HTML and CSS, a website would be boring. That’s when JavaScript come into role to bring more life into the website. This programming language will add interactive features like polls, slideshows, and forms to the website. It also offers to add dynamic features like animation, videos, audios and scrolling.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO has also become crucial when it comes to ensuring the success of the website. People go onto websites all the time and search for different types of information they want. Search engine optimization is the practice to increase traffic to a website organically through search results. SEO and web design work together and more web designers incorporate SEO when designing websites. Normally there is a separate team to carry out SEO but knowing the basics will a developer to know where to put titles, descriptions, images, or texts on a website so it can be found easily on search engines, thus increasing more engagement and bring success.
Web Performance Optimization (WPO)
The engagement of a website will drastically drop if the website is not fast enough. Having smooth performance and faster download speed draw more visitors and increase visitor retention and loyalty and user satisfaction, especially users with slow internet connection or mobile devices. So, the web performance optimization techniques will ensure faster loading time.
Version Control and Device Checking
Version control is a kind of system specifically designed for developers that helps them efficiently communicate and track all the changes made to the original source code over time. Using this software will allow developer to compare the current version and previous version to differentiate what changes has been made and help them decide whether to keep the previous version or the newer version. Furthermore, version control systems can also act as a double backup of the original source code. A website’s appearance may change in different browsers depending on the various factors. So, it is also important for developer to know how to use the browser tools in order to adjust in certain way that is best suited in different browsers.
Soft skills and Non-Technical Qualities
It is natural that possessing certain soft skills and non-technical qualities to help an individual success in any job fields. Therefore, being a front-end engineer is no different from others.
Having Creativity and Keeping Up with The Trends
A front-end engineer may not be heavily involved to creating designs for a website but they still play an important role in production and implementation of a website. Thus, the ability to think creatively to realize the concepts made by web designers to create a form of art and keep up with the trends to maintain the visual appeal to attract more clients.
Excellent Teamwork Skills
Front-end engineers must be able to work well with others, including their team members and clients. They are usually a part of a team which includes project managers and coordinators, web designers, graphic designers, back-end developers and copy writers. So, with many people working together on a single project, they must be able to communicate and coordinate with team members to bring success to the project as having the ability to collaborate with other people is essential to the quality of the final product.
Problem Solving Skills and Great Time Management Skills
An error or a bug is not something out of usual in the daily life of a developer. So as a front-end engineer, they are prone to have responsibility to resolve technical issues in a timely manner and must be able to work under pressure while keeping the composure. In addition to that, a front-end engineer must have the ability to mange their schedule well as they need to be able to meet deadlines and deliver the project to client on time. Therefore, with many people working on the same project, they need to have strong time management skills and also have the flexibility to adjust accordingly in case the timetables have been delayed.
Job Opportunities and Salary of a Front-End Engineer
With the increased use of technology, front-end engineers are in high demands by employers from many different industries – banking, education, healthcare, finance, business and even environment industry and many other more. According to the surveys, the employment of web developers has increased by 15 percent since 2016 and is expected to increase even 8 percent more by 2029. Their job roles and high demand have significantly increased the average annual salary of front-end developers.
As of October 2021, the annual average income of a front-end engineer in the United States is $119,224 and the average additional cash compensation for a front-end engineer in the US is $11,398.
According to one of the sources, a survey conducted by PayScale.com of front-end engineers showed the following correlation between years of experience and time on the job:
0-5 years: $64,000
5-10 years: $78,000
10-20 years: $87,000
20+ years: $89,000
Conclusion
In conclusion, the front-end engineer is one of the crucial and in high demand jobs of the present times. With the increased number of websites and applications, the demand for the front-end engineers has sky rocketed as well. Although to be a front-end engineer may not always require a college degree and the earnings of a front-end engineers may look attractive, one must also possess the required qualifications to work as one.
Top companies such as Netflix, Amazon, TCS, Deloitte and other world’s leading companies are looking for front-end engineers who can create and design efficient, user-optimized, and interactive user front-end. As a front-end engineer, every day is the road to learning something brand new. From learning different technology updates to new skills every day.