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Ask HN: Where are all the senior front end engineers?

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Re: Ask HN: Where are all the senior front end engineers?

#41

Post by steve_adams_86 »

hahaitsfunny wrote: post #40
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is also a limit to what you can do in a browser. While there are limits, the web and browsers are the most exciting they've ever been in my ~15 years of breaking things on the internet. There are so many cool things being built right now. If you've got a varied enough skill set and an appetite for learning, now is an incredible time to be a senior full stack/front end engineer.

I personally disagree. I find the internet and web browser to be the least interesting portion of the computing stack - I get my kicks doing graphics programming and systems programming. The browser and web are the last technologies I want to write code for in my personal time. This is why computing and programming a great though, no matter what your interests are, you can probably find some niche or specialization t…

Certainly if your interests lie elsewhere, there’s not much the web can do about that. I’m more so speaking from the perspective of working on it for over a decade and still wanting to. From my perspective, it feels like things are actually in a better place all the time.

I do like the odd break from the chaos of the browser, I can’t deny that. I totally get why some people can’t stand dealing with it.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the senior front end engineers?

#43

Post by hahaitsfunny »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #41
hahaitsfunny wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally disagree. I find the internet and web browser to be the least interesting portion of the computing stack - I get my kicks doing graphics programming and systems programming. The browser and web are the last technologies I want to write code for in my personal time. This is why computing and programming a great though, no matter what your interests are, you can probably find some niche or specialization t…

Certainly if your interests lie elsewhere, there’s not much the web can do about that. I’m more so speaking from the perspective of working on it for over a decade and still wanting to. From my perspective, it feels like things are actually in a better place all the time. I do like the odd break from the chaos of the browser, I can’t deny that. I totally get why some people can’t stand dealing with it.

I've been working on it professionally for over two and I still abhor it. I think it's much worse than it's ever been.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the senior front end engineers?

#44

Post by steve_adams_86 »

hahaitsfunny wrote: post #43
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly if your interests lie elsewhere, there’s not much the web can do about that. I’m more so speaking from the perspective of working on it for over a decade and still wanting to. From my perspective, it feels like things are actually in a better place all the time. I do like the odd break from the chaos of the browser, I can’t deny that. I totally get why some people can’t stand dealing with it.

I've been working on it professionally for over two and I still abhor it. I think it's much worse than it's ever been.

Haha, I’m a glutton for punishment. The worse it gets the more I want it.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the senior front end engineers?

#45

Post by difu_disciple »

> Most companies don't have interesting FE work

While true, I think it's a bit more nuanced than that.

The most attractive companies have at least 2 of 3 qualities that make front-end work significantly easier:

  - engineering permission to use sensible tooling (typescript, openapi type generation, etc)
  - strong / focused product team (stable roadmap for project requirements)
  - modern ux designers (able to design a component library & can easily communicate changes (Figma))
I've noticed that companies that get this right tend to have healthier work cultures & deliver on expectations without stress.

Companies that don't tend to have front-end work defined by a sense of impermanence, lingering technical debt, and pain.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the senior front end engineers?

#46

Post by moomoo11 »

hahaitsfunny wrote: post #32
cheeaun wrote: post #29

I'm a senior FE engineer in Singapore, been doing FE since 2000, here's what I think: 1. Job descriptions and interviews now are skewed towards "full-stack" or backend. Most interviews are lacking or outdated due to the fast and volatile nature of FE. 2. Literally no career progression if you're specialised in FE. Most BE or "full-stack" devs will be given a chance to become principal engineers, tech leads, engineeri…

Wouldn't "full-stack" engineers be coding the frontend themselves? Sounds like some of this strife and frustration and criticisms being levied has more to do with organization / management vs why there aren't as many senior FE developers as compared to other specializations. I doubt the situation at your organization is the same everywhere.

I’m full stack (infra, backend applications, mobile and web ui applications) engineer and I consider myself proficient in all of those things although my infra knowledge would be weakest since I’ve only been doing that in the last year or so.

IME most full stack people only know backend application development well, and the rest is knowing that the UI applications will make requests to the backend applications. Most self proclaimed full stack folks (again, IME) don’t know JavaScript well enough to build something good, and hardly anyone knows native application development. The only reason they call themselves full stack is they maybe used jquery a decade ago or have pressed F12 to see what happened in the network tab. Again, just my experience.

I take anyone who claims to be full stack at face value. More often than not, they’re not as full stack as they imagine they are. UI development is in my opinion much more involved than backend application development. Most paradigms on the backend have not changed in years, and most problems save database seem to be the same and already solved.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the senior front end engineers?

#47

Post by skydhash »

devKnight wrote: post #22
snapetom wrote: post #17

They have jobs already. I don't know if you're US-based, but our company is having the same issue with off shore devs. I've been banging my head for the past few weeks trying to get our management team to understand off shoring is by no means an easy solution any more. We've traditionally hired off shore with good success, and management thinks it's still easy. However, our recruiters have been fairly quiet these pas…

Being an offshore dev, I can say that its hard finding people that are hiring, its a marketplace issue. There's a limited number of people with good foreign language skills. So any good Seniors with good English are all being scooped up as well.

I second this. Training people is even harder, because you have to train their English and teach them the work culture to avoid conflicts.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the senior front end engineers?

#48

Post by muzani »

cheeaun wrote: post #29

I'm a senior FE engineer in Singapore, been doing FE since 2000, here's what I think: 1. Job descriptions and interviews now are skewed towards "full-stack" or backend. Most interviews are lacking or outdated due to the fast and volatile nature of FE. 2. Literally no career progression if you're specialised in FE. Most BE or "full-stack" devs will be given a chance to become principal engineers, tech leads, engineeri…

Do drop me an email if you want some interesting work. We're hiring lots of senior FE in Southeast Asia, and we involve the engineers in design/product meetings :)

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the senior front end engineers?

#49

Post by Zeff84 »

I'm surprised at some of the responses suggesting senior FE engineers are in demand, because I've noticed that most job postings these days seem to be full stack. My current job is full stack, but like some others have said, the focus seems to be on the back end.

I think it doesn't help that a lot of places follow FAANG interview style and go for algo/data structures and system design questions.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the senior front end engineers?

#50

Post by gaws »

snapetom wrote: post #17

They have jobs already. I don't know if you're US-based, but our company is having the same issue with off shore devs. I've been banging my head for the past few weeks trying to get our management team to understand off shoring is by no means an easy solution any more. We've traditionally hired off shore with good success, and management thinks it's still easy. However, our recruiters have been fairly quiet these pas…

> We've traditionally hired off shore with good success, and management thinks it's still easy.

They'll plug their ears and bury their heads in the sand, all to avoid hearing anything that could complicate their bonus/bottom lines.

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