Career prospect after working as pure frontend engineers

Posted by YareSekiro@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 11 comments

So I just got a pretty good offer for a FE role that pays 20% more at the same level, is a larger company that should be much closer to a liquidation event and also seem to have better benefits. If it's just comps I would be changing my job without much hesitation.

There is a question though that the new role is pure FE with limited if any opportunity to work with the BE. I am currently working with MERN stack that spends a fair bit of time designing APIs, database models and backend related stuff that might not be possible in the new role.

Did any of you have difficulties jumping to full-stack or other roles because you were working as a pure FE engineer especially in the post-covid labor market?

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ExperiencedDevs-ModTeam@reddit

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Pozeidan@reddit

You're not using the experience you have acquired already. Of course you'll get rusty but it comes back quick. Over my career I've switched multiple times between pure front-end, full stack and pure back-end.

I was hired for a pure front-end role and right now I do 90% back-end because there's just not enough work in the UI and it's very data-driven. The only way I can move up the ladder is doing what I am doing now.

In other words even with a pure UI role it can change depending on the needs of the company.

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Ok-Letterhead3405@reddit

It's possible, it's just way less common, and many of the opportunities end up being at least partially one of those "in the right place, at the right time" situations.

I'd love to eventually be a design system lead. But, yeah. There's not as many of those jobs going around. I have been in multiple companies where frontend had a lead dev, and even frontend managers. They do exist. I'm supposedly staff. Kinda inflated, but in my job search, there were some places really looking for actual staff-level frontend devs.

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Ok-Letterhead3405@reddit

If you're not interested in staying pure frontend, then it might be better to stay full-stack. It depends. I'd love to always be pure frontend. The jobs are there, but only if you're experienced and pretty good, and frontend still is (nowadays) very technical work, unless you're at some small marketing place, I guess.

Since I haven't been full-stack in years, I don't think I'd have an easy time of switching, though that was very different a few years ago. If I were to decide to make that switch today, I'd study up and get at least one project under my belt to show prospective employers.

But hey, if you guys don't take pure frontend roles out of concern that you won't be able to go back? More of the work I like to do, I guess.

Another thing, as a frontend dev who loves frontend, the worst thing for me is working with a person who's basically a JS framework engineer who hates being frontend, or just really isn't into the design aspect of it, doesn't care about HTML semantics, doesn't feel accessibility is worth the effort, only learns CSS flexbox (sorta) and uses it for all layout work. Managers tend to like these types better (in my experience, there's a bias against frontend that isn't always even intended, but it's there) while they just make me miserable and my job harder.

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greensodacan@reddit

It very much depends on the company. If they're keeping up with modern tooling, you'll have more opportunities to go full stack because that's where the field has progressed. If you hear things like, "Stick to the standard", "[...] every shiny new thing", "Embrace the platform", it means the front-end culture there will no support your growth.

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jlbnv@reddit

I transitioned back to a full-stack role after doing FE for 2 years. Some luck was definitely involved as the recruiter reached out to me, but I was upfront during the interview that my expertise lies with the front end and I would need to catch up on the back end after not touching it for a while, though I'm eager to learn. It's definitely a risk, especially with how uncertain the market is, but it's not impossible to transition back if you would want to in the future.

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Decent_Perception676@reddit

Totally depends on what you make of it. If “frontend engineering” is just writing react, html and css, then yeah you’re reducing the number of stacks you’re touching. But FE can also be a very wide, cross-functional role in which you do things like advocate for UI/UX, rapid prototype, accessibility, product design and product management, engaging with leadership. Definitely more opportunity for that sort of “not exactly coding” engineering work when you’re further up the ladder.

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