- Are you a front-end developer or back-end developer?
- Are you a PHP person, or a .NET person?
- Are you pro-open-source or 100% against open-source?
Given how fluid and ever changing web based IT solutions have become, it still amazes me that people and companies attempt to label us and put us in these predefined boxes.
There was a time when it was understandable. Designers didn’t do code, and there were no tools to help them. Front end guys just built websites. Back end development was done on a larger scale. Almost all websites were static. But lets be honest, that time has been and gone for over 10 years.
- How many people that design websites have absolutely no understanding of HTML or CSS or Layering or Slicing?
- How many front-end developers have never used a CMS or PHP or ASP or a Database or any form of dynamic content?
- How man back-end developers have never coded HTML, or written any JavaScript or CSS?
- How many people who have been in the industry for over 10 years haven’t fulfilled more than one of these roles at any given time?
That has become the crux of the matter. I find I’m having the same conversation over and over, where people seem to question my ability to do one job because at some stage in the last 15 years in IT I’ve done a different job. I have no problem with people questioning me about my CV and previous roles but when I hear statements like this one (below) I do shudder a little:
I see you build a website in C# in 2001, just to clarify, we’re looking for a front-end developer and we’re not a Microsoft house.
Yes you open-source-loving folks, 9 years ago, I built a website using C#. I know, the absolute fucking horror of it all.
In the past 15 years, I’ve also developed websites in Flash, Director, Perl, Java Servlets, PHP, VB, ASP, ColdFusion and WAP. Not one of these stop me from doing the job I do today. In fact, they give me an amazing perspective into the best way to build and manage websites with the latest technology.
- You should be glad that I built a website in 2001 with the cutting edge technology of the time.
- You should be very happy that I can code in C#, Perl and PHP, as well as JavaScript.
- You should be ecstatic that I’ve been a front-end and back-end developer with Project Management experience.
The IT industry, if not just the web based sector, have somehow managed to warp it’s perspective that instead of being inclusive, it should be exclusive. Rather than being able to do a role because you have the required skills, instead we’re judged on an ability to do the role besed on additional skills we might have which would somehow take away existing skills. Its truly mental, and I can’t think of one other sector or industry in which this happens; or more importantly, other than lying I can’t think of a way around it!