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Have you ever looked at your favorite website and wondered exactly what made it tick? Have you looked at the way it was laid out, the way the buttons acted when you clicked them, or any other part and thought, “I wonder how complicated that is?” or, “I wish I could do that”?
All of those things are front end development (sometimes also called “front end web development”). While web design is the way a website looks, front end development is how that design actually gets implemented on the web. Meanwhile, a front end web developer is the person who does that implementation.
What Skills do Front End Web Developers Use?
Front end web developers use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to code the website and web app designs created by web designers. The code they write runs inside the user’s browser (as opposed to a back end developer, whose code runs on the web server). Think of it a little like this: the back end developer is like the engineer who designs and creates the systems that make a city work (electricity, water and sewer, zoning, etc.), while the front end developer is the one who lays out the streets and makes sure everything is connected properly so people can live their lives (a simplified analogy, but you get the rough idea). A front end web developer is also in charge of making sure that there are no errors or bugs on the front end, as well as making sure that the design appears as it’s supposed to across various platforms and browsers.
I’ve combed through dozens of front end web developer job listings to see which skills are the most in-demand right now. These are the things that real employers are looking for in job applicants today (and will still be looking for in the near future). Master these things and you’re certain to land an awesome front end dev job!
Psst! Skillcrush is launching a Front End Developer Blueprint! In the course, you’ll get a solid foundation that can put you on the road to landing the developer job you’re after, starting with skills like HTML and CSS and moving on to more advanced skills, like responsive web development, Git, and JavaScript. 
and be the first to know when the *new* blueprint is open for enrollment!
HTML & CSS
HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the most basic building blocks of web coding. Without these two things, you can’t create a website design, and all you’ll end up with is unformatted plain text on the screen. You can’t even add images to a page without HTML!
Before you get started on any web development career path, you’ll have to master coding with HTML and CSS. The good news is that getting a solid working knowledge of either of these can be done in just a few weeks.
The best part: HTML and CSS knowledge alone will let you build basic websites.
JavaScript
JavaScript lets you add a ton more functionality to your websites. You can even create a lot of basic web applications using nothing more than HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (JS for short). On the most basic level, JS lets you add a lot of interactive elements to your websites. Use it to create things like maps that update in real time, interactive films, and online games. Sites like Pinterest use JavaScript heavily to make their user interface so easy to use (the fact that the page doesn’t reload whenever you pin something is thanks to JavaScript!).
It’s also the most popular programming language in the world, so regardless of your dev career plans, it’s a super valuable thing to learn.
Read more about JavaScript here: You’ve Learned HTML and CSS—Now What?
jQuery
jQuery is a JavaScript library: a collection of plugins and extensions that makes developing with JavaScript faster and easier. Rather than having to code everything from scratch, jQuery lets a front end web developer add ready-made elements to projects, then customize as necessary (one reason why knowing JavaScript is so important). You can use jQuery for things like countdown timers, search form autocomplete, and even automatically-rearranging and resizing grid layouts.
JavaScript Frameworks
JS frameworks (including AngularJS, Backbone, Ember, and ReactJS) give a ready-made structure to your JavaScript code. There are different types of frameworks for different needs, though the four mentioned are the most popular in actual job listings. These frameworks really speed up development by giving you a jumpstart, and can be used with libraries like jQuery to minimize how much from-scratch coding you have to do.
Front End Frameworks
CSS and front end frameworks (the most popular front end framework is Bootstrap) do for CSS what JS Frameworks do for JavaScript: they give you a jumping-off point for faster coding. Since so much CSS starts with exactly the same elements from project to project, a framework that defines all of these for you upfront is super valuable. Most front end developer job listings expect you to be familiar with how these frameworks work and how to use them.
Experience with CSS Preprocessors
Preprocessors are another element that a front end developer can use to speed up CSS coding. A CSS preprocessor adds extra functionality to CSS to keep our CSS scalable and easier to work with. It processes your code before you publish it to your website, and turns it into well-formatted and cross-browser friendly CSS. SASS and LESS are the two most in-demand preprocessors, according to real job listings.
Experience with RESTful Services and APIs
Without getting too technical on this one, REST stands for Representational State Transfer. In basic terms, it’s a lightweight architecture that simplifies network communication on the web, and RESTful services and APIs are those web services that adhere to REST architecture. Read more about REST and RESTful services here.
