Do you love computers? How about the web? Are you passionate about making sure people who use the things you make have the best experience possible? You just might be a Front End Developer in the making.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts 13% job growth for Front End Developers over the next eight years. Plus, the pay can be lucrative. According to Glassdoor, Junior Front End Developers make an average of $63,000 a year. And that’s just the starting salary. The average overall salary for Front End Developers is over $76,000, with top earners making over $130,000 a year.
Daily Life as a Junior Front End Developer
Junior Front End Developers are brand new to working as coders, so a lot of the daily work revolves around small tasks that teach best-practices. The point of the work is not necessarily to do it as fast as possible, but to build a foundation.
Usually the first task at a new company for a Junior Front End Developer is to execute a small tweak in the user interface (UI) of the product. The fix may be as simple as changing some CSS code, but the purpose of it is to help the new developer get comfortable with the pipeline.
Junior Front End Developers spend a lot of their time working (maybe even pair programming) with more experienced Front End Developers and UX Designers. As time goes on, they will work more and more independently.
Normal projects for a Junior Front End Developer include:
- Implementing UI mocks
- Styling UI components
- Working with APIs
- Creating automated tests for the UI
- Adding usability features, such as ADA compliance
Junior Front End Developers should have a solid understanding of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, the DOM, popular web frameworks (like React), and how to use APIs.
Your Path to Junior Front End Development
At Udacity, we believe that anyone, no matter their circumstances, can change their life.
Tony Boswell is a Front End Web Developer Nanodegree holder who received a scholarship for the program from Google in 2019. For the 14 years prior to earning his Nanodegree, Tony worked as a trucker. Determined to become a techie, Tony applied to as many places as he could, facing many rejections.
Finally, the right place came along and now Tony happily works as a web developer.
Tony’s advice? “If you think coding can’t change your life…boy do I have a story to tell you!!”
No matter where you are in life, if learning to code and changing your career is something you would like to do, you can do it. Get started today by enrolling in Udacity’s Front End Web Developer Nanodegree program. In as little as four months, you can change your career and have a story just as inspirational as Tony’s.
