With great power comes great responsibility (and a lot more debugging).

How the “Web Developer” job got broken

Ah, the Web Developer — once a mystical creature, rare and revered. Pioneers in making digital dreams and ideas come true while turning coffee into code.

Once hailed as modern-day wizards, web developers were at the vanguard of the internet era, crafting websites and applications that shaped the digital world. But, as in all great tales, the role of the web developer has evolved, or devolved (depending on who you ask), into something quite… different.

Let’s embark on a whimsical journey through the annals of web development history and witness how this noble profession got tangled in its own web.

Chapter 1: The Dawn of the Digital Pioneers

In the beginning (the 1990s, not 4004 BC), web developers were like mystical unicorns, rare and revered. Armed with just HTML and a dream, these pioneers were building the digital frontier one static webpage at a time. A bit of HTML here, a sprinkle of CGI scripts there, and voilà, a website is born!

By that time, JavaScript was a mere toddler, and CSS was just a twinkle in a W3C member’s eye. It was a simpler time when the title ‘Web Developer’ meant you were the architect, the builder, and the interior designer of the web world.

Chapter 2: Spaghetti Code and Server-Side Shenanigans

Enter the 2000s, and the plot thickens. The internet decided it wanted to grow up and get sophisticated. PHP came strutting in like it owned the place, ASP.NET was flexing its Microsoft muscles, and Ruby on Rails was, well, on rails.

This was the era of the monoliths —powered by server-side languages and frameworks that would let you handle everything from one massive codebase. It was like building a Swiss Army knife, but every tool was a different programming language.

Ah, the good old days where web pages were like slow-cooking stews — taking their sweet time to get ready.

Chapter 3: The Javascript Revolution

Initially it was just a scripting language to make web pages interactive, but just when server-side languages were starting to get comfy, JavaScript woke up and decided to crash the party — Oh, and it wanted chaos!

It was no longer content being the sidekick; Javascript wanted to be the superhero himself. Dynamic web pages were now all the rage, and server-side rendering started to share the spotlight with client-side magic.

Web developers now had to juggle server logic and browser sorcery — because why make life easy? Javascript started doing things on the client side that we never thought possible. Web pages became more like microwave meals — faster, snazzier, but sometimes just as unsatisfying.

At the end of the day, web developers were no longer just builders; they were now magicians, pulling interactive rabbits out of hats. But with great power comes great responsibility (and a lot more debugging).

Chapter 4: The Framework Frenzy

Enter the era of frameworks and libraries — a time when the term ‘JavaScript fatigue’ hadn’t yet been coined. Frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue.js started popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm.

Web developers not only had to be fluent in multiple languages but also needed to keep up with the Kardashian-level drama of the JavaScript framework world — revamping their entire arsenal every week, or so it felt.

A rare image of Web Developers trying to keep themselves up-to-date with new technologies.

Remember when you had to rebuild your project because Angular 2 came out? Yeah, good times.

Chapter 5: The Rise of the Full-Stack Unicorns

As technology evolved, so did expectations. Employers started seeking the legendary ‘full-stack developer’ — a magical creature capable of mastering both front-end and back-end development while juggling fire and riding a unicycle.

These jacks-of-all-trades were expected to know everything from database management to pixel-perfect design. It’s like expecting a chef to grow their own vegetables, raise their own livestock, cook the meal, and then do the dishes.

Possible? Yes. Sustainable? Jury’s still out, let’s move on.

Chapter 6: The Great Divide

Realizing that expecting one person to do everything was, well, a bit much, the industry began to split roles. We saw the emergence of front-end developers, back-end developers, database engineers, UX/UI designers, and more.

Each role became a deep dive into its own niche, turning the generalist developer into an endangered species. It was like watching a group of friends drift apart after high school, each finding their own path.

Developer at a crossroads trying to decide his path

We now live in the age of specialization.

• Front-end Developers: Those who would rather climb Mount Everest than touch a SQL database.
• Back-end Developers: Those who think ‘design’ is choosing between light and dark mode.
• Database Engineers: Those speaking fluent SQL and that proactively talk about joining tables just as casually as discussing weekend plans. Shrouded in the mystery of complex queries, and optimizations like they’re plotting to take over the digital world.
• QA Engineers: The unsung heroes with capes hidden underneath their desks. With a hawk’s eye for bugs and an unwavering dedication to ruining a developer’s day. Always remembering others that ‘It works on my machine’ is not a valid testing protocol.
• UI/UX Designers: The self-proclaimed Picassos of pixels, turning wireframes into digital Mona Lisas and obsessing over the perfect shade of blue. They can spot a misaligned pixel from a mile away and often engage in philosophical debates over merits of serif versus sans-serif.
• And let’s not forget the DevOps team: The equivalent of the cool kids with leather jackets from an 80s movie, casually dropping words like Docker and Kubernetes in every sentence. Everyone has once heard of them through a friend of a friend who knows someone who once attended a tech conference

Wait wait wait, what’s a “DevOps”?

Well, the Web Developer job is not finished until you deploy, monitor, and maintain your codebase right? Right?

Think of your codebase as a puppy, only the puppy has suicidal tendencies, and needs to be walked & watched 24/7; otherwise, it throws itself under a bus. That’s your codebase.

The DevOps Engineer? He is looking after your puppy for you. You’re welcome.

Chapter 7: The Future?

As we stand here in the modern era, web development is an ever-evolving beast, a chameleon that changes colors faster than it can be defined.

From the days of solitary HTML coding to the current multiverse of skills and specializations, the journey has been, let’s say, ‘interesting.’

Along the way, we’ve navigated the monolithic behemoths, danced with JavaScript frameworks, and flirted with full-stack fantasies. It’s been a wild ride, with more plot twists than a telenovela.

But fear not, dear web developers, for in this chaos lies the beauty of our craft — the ability to continuously learn, grow, adapt, and to carve out our niches, allowing us to become masters of our domains, even if that domain seems to be constantly shifting beneath our feet.

What’s the moral of this story?

So, all of this to say that, the web developer’s job got broken in the sense that it fragmented into a myriad of specialized roles, each with its own set of challenges and headaches.

So here’s to you, web developers — the architects of the digital world, navigating the chaos with a smirk and a cup of coffee.

Keep on coding (and learning… and adapting… and occasionally crying into your keyboard). Cheers! 🥂

Thanks for reading and happy coding!