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Why Frontend job is less desirable as compared to backend among software developers ?

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Mid-Level Software Engineer at Taro Community4 months ago

While talking with developers I heard a lot that most of them prefer to be on backend as compared to frontend?

I know it’s everyone’s choice who love to do what. But still in my experience developers are more biased to be on backend side compared to frontend.

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Discussion

(4 comments)
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    Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
    4 months ago

    The following list is all generalities and will have a ton of exceptions. Take it with a grain of salt:

    1. Frontend overall has less technical complexity as I covered here: "How do you choose an opportunity for technical depth?"
    2. There are more job opportunities for backend compared to frontend as the scope should naturally be larger (again, covered in the link above).
    3. A lot of engineers want to stay in the more "computational" side of things given their introverted nature and don't want to connect with end-users, product, design, UXR and all the other parties strong frontend engineers must collaborate with.
    4. Frontend development (especially web) has a scuffed reputation due to the above. A lot of bootcamps also teach web and churn out mediocre engineers due to low-quality education.

    All that being said, I'm a frontend engineer (Android/mobile) and my career has gone pretty well if I do say so myself. Do whatever you love (and I love frontend/product).

    More thoughts here: "Fear of picking a specialization/niche: Is focusing on front-end okay?"

  • 3
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    Tech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
    4 months ago

    You can also look at this purely from compensation. Some companies (notably LinkedIn) pay infrastructure engineers 10% more than front-end engineers.

  • 1
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    Eng @ Taro
    4 months ago

    A few reasons:

    • Frontend can feel very repetitive when you are just adding buttons or creating another form
    • Frontend can get tedious if you are spending a long time trying to get everything pixel perfect
    • Frontend can be less exciting because it can feel like you have less technical scope

    I would also make sure that you are asking a diverse population of developers and that the sample wasn't biased towards backend engineers.

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    Supportive Tarodactyl
    Taro Community
    4 months ago

    I know of a bootcamper FE who will be staff this year ( pretty good company, non-FAANG) While me with FAANG experience, MS and all is still a Senior. It depends, is the short answer.