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by danenania 1687 days ago
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.
1 comments
falcolas 1687 days ago
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.

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danenania 1687 days ago
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.
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