why is there a demand for web developers?

[washburn]

everywhere i hear that there is a demand for web developers and that this trend is increasing, yet im also hearing that its tough landing a job since most positions require couple of years minimum experience

also, if there is a demand, what is it due to? is there a need for more and more sophisticated websites ie with complex made functionality, and who wants these websites? isn’t there enough firms out there making such websites already? also isn’t wordpress and wix good enough for most peoples needs?

 

[2984839]

Wordpress and Wix are vulnerability-riddled resource pigs. For a personal site or blog, sure. For a small business that has no money at all to spend on a developer, it's better than nothing. But they will always be better off having a professional web developer handle their website. Not only does it relieve them of the time burden, but a skilled dev will also be able to build a site that is faster, more flexible, and more secure than a Wordpress or Wix kludgefest.

 

[Bearygoodfries1]

Wordpress and Wix are vulnerability-riddled resource pigs. For a personal site or blog, sure. For a small business that has no money at all to spend on a developer, it's better than nothing. But they will always be better off having a professional web developer handle their website. Not only does it relieve them of the time burden, but a skilled dev will also be able to build a site that is faster, more flexible, and more secure than a Wordpress or Wix kludgefest.

Interesting.

I decided to learn to code for better job prospects, but I totally demotivated myself thinking what @washburn was saying. “Why would they hire me when they can just use Squarespace?”

I feel better after reading your response, thought I still feel a bit down.

 

[mctrials23]

Custom functionality will always (well at least for now) require a developer to implement it. Wordpress can look lovely and perform perfectly for high traffic sites but the chances that someone bought a template, changed the colours and slapped it online is slim. Most sites built on wordpress are customised, plenty have completely custom coded functionality and many are managed by a developer.

 

[D.T.]

It really depends what you mean by "web developer" and the nature of the jobs/positions.

Web doesn't necessarily mean a public facing, content delivery site (with maybe a CMS and/or simple communication/content posting features).

I use web based tech to delivery huge, enterprise class, mission critical systems for the Feds, networks of clinical researchers, etc. A vast majority of internal operational support systems use the web as a delivery mechanism, though in my examples, it's all on secure, private networks. HR systems, performance management, collaboration, analytics in research, medicine, manufacturing, training, education, you name it.

 

[washburn]

It really depends what you mean by "web developer" and the nature of the jobs/positions.

Web doesn't necessarily mean a public facing, content delivery site (with maybe a CMS and/or simple communication/content posting features).

I use web based tech to delivery huge, enterprise class, mission critical systems for the Feds, networks of clinical researchers, etc. A vast majority of internal operational support systems use the web as a delivery mechanism, though in my examples, it's all on secure, private networks. HR systems, performance management, collaboration, analytics in research, medicine, manufacturing, training, education, you name it.

well the front end, back end or full stack and all the typical job listings that fall in this category and all the typical courses, training for ‘web developer’

but yea thanks for pointing out that there’s another side to it all

 

[DanTheMan827]

Web development skills can also translate over to the desktop market as well.

Applications like VS Code, Discord and Slack are all written with HTML, CSS, and Javascript and thrown into an Electron app

 

[washburn]

Web development skills can also translate over to the desktop market as well.

Applications like VS Code, Discord and Slack are all written with HTML, CSS, and Javascript and thrown into an Electron app

the problem with electron is that it’s a resource hog I hear

but yea seems like that’s where its going, turning a web app to run natively on desktop

Something like swift is way better performance and quality for desktop though

 

[Zazoh]

I work for a large financial organization. We have teams of web developers that maintain and build and more teams of developers that work on internal websites for all sorts of tools, and systems across the countries we are in. With 200k employees 19k are listed as programmers. Most work in web technologies.

Almost every single company has a web presence. All large companies have an intranet that the public never sees but keeps the business connected and running.

 

[NathanCH]

> All large companies have an intranet that the public never sees but keeps the business connected and running.

A million times this.

Most software developers work on projects that the public will never seen. Wordpress sites and websites for local businesses make up only a tiny tiny portion of the industry (and money).

 

[SuperMatt]

Personal websites - you don’t need to be an expert. But any business website - they’re gonna need skilled developers. You have to create a site that looks unique, and then you need to create a way for the company to easily make changes to the site when they need to. That’s where CMS comes in. Lots of applications are also on the web these days, such as Google docs, Microsoft apps running in a browser, etc. I don’t see the demand for web developers shrinking in the next 10 years. Who knows what tech will show up by 2030 though?

 

[grandM]

the problem with electron is that it’s a resource hog I hear

but yea seems like that’s where its going, turning a web app to run natively on desktop

Something like swift is way better performance and quality for desktop though

Native is superior. A lot of companies see ICT as a cost and economize on their apps. For small companies this might be understandable. Huge EU companies however also have apps created with web tech on computer, phone, tablet and their intranet. Is it good for the customer? No. Do these companies save money? Yes.

 

[jedimasterkyle]

It's ironic that there is a demand for Web Developers when for the past 5 years, all of the job postings I've seen say "I just need someone to manage my squarespace site".

When I went back to school in 2010 for Web Dev, it was an emerging field that still had plenty of potential to explore and play around in. By the time I graduated in 2017 with TWO degrees, the field had morphed into something that I didn't even recognize and couldn't keep up with. The industry as a whole had moved on from using WordPress as the primary builder and went to applications that I didn't even know existed. SaaS, Ruby on Rails, Python and a whole list of others had replaced what I just learned in school. And that was in the span of less than 6 years.

When I started applying for Web Dev/Design jobs, all of them asked the same thing:

"How many coding languages do you know and are you a full stack dev?".

Then I heard about all of the new online WYSIWYG builders and services like Squarespace and how cheap they were. So not only was my career as a Web Dev over before it began but I had people asking me how much I would charge to build a site vs what Squarespace would charge. Guess which one they went with...

In my experience, it is now an incredibly difficult field to break into IF you're not at the very forefront of it. It changed so rapidly that someone in my position didn't have a chance in hell to keep up if you weren't already with a company making changes to the web on a daily basis.