How to Become a Front End Developer in 2023: Learn Guide

A front-end developer links the design world with the latest technology. A front-end developer's role is to ensure users can access the website without hassle. A front-end developer's roles and responsibilities depend upon organizations and the candidate's employment position in a front end development agency. Some of the common duties are mentioned below:

• Determining Overall Structure and Design of Web Pages:  A front-end developer determines the website's structure and design according to the end user's requirements to provide a hassle-free experience. An ideal front-end web application structure should have an SEO (Search Engine Optimized) header, handy navigation bars, clear fonts, and the main content section strategically placed to gather maximum user attention. The designer keeps all these pointers in mind while designing the website.
   
• Incorporating Features to enhance UX (User Experience): Front-End Developers improve the front-end UX by adding real-time intuitive features, making it attractive to increase customer satisfaction and ultimately edge over competitors. Features such as the progress of a customer journey on Google Maps with real-time Location or the pop-up social media (like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) update notifications are all incorporated by front-end developers.
   
• Maintaining Balance: Functionality and Aesthetics Design are equally important as they are crucial UX dynamics elements connecting the end-user and the product. Striking a balance between the functionalities added to a website and the aesthetics with which all these are represented is an important responsibility of a front-end developer.
   
• Smart Phone Suitable Optimization: Developing a responsive web design for a smartphone is the front-end developer's primary and most important responsibility in front end development jobs. Mobile accounts for approximately half of the web traffic worldwide, as per reports by Statista. In Q2 2022, mobile devices (excluding tablets) generated approximately 58.99% of global website traffic, implying that a website not optimized for smartphones will lose a majority chunk of online traffic.
   
• Web Pages Maximum Optimization:  Front-End Developers work to create a performance-optimized website using advanced web development tools and the best front-end performance optimization techniques focusing on Google Page Speed, Image Compression, Web Browser Prefixes, HTML5 Templates, and Preprocessors. The developers aim to optimize the web pages to attain maximum speed and scalability.

Front-End Development is a dynamic field based upon numerous factors such as trends, customer preferences and prevalent industry standards. As such, the career path is not fixed for particular degrees. However, as per industry knowledge, if a candidate has a Bachelor's/Master's Degree in Computer Science (CS), Designing/Graphics field, they are more likely to succeed in this career path. Candidates should pursue online courses and certifications to improve their skills and chances of getting selected by potential employers. 

Some of the best front end web development courses/certifications are:

• The Complete Web Developer Course 2.0
• Front-End Web Development with React
• The Complete Front-End Development
• Front-End JavaScript Frameworks: Angular
• The Complete Front-End Development - Computer Science
• Meta Front-End Developer Professional Certificate
• Professional Certificate in Front-End Web Developer

Apart from this, the candidates should also be well versed with concepts such as

• HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Basic Coding in popular languages like Python, C++ and JAVA.
• Command Line & Version Control
• Application Program Interfaces (APIs)

Candidates can also pursue the related front end development courses below to improve their skills in the fields mentioned above.

• CSS Animation with Transition and Transform
• Asp.Net Webforms from Scratch for Beginners
• Getting Started with Data Visualization Using D3JS
• HTML5 and CSS Fundamentals
• Introduction to Cloud Development with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript
• CSS Basics
• Learn React Native

Here is a list of the essential soft skills one must have to become a front-end developer:

• Creative Mindset: A Front-End Web Developer plays an important role in the production and implementation of a website; thus, a creative mindset is required to achieve the vision provided by UI/UX or Web Designers. Professionals also need this skill to find creative solutions in different working processes.
• Effective Communication Skills: Communication (both verbal and written) skills are needed and highly valued because front-end developers work in a team. They often must cooperate with the back-end developers, product managers and other employees to perform responsibilities effectively.
• Problem-Solving Skills: Front-End Developers are frequently responsible for resolving technical issues. Thus, it implies that the candidate should have a problem-solving mindset and be accustomed to working under pressure. 

Most hiring managers look for certain skills in front-end developers. If you do not have any prior experience in this field, still, nothing can hold you back from pursuing a career in this domain. To become a front-end specialist, you need a specific set of technical skills that can be developed and learned through various courses, these are -

• HTML & CSS: CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the most fundamental building block for creating web pages. CSS is inherently the language used to present the HTML document. On the other hand, CSS creates the page's layout, fonts, color, and style. Both of these languages are required to be able to work as a front-end developer.
• JavaScript and JavaScript Frameworks: The next skill necessary to get a front-end developer job is JavaScript. JavaScript helps to add various functionalities to the website to make it more intuitive and easy to use. AngularJS, Ember, Backbone, and ReactJS are the JavaScript frameworks that help to provide ready-made structures to the basic code. The advantage of having these skills is the code's fast and easy creation and development. JavaScript frameworks enrich candidates' portfolios and show their skills and abilities in this field.
• Other Front-End Frameworks and Libraries: Understanding which framework is ideal for your developing application is critical. While some JavaScript frameworks are excellent for creating complicated user interfaces, others are superior for displaying highly optimized, simple website content such as paragraphs of text and photos. Knowing varied frameworks and libraries like the Bootstrap UI framework and JavaScript frameworks like Angular and learning to combine these helps a candidate be a productive member of the entire organization's front-end team. 
• Experience with CSS Preprocessors, RESTful Services and APIs: The CSS Preprocessor is a tool useful for boosting effectiveness and speeding up the coding, turning the code into a well-formatted and user-friendly browser before publishing it on the website. RESTful and API services are interrelated, both of which are necessary to simplify the functionality of an organization's web page. These skills help a candidate's front-end developer resumes correspond to the recruiter's requirements
• Testing & Debugging: A front-end developer must be able to test and debug code. Programs like Mocha and Jasmine are designed to make the testing process faster and easier for developers. Testing Skills and Knowledge are among the basic skill sets for the front-end developer.
• Web Performance and Automation: Automation helps contribute towards the website's overall efficiency. Image Optimization, CSS and JS Minification, and other web performance tasks are tasks that a front-end developer should be capable of automating with tools such as Grunt and Gulp. 

Do front end developers get paid well? This must now be the question going on your mind having read the articles this far. Not only Front-End Developers but many job opportunities are available for a professional with similar skillsets and qualifications. Front End Developer salary ranges around $102,770 yearly, as per indeed.com. Below are some of the most popular roles and their average annual salaries.

 (Note: Salaries are dynamic and taken from Indeed.com and are subject to changes without any notifications)