You’ll be working closely with designers, back-end developers, and project managers to make sure the final product meets the client’s needs and provides the best possible experience for the end-users. As a frontend developer, you should understand how the command line works because it allows you to access operating system functions through a text interface. Many professionals prefer CLIs for their speed and performance when installing libraries and frameworks. However, with more experience, opportunities should present themselves to progress to more senior-level positions. In a senior front-end developer role, you will potentially lead your own team, share knowledge with junior developers, and contribute to the planning and development of advanced coding projects. Although front-end web developers typically hold a bachelor’s degree, you can enter the field without one.
- This will help you learn the concepts thoroughly (and not just on the surface).
- HTML provides structure to the content appearing on a website, such as images, text, or videos.
- What’s important is to practice as much you can while you are learning i.e. by building as many projects as you can.
Fortunately, there are numerous online resources available to assist you in learning and practicing them. If your web development isn’t functional across the full range of browsers that are available today, you will miss out on an entire category of potential web users. While browsers are fairly consistent, their differences can be significant, including in terms of coding interpretation. A front end web developer must understand these differences and incorporate them into their code. HTML is frequently the first language that developers learn, and it is essential for front-end development work. Begin with freeCodeCamp’s Responsive Web Design certification and Beau Carnes’ brand new full HTML course.
What is a Front-End Developer?
Below, we’ll cover some of the more common additional skills these professionals rely on in their work. A career as a front-end web developer can flex your creativity and problem-solving skills. As a field that is constantly evolving to incorporate new technology, front-end development can reward those who like to learn new things and face challenges. The next few sections outline some of the most prominent skills for front-end developers.
This figure includes an average annual salary of $83,119 and a reported additional pay of $7,226. Additional pay insights may include profit-sharing, commissions, or bonuses. Factors like education level, experience, and certifications may affect salary range. And front-end developers must be lifelong learners, because websites are evolving and expectations for responsiveness, accessibility, and appearance are always changing.
Learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
HTML provides structure for web content, whereas CSS provides instructions to style and lay out that content. See Introduction to HTML and CSS first steps for essential starter information. Visit Mozilla Corporation’s not-for-profit parent, the Mozilla Foundation.Portions of this content are ©1998–2024 by individual mozilla.org contributors.
Being a front-end developer can mean being able to work for companies across the country—or even the globe—from the comfort of your home. Don’t hesitate to enroll in the Meta Front-End Developer Professional Certificate to gain the skills needed for this career path. HTTP is the fundamental Internet protocol for fetching documents, stylesheets, scripts, images, videos, fonts, and other resources over the Web — and for sending data back to Web servers. This roadmap contains everything that you might encounter while working as a Frontend Developer.
Tools used for front-end development
As with all aspects of web development, becoming a front end developer requires you to learn and hone your skills. Enrolling in a San Francisco web developer bootcamp is a great way to get started. Responsive design changes a website’s layout depending on the device and screen size, and occasionally requiring changes to the content and functionality based on those factors. Most front end developers use CSS preprocessors to add functionality to CSS coding, making it more scalable and easier to interact with. Prior to publishing the code on your website, CSS preprocessors transition it into well-formatted CSS that works across a variety of browsers, the most in-demand being LESS and SASS. HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the backbone of any website development process, without which a web page does not exist.
Set aside some time each week or day to learn, do your best to stick to it, and then rejoice. We’ve also learned that becoming a front-end developer without a degree is not only possible, but also attainable. This will give you some experience to help you learn how companies hire and what it takes to be hired. Front-end developers should also have good attention to detail and be meticulous in all aspects of their work. They must have a keen eye and be able to catch small errors or inconsistencies when creating web pages. Here’s are some tips that’ll help you level up your developer portfolio to really make it stand out.
Front End Development: Commonly Used Programming Languages
When coding, you’ll frequently want to trace your coding history and other information. Another way to demonstrate your technical prowess to employers and stand out amongst other candidates is by earning certifications. You can also earn front-end web development certifications on Coursera, such as the Meta Front End Developer Professional Certification.
There are also have some style libraries that make styling your web pages simple, such as Bootstrap, Sass/Scss, Tailwind, and so on. Version control makes this much easier because it allows you and your team to efficiently communicate and manage (track) all changes made to the source code. It also gives you information such as who made the changes and what changes were made. This will help you grow your skills as a front-end developer, and you can always stay in the loop by joining and interacting with active developer communities. There are many communities out there, such as the freeCodeCamp developer community and all of the other local communities that surround everyone of us including you. It is important to understand that you do not need to know everything before working as a front-end developer, but the fundamentals, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, are always essential.
You may not need everything listed on this roadmap to get into the industry; every job is different and most of the jobs will require a subset of the items on the roadmap. However, knowing what you don’t know is as important as knowing things, so you can use this roadmap to get an idea of what you are missing as well. Here’s a fun course that will help you build your own portfolio site with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript – so you can practice those web dev skills. Building your portfolio is an easy way to demonstrate your expertise as a front-end developer.
If you’re just starting out as a front-end developer, you don’t have to have every piece of your portfolio be a client project. As your career progresses, you will be able to highlight more projects on which you have worked. HTML is a markup language, CSS is a style sheet, and then we have JavaScript, the third building block. JavaScript is a programming language that allows you to make your web pages more interactive. This can include animations, dynamic styling, effects/behaviors when buttons are clicked, game motion, and so on. They are the building blocks for web and app development, so you must learn if you want to get into web dev.
Now, let’s look at some of the major requirements/skills required before you can call yourself a frontend developer. In a professional setting or standard company, there is usually a UI/UX designer(s) who designs how the interface will look and what they want the user’s experience to be. Finally, full-stack developers are those who understand both frontend courses front-end and back-end development, allowing them to start and finish a project on their own. Front-end development is concerned with the front end of any web application, as the name implies. This is what the user sees and interacts with by performing operations such as clicking a button, scrolling through a page, filling out a form, and so on.