As you’re putting together your website, you might hear about different people that you need to hire either as freelancers and temporary workers or as permanent parts of your team. Two of the people you might hear about are front-end developers and back-end developers. But what do these people actually do? Well, it’s all about the way that your website is designed and the way that it continues to function.

What is Front End Development?

Front-end development is responsible for everything that people can see on your website. So, the coding that goes into creating the visual elements is all done by a front-end developer who wants to make sure that your users have a great experience. They’re responsible for debugging to get rid of problems, but also the design of the website. So if you want to have a specific look, then the front-end developer is the one that you need to talk to. They’ll make sure that you get the right color scheme and fonts and the right overall layout.

Because they’re responsible for all of these visual elements, your front-end developer needs to understand interactive features as well as the programming required to create responsiveness in your website. They need to know how to handle that debugging and also any kind of testing to make sure that the website works and that it’s suitable for the user. They may need to make changes throughout the process to fit your changing vision or to improve on things that the user needs.

While there are several different programming languages out there, the ones that a front-end programmer should know are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They should be spending a reasonable amount of time keeping up to date on the latest versions of each of these, so the websites they create for you will continue to function long term as platforms get rid of certain features.

What is Back End Development?

So, if the front-end developers are responsible for everything that users see, what do back-end developers do? This type of development is actually all about the things that happen behind the scenes. It involves server integration and making sure that the databases and applications are able to communicate. Things that no one is really going to see are going to be handled in this way, and they don’t necessarily need to be pretty. They need to be capable of doing the work.

These individuals are responsible for creating the basics of the web page or any applications that you need. They don’t do all the fine-tuning and refinement, but they are going to make sure that you have a website that works in general. Then they make sure that it continues to work and change or improve any of those back-end processes as needed to make sure that you’re on the right page and your users are getting all of the functions that they need.

Back-end developers need to know database management and frameworks as well as things like security and accessibility. But they’re still going to need those programming skills that front-end developers need as well. That doesn’t mean they need the same languages, though. In fact, back-end developers generally need Java, PHP, and Python in order to do their jobs.

Understanding the Differences

In general, a back-end developer is building the website. The front-end developer makes it look good. Or, you could look at it like building a house. The back-end developer is the contractor that puts the house together. The front-end developer is the interior designer who makes everything look great when it’s done. So, both of these positions are important, and they both build off one another.

You can’t have a good website without both a quality front-end and back-end developer working with you (or several). Also, it’s good if the two can communicate well and achieve the goals that you set to make sure that the end result, your website, and user experience, are seamless and of high quality. The better they manage this, the better your website is going to fare.

Keep in mind that there are some features of front-end development that your back-end developer needs to understand in order to do their job well. And there are some features of back-end development that your front-end developer needs to understand in order to do their job well. If they’re each operating in only their own area, you could end up suffering in the long run (and so will your users and customers).

You could also choose to employ a full-stack developer who actually has more robust knowledge and a foundation on both sides of this process and can take care of most needs in both front-end and back-end development. But keep in mind that these individuals may not be as specialized in either area. As a generalist, their job is to make sure that all of the general parts of both processes are covered, but you may still need to get a specialist in each if you want more specialized features.

Why it Matters

Having good cohesion between the front end and back end of your website means that users will be able to get what they expect out of the process. If they can’t use your website easily or can’t find the things that they want easily, then they are going to go somewhere else to get that information. That’s definitely not going to help you and could lose you a lot of customers.

By making sure that your entire team works together and making sure that you have both front-end and back-end development, you’ll be able to get a good foundation right from the start. Plus, you can lay out exactly what it is that you’re looking for and make sure that all of your developers (on both sides of this process) are working to create that style and design for you.

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