I have been a Front End Developer for 4 years. Prior to switching careers 4 years ago I had no development experience at all.
When I was hired for my first job I literally only knew HTML and vanilla CSS. No JS, no Sass, no Git, never worked in a VM, never worked with a CMS,nothing.
Over the years I've gotten really good at CSS/Sass, care deeply about accessibility, can pick up just about any template language, and can do a fair amount of interactive JS (DOM manipulation). I've built websites large and small and worked on a variety of teams with a variety of people.
I've been doing this for 4 years and to be honest most days I still use mostly HTML and CSS to build most things.
But more and more I'm feeling the world closing in around me. I feel like job descriptions tell me that unless I can build the same component that I could easily build with HTML and CSS with React or Vue then I'm useless and obsolete.
And I'm starting to believe it and feel it. I am working to improve my JS skills, but it never feels good enough or fast enough. I try to have a life outside of work so I'm not always coding or doing a bunch of side projects. Admitting that I'm not working on a side project at all times makes me feel like I'll be judged. Deemed "not a true developer" because I don't want to code 24/7 and have other hobbies.
I just feel like my confidence is totally drained and I'm teetering on burnout.
Do any other Front End Developer feel this way?
Top comments (2)
i can relate to that, frontend development has lost its innocence. now the best is to be full stack which is much hardes since it requires "real" programming and a lot of knowledge of various things (databases, authentication...). browsers also have evolved and the days of fixing little cross-browser bugs are gone. now if sth is off between browsers or devices it is usually a complicated thing to fix.
i have started web dev 15 years ago and i can tell you: i am struggeling as well. i am a mum and simple don't have the time anymore coding all weekend and learning new stuff, even if i wanted to. the good thing though: getting to know the basic grip of react is doable and es6 is actually pretty neat once you try it.
don't give up and don't be intimidated by the buff boys out there. find your niche because web dev needs to be diverse. it should not be just a 20-something-nerd-bro-thing.
I'm a full stack/team lead/qa manager/other things they won't bother to hire for kinda developer. And yes, I feel this too, however knowing React doesn't make you a good front-end developer. Knowing HTML, the DOM, and CSS makes you a good developer with a fundamental understanding of what React is doing under the hood.