Hello, my name is Arun and I am a web designer. At least, that's what I tell people I do for a living because it's what most people understand.
The truth is, I am a front end developer.
I get a sense that we likely have different definitions of what it means to be a front end developer. I bet the job description you would write for me varies a ton from what I actually do on a day-to-day basis. You may even expect that I know certain programming languages that I, in fact, do not.
In other words, some of you may not consider me a developer at all. Many hold the opinion that front end development is not development at all. That used to hurt my feelings.
#My Tale of Being a Non-Unicorn
I design for the web and often code those designs into the stuff that people interact with on the front end.
I didn't always write code. In fact, I never thought I would ever write a single line of it when I first started designing sites in 2015.
I found, If my designs were not pixel perfect (remember when that was a thing?) on the screen at the end of the day, I wanted to know why. In the end, that led to learning HTML, which led to CSS, which led to jQuery, which led to JavaScript. I even found myself gaining a basic understanding of PHP solely for the ability to write WordPress filters.
Am I excellent at all of the above? Absolutely not. I definitely get by, but I still find myself navigating Stack Overflow forums for what might be totally obvious answers to other developers.
That's the abridged story of how I became a front end developer. Or front end designer. Or just plain designer. Whatever.
#How I Cope With the Criticism
I tend to deal with the criticism that front end development is not "real" development simply by not worrying about semantics. Honestly, I don't care what people think my job title is. In some circles, I am seen as the designer. In other circles, I'm seen as the developer (for lack of a better word, I guess).
I called myself a web designer at the beginning of this post and that is my default answer for what I do. Some of my work happens to involve designing layouts. Some of it happens to involve coding prototypes. Some of it even requires me to write functions. All those pieces are what work together to develop a website, which is what I'm trying to do at the end of the day regardless of if I am seen as a designer or a developer.
Let's accept that our industry changes rapidly and that includes the scope of the work we do. We need to have an expansive and evolving baseline understanding for what front end development encompasses and that the meaning of *development* may shift from time to time or even project to project.
OK, time to stop writing and start designing. Cheers!
