What’s the difference between a “software engineer” and “Front-end developer”. For example, if someone is designing the code for Google, who is designing the look of the app?
Like take a popular app like Outlook. I understand that software engineers design the code and stuff, but who decides how it looks, where the reading pane goes and stuff like that.
I googled “Front end developer” and was getting a lot of info about WEB developers, but that isn’t the same right? Like are the same people who design the look of how Microsoft Paint (where the paint brush goes, where the scroll wheel goes, etc), are those the same people that design the menus for a video game?
Are all those people “front end developers”? Are they “designers”?
In: Technology
First off, none of these terms are an exact science. They are certainly not used consistently everywhere, so I’m just providing a decent rule-of-thumb from what I’ve seen in the industry. That being said:
Generally the term “front end developer” is used to contrast with “back end developer”, both of which write code for web applications. The key distinction being that the back end is run on a server somewhere, and the front end is the code run on an actual user’s computer (which, yes, does involved the visuals but also generally more than just that). Of note, “full stack developer” is used for developers who do both.
In the case of a program like MS paint, I would likely call that job a generic “application developer”, and there wouldn’t be any distinction between who does the visuals and who does the ‘rest’: they are usually coupled enough that there isn’t a lot of benefit of having distinct jobs handling each part.
As for UI/UX designer, these are the people who actually make the decision of what the application/web site looks like. They often aren’t coders at all, but rather designers who (to put *far* too simply) bring pretty pictures to the developers who then implement it as part of their design. Generally, they are also involved in user research and those kinds of things, to determine what is a good look for the product.
Edit: Oh, and “software engineer” is usually just a synonym for “software developer”, which is just about the most generic title you can have. In a web-oriented business it might be what they call their back-end developers, but as I said before there is no real specification so it could mean different things to different people. (Of note, you *can* be an accredited software engineer, meaning you’ve gone through similar governmental proceedings as architectural engineers or the like, but in most of the industry its really a useless title. Maybe some government jobs like NASA, or safety-critical software like airplanes, requires it, but for most private businesses software engineer == developer)
As a student of ux:
We are interested in the challenges users(/stakeholders) want to overcome with our product, the environment in which they use it, where they encounter problems, how they approach new features/problems and how they feel about using it.
This is all researched empirically and then broken down into must, should and can requirements, to which we then try to find solutions with the rest of the dev-team and the customer.
Good rule of thumb is that a “developer” is someone who writes code. A “designer” usually does not write code but instead uses sketches and drawing tools.
A “software engineer” is just a synonym for “developer,” although some people may be pedantic about trying to make minor distinctions.
A “front-end developer” is someone who is responsible for writing the code that affects how an application looks. This is in contrast to a “back-end developer,” who would be responsible for writing code that makes the application work but not how it looks. For example, a back-end developer on Google Search might be working on code that improves your search results.
Many front-end developers are web developers, but they don’t have to be. Someone writing code that affects how a mobile app looks could also call themselves a front-end developer, for example. You could be more precise by saying “front-end web developer” or “front-end mobile developer.”
Front-end developers may or may not have influence over design. If there is a design team, then they may just code up whatever they are given by the design team. If it’s a small operation and there are no designers, then a front-end developer may also come up with designs.
This is all in general terms of course, things can vary from company to company and roles can be fuzzy.
There is a lot of overlap.
But basically, front end developer writes code and implements a UI, if there are problems with the given design (from the designer) they try to improve it or they send it back. Front end developers might design a website and its logo appearance wise, but we are almost never “perfect” at it.
In smaller teams you will usually have a front end developer that asks an outside designer for help initially (think colours, logo, layout), then continues with the design themselves as the features change, we may even scrap the whole design in favour of something more functional.
Then you have the different “kind” of designers “UI” and “UX”, you will usually never find a UX designer in a smaller project, its just not necessary.
Here’s and example (Im a front end developer, not a designer):
[Unfinished]
[http://steamattribution.com/](http://steamattribution.com/)
I got my requirements for the project and went on my merry way, taking inspiration wherever I found it.
Is it perfect in terms of UI or UX? No. Is it good enough? Yes, I dont need to spend time and money for designers to improve it marginally. Now if youre Amazon, then yeah, you will have specialists for designing and front end developers for the implementation and coding, mostly doing their work independently, you will even have marketing and behavioral experts advising the above designers in some capacity.
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