Let’s say you wanted to write an app that shows you all your social media friends in the order you became friends. You could make calls to Facebook’s RESTful API to read your friends list and return that data. The same thing with Twitter (which also uses RESTful APIs). The general process is the same for any service that uses RESTful APIs, just the data returned will be different.
While it all sounds really complicated and technical, it’s a simple set of guidelines and practices that set expectations so you know how to communicate with a web service. They also make a web service perform better, scale better, work more reliably, and be easier to modify or move.
Responsive and Mobile Design
In the US alone, more people access the internet from their mobile device than from a desktop computer, so it’s no wonder that responsive and mobile design skills are super important to employers. Responsive design means that the site’s layout (and sometimes functionality and content) change based on the screen size and device someone is using.
For example, when a website is visited from a desktop computer with a big monitor, a user would get multiple columns, big graphics, and interaction created specifically for mouse and keyboard users. On a mobile device, the same website would appear as a single column optimized for touch interaction, but using the same base files.
Mobile design can include responsive design, but also includes creating separate mobile-specific designs. Sometimes the experience you want a user to have when visiting your site on a desktop computer is entirely different than what you want them to see when visiting from their smartphone, and in those cases it makes sense for the mobile site to be completely different. A bank website with online banking, for example, would benefit from a separate mobile site that lets users view things like the closest bank location and a simplified account view (since mobile screens are smaller).
If you want to learn all about mobile design, check out the Secrets To Building Mobile Sites Users Love.
Cross-Browser Development
Modern browsers are getting pretty good at displaying websites consistently, but there are still differences in how they interpret code behind the scenes. Until all modern browsers work perfectly with web standards, knowing how to make each of them work the way you want them to is an important skill. That’s what cross-browser development is all about.
Read more about cross-browser compatibility here and here, or check out Daniel Herken’s Cross Browser Handbook for a deeper dive.
Content Management Systems and E-commerce Platforms
Almost every website out there is built on a content management system (CMS). (E-commerce platforms are a specific type of CMS.) The most popular CMS worldwide is WordPress, which is behind-the-scenes of millions of websites (including Skillcrush!)—almost 60% of websites that use a CMS use WordPress.
The other most popular CMSs include Joomla, Drupal, and Magento. While knowing these won’t put you in as much demand as being a WordPress expert, they can give you a niche that will be desirable among companies who use those systems (and there are plenty out there).
Skillcrush’s Freelance WordPress Developer Blueprint is a great place to learn what you need to know to get started!
Testing and Debugging
It’s a fact of life for a front end web developer: bugs happen. Being familiar with testing and debugging processes is vital.
Unit testing is the process of testing individual blocks of source code (the instructions that tell a website how it should work), and unit testing frameworks provide a specific method and structure for doing so (there are different ones for each programming language).
Another common type of testing is UI testing (also called acceptance testing, browser testing, or functional testing), where you check to make sure that the website behaves as it should when a user is actually taking actions on the site. You can write tests that will look for things like particular HTML on a page after an action is taken (like making sure that if a user forgets to fill out a required form field, that your form error box pops up).
Debugging is simply taking all the “bugs” (errors) those tests uncover (or your users uncover once your site is launched), putting on your detective hat to figure out why and how they’re happening, and fixing the problem. Different companies use slightly different processes for this, but if you’ve used one, you can adapt to others pretty easily.
Git and Version Control Systems
Version control systems let you keep track of changes that have been made to code over time. They also make it easy to revert back to an earlier version if you screw something up. So let’s say you add a customized jQuery plugin and suddenly half your other code breaks. Rather than having to scramble to manually undo it and fix all the errors, you can roll back to a previous version and then try again with a different solution.
Git is the most widely used of these version control management systems. Knowing how to use Git is going to be a requirement for virtually any development job. This is one of those vital job skills that developers need to have, but that few actually talk about.
Problem Solving Skills
If there’s one thing that all front end developers have to have, regardless of the job description or official title, it’s excellent problem solving skills. From figuring out how to best implement a design, to fixing bugs that crop up, to figuring out how to make your front end code work with the backend code being implemented, development is all about creative problem solving.
Let’s say you’ve created a perfectly-functioning website front end, and you hand it over to the back end developers for them to integrate it with the content management system. All of a sudden, half your awesome features stop working. A good front end developer will view this as a puzzle to be solved, rather than a disaster in the making. Of course, an excellent, senior-level front end developer will anticipate these problems and try to prevent them in the first place!
What Next?
