What is the Difference Between a Front and Back-end Web Developer?

There is a little confusion running around the web as to what the difference between a front-end and back-end web developer. The honest truth is that the difference are both vast and not that great all at the same time – depending on what you look at.

The coding languages used by these two categories of web develop are pretty different. A front-end developer will tend to use HTML, CSS (LESS and SASS are included here) and jQuery or JavaScript. They will focus on the design languages more than the functionality languages. A back-end developer is more likely to make use of PHP or C# or something along those lines. They will focus on languages that deal with functionality and data retrieval and manipulation.

The areas of a project where you will find front-end and back-end developers are at different ends of the spectrum. The back-end web developer is concerned with getting the application or website working and doing what it is meant to be doing – whether that is something as simple as sending forms or as complex as ordering takeout or doing your taxes. The front-end web developer is the person who builds the interface that users of the application or website are confronted with.

Although they will tackle different aspects of the user experience, both front and back-end developers are concerned with providing the shortest logical routes and the best cues to users so that the use of their application is as simple and intuitive as possible. Whether this is in how the ordering process is stepped through or where on a page the “Buy Now” button is placed for best conversion.

In a world where content management systems are the prevailing technology used in website development, both the front-end and back-end web developer has to understand how to construct efficient and logical data structures. If the data structures are not logically linked, then retrieving and organising information from the database becomes difficult and cumbersome. It becomes difficult to create a cohesive flow.

It is inevitable that front-end developers will learn some back-end coding and back-end developers will develop some front-end interfaces. It just makes doing your job easier if you can fulfill, or at least start, the basics of the other role

These are the lucky developers who are able to do front and back-end equally well. They are able to build both the functionality of an application as well as create the user interface. A true full-stack developer is likely to be a developer with many years of experience. It is quite likely that they started in one or the other arena and found that it was necessary, for whatever reason - a skills shortage or just not being good at waiting for things to get done, to learn to operate in the other arena as well. They are becoming more and more common as companies look at increasing their bottom line and find that the ability to hire one developer to do the job of two is far more lucrative.