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Frontend devs: how interested are you in backend APIs and services?

Peter Jausovec on March 28, 2019

Only yesterday I noticed that ReactRally CFP is open and that it closes in a couple of days. 🐙 React Rally 🤖 ...
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lennythedev profile image
Lenmor Ld • Edited

I think it would be very useful for frontend devs to at least understand some of the backend workings, like setting up and troubleshooting frontend tooling (webpack, jest, etc) in Docker.

I also started my career on Ops/Cloud/Network side, I identify more as fullstack and I love Node and React equally, so I might be biased on this 😊

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John Vorwald

I've been primarily front end through my career. It's always interested me to know more about the backend. I have tried to do little toy projects to learn, especially after our ops and backend were particularly guarded/off limits (for a time). Nothing going to get me more curious than telling me I shouldn't worry about them, someone else can do it for me...

That's something that's passed for me thankfully, and there's more willingness to let devs poke around and work together (Yay teamwork!) where we didn't used to. I'm still not even remotely close to being an expert, but I at least don't feel like a fish out of water when dealing with some of our ops or backend.

Long story short: yes, I'm interested and think it's good to know even a little something.

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sintomaticonegativo profile image
Gianluca Tuscano

I'm a frontend developer, but this has come after my personal interest for DevOps operation, for me frontend developer is my job and i like it so much, but i love to deploy application, play with kubernetes and docker, mainly because i'm also a webmaster and i'm in love with the sysadmin/DevOps from before i've started frontend dev.

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Xing Wang

Yes, for front end engineers, it is always helpful to know what the technology does. So yes, you don't have to be an expert in that field, but a little bit of understanding helps a lot.

This is actually true for many disciplines. It is often helpful for Devs to understand testor's job or product manager's job, even to understand the process, tool and pains of customer support.

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Peter Jausovec

I agree - having your expertise in your field is good, but having a general knowledge and understanding of things you depend on is always helpful!

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Peter Jausovec

Thanks all for your comments! I submitted the proposal and we shall see what happens :)