When I was hiring for a new startup I asked my old boss how to hire frontend people because he was exceptional at both and had built great teams which were frontend focused.
He told me don’t fall into the trap of hiring frontend skills only. Hire software engineers who happen to really know JavaScript.
This has served me really well. Every aspect of applications that we build has needs to structure code, to collaborate in teams, to build abstraction, to ship with an acceptable level of brokenness, and to have mechanisms for continuous improvement.
I’ve worked in several frontend and backend codebases and they all had aspects of difficulty and toil. However talking to lots of people about this I find that certain parts of the stack work better for your personality and talents.
I used to think of frontend as lessor because the hard things seemed to be on the backend. But then I met high caliber JavaScript engineers.
It is sort of like abstract art. Great artists have a solid foundation and then choose their own path.
It is good to get a feel for both and see what resonates with you. Also spending time on the backend can give you empathy to make you better at the frontend; and vice versa.
He told me don’t fall into the trap of hiring frontend skills only. Hire software engineers who happen to really know JavaScript.
This has served me really well. Every aspect of applications that we build has needs to structure code, to collaborate in teams, to build abstraction, to ship with an acceptable level of brokenness, and to have mechanisms for continuous improvement.
I’ve worked in several frontend and backend codebases and they all had aspects of difficulty and toil. However talking to lots of people about this I find that certain parts of the stack work better for your personality and talents.
I used to think of frontend as lessor because the hard things seemed to be on the backend. But then I met high caliber JavaScript engineers.
It is sort of like abstract art. Great artists have a solid foundation and then choose their own path.
It is good to get a feel for both and see what resonates with you. Also spending time on the backend can give you empathy to make you better at the frontend; and vice versa.