If front end web development sounds pretty awesome to you, you’re probably wondering where to actually get started.
If you are pumped about working as a front end developer but not sure where to get the skills, you’re in the right place. Skillcrush is launching a 
! In the course, you’ll get a solid foundation that can put you on the road to landing the developer job you’re after, starting with skills like HTML and CSS and moving on to more advanced skills, like responsive web development, Git, and JavaScript.
and be the first to know when the *new* blueprint is open for enrollment!
Get Our FREE Ultimate Guide to Coding for Beginners
Learn the tech skills you need to land a new job with this 60+ page FREE ebook!
Cameron Chapman
Cameron is a staff writer here at Skillcrush, and spends most of her time writing and editing blog posts and Ultimate Guides. She's been a freelance writer, editor, and author for going on a decade, writing for some of the world's leading web design and tech blogs. When she's not writing about design, she spends her time writing screenplays and making films (and music videos for rock and metal bands!) in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.
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Very concise well written article. Nice job. I would add that unit testing frameworks like Mocha/Chai would also be a must. Test driven development is a good design pattern to write well written, bug free code
Good point! Thanks for the insight!
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This is bullshit. Stop saying you need jquery skills to be a front end dev. Its outdated AF. I know many who Never touched it and are successful front end devs including myself.
you mad bro?
Fair point, and that’s awesome that you’ve built a career without it. We teach it as part of our front end development course because we think it’s a great general skill to have, especially since many employers still include it in their requirements.
DBAA – Don’t be an asshole.
Excellent article!!
I am a Recruitment Consultant based in Melbourne CBD, specialising in the UX/UI department, and all of these skills are essential in Front-End development!
If anybody is seeking work in the industry and wants to hear more about some incredible job opportunities we have to offer, then please get in touch.
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test
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Nice article. I would add an understanding of both SEO and Accessibility considerations to the list :)
Helpful article for a beginner front-end web developer. Thanks for sharing this article :).
A lot of thanks,
Great ! Nice Article…
Check this out
Need to know Java frontend & Backend complete skills details.
Hmmmm? No… not so much.
A) Java and JavaScript are not the same thing. Not even close. While it never hurts to learn many languages Java will not help a Front-End Developer at all.
B) Why would a Front-End Developer need complete skills in Back-end? That’s akin to saying that an City Beautification Specialist (or perhaps architect) needs to be an expert in Underground Tunnel Utilities (or Sewer Pipe Layer) as well. That’s just silly.
C) You know what honestly would most-likely be a very very good thing for a Front-End Developer to have as a “complete” skill that a Back-End Developer might not need nearly as much in many cases? Knowledge of how to use the English language for communicating the intended message. ;P
I really like this reply :). This is great article btw. I l have decided to spend my free time training to be a front end developer.
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This is not Front End developer. This is Full Stack Developer.
A Fullstack Developer must also know how to handle backend databases such as Heroku Postgres, Mongolab, DynamoDB, Google Cloud Datastore ajax, json and perhaps data securities. No mention about it above!
This was a great overview of frontend development! I’ve been doing frontend development for about 2 years, and you did a good job breaking down the different components. I like the definition that frontend = client side.
Hello! Could we reprint your article of this on another website? We are from a MOOC website offering some online programming courses, and want to introduce font-end development to beginners via your this article.
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Your ability to simplify so much information, yet articulate it so clearly was a huge relief for me just now. I don't typically comment anywhere but this was explained very well and particularly beneficial to anyone beginning on this journey.
So thank you!
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Nice Article! Need some specific example to workout!
Good article but certain sections can be improved by giving examples of tools or technologies. An example added to the explanation would make the content more comprehensive.
Tq fr ur suggestion mam…thnks a lot..
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Please mention the importance of templating system like Handlebar,Dust,EJS because in real world, they are used a lot than native html syntax
Nope.
mUCH NEEDED INFORMATION, a LOT OF FRONT-END DEVELOPERS FORGET ABOUT THE ACCESSABILITY FEATURES tHIS ISMY GOAL AS A BLIND THAT ARE NOT TAUGHT IN THE CLASS AS A BLIND INDIVIDUAL , IS TO BE A FRONT-END ENGINEER AND GIVE THE WORLD OF TECH. A NEW OUTLOOK.
TO ONLY PROBLEMM I RUN INTO TO IS NOT ALOT OF THE LEARNING TOOLS THAT THESE SCHOOL’S USE ARE ACCESSABLE.
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