[falcolas]

Here's the thing. Those differences are smaller than you might think.

An experienced frontend developer already knows how to program. They know how to write parallel and asynchronous code. They know how to deal with network instability. They know how to write and send of queries to a datastore. They know how to profile and debug code. They know how to work with a complex, mutable data structure safely. They're used to working inside of sandboxed environments and the need to use APIs.

These are all valuable skills for backend developers too. The flavors of the various low level components... matters less than most think.

[JAlexoid]

There are massive differences between front-end and backend engineers.

Backend engineers deal a lot less with network instability, than frontend engineers. Frontend engineers have multiple ways of dealing with failure. And frontend engineers have a different ways of dealing with parallel and async tasks, than backend engineers.

It's not a massive challenge for a smart person to learn, but we shouldn't pretend that people don't try to apply their previous experiences to future tasks. Which is a cost, when hiring someone without specific domain experience.

[mbrodersen]

Nope not true. I routinely switch between working on Typescript/React web applications and hard core C++ servers, compilers and optimisers. Most of the skills you need are the same.

[danenania]

I think going from backend to frontend can be more of an issue. Being a really good frontend engineer requires a strong sense of ux and design that can be completely at odds with how a backend specialist’s mind works. It’s not impossible, but might be really tough.

Going the other direction, there will be new concepts, more focus on algorithms and scalability, more focus on ops and infrastructure, etc. But it’s all still in the realm of programming.

[falcolas]

In my ideal world, theres a UX designer to take in (and mentor in) that work. Perhaps design is baked into frontend work in smaller companies, but every place I’ve worked has had a specialist devoted to that work.

Even I, an infrastructure monkey, can follow a design doc with explicit values for widths, lengths, and font colors, faces, and sizes.

[danenania]

I think that in practice a frontend engineer is still going to be making a bunch of ux and design-oriented decisions during implementation, since no design ever translates perfectly. Botching these over and over really slows things down (or hurts overall quality if they never get cleaned up) compared to someone with enough design sense to improvise and fill in the gaps.