What is the ideal career path for web developer?
Good Answers (2)
Jonas has some great tips. I would also say that it depends on your what your desired path is. Do you want to get into management, do you want to creative direct, ect. If you do go into management, the salary is higher, but expect to do less development/design work and more project and team management. That means a lot of time spent in meetings and more hands off on the actually nitty gritty of things. You'll have to rely and trust the talents of your team. The same goes for a creative director position. You'll have a hand in the design, but beyond that, it's handed off to the team, while you design and mock up multiple projects. You'll have to do this, while maintaining the design direction you originally set so things don't stray too far. This is usually what you'll expect in a larger company.
There are opportunities, however, where you maintain only one project and focus solely in the management / creative direction of that 1 project picking every color, scrutinizing every pixel alignment, and watching every cent that is being spent.
Clarification added March 22, 2008:
Thought I would go into a little more detail on the stuff above.
If you want to go into a management type role, the most important thing you must have is people skills. I would argue that this is slightly more important than having technical knowledge in the project you're managing. You need to be the person who can foster and initiate communication within your group, but also serve as the point person for other departments that work with your team. You should also be able to communicate ideas/concerns to your superiors. Vice Presidents, Directors, ect. aren't interested in details, they want the overall picture. You need to be able to translate technical jargon into "plain talk" that they can understand and vice versa.
In my opinion, project managers need to be a person is a "jack of all trades" type person. You should know the capabilities of everybody in your team, but also understand the other aspects of development outside your team. This allows you to better judge and understand the scope of your project and it's needs. It doesn't hurt to specialize in an area, but what ends up happening is those type of people who specialize and never diversify get promoted to "team leaders, lead developer, lead designer, ect." and then it ends there. Unless they open up and become more diverse, they will be stuck as a team lead or lead developer for a very long time and it may be 10 years before the company even considers them for any higher level management position. Again, I must emphasize communication skills. Most often than not, higher level management, executive type positions are held by people with backgrounds in sales, advertising, or marketing. The number one reason for this is their ability to communicate.
On the other side of the coin, you can choose to specialize and become a creative director, director of development, ect. This requires you to be the ultimate rockstar and be the absolute best in what you do. Again, communication is important for these type of positions. It's the difference of being stuck as a team lead or getting promoted as a director of a project. There are opportunities to go beyond this into a higher level, executive type position, but this goes back to having great communication skills and following the path above.
Anyways, I could probably go on and on about this and remember, there are exceptions to what I laid out above. This is just what I've seen from the experiences of me and my colleagues.
Clarification added March 22, 2008:
One last thing I want to add is to be the type of person who will "get stuff done." Having the reputation for getting things done on time and being a man/woman of action is very important. That reputation alone can be the deal breaker on getting a higher position alone. Executives don't want to hear the words "no" or "can't be done." They want someone who can take the project and run with it all the way from concept to completion with no push back. Sometimes this can get tricky because there will be times when a request is made that is impossible to meet. This goes back to having skills in communication to eloquently say "NO" or "NEED MORE TIME" or "BAD IDEA" without actually saying it.
If you are looking for a career path, I would suggest considering following:
Higher Education in Maths/Physics or Computer Sciences -> Web Master -> Junior Web Developer -> Senior Web Developer -> Web Architect -> CTO
Once you've stuck at some of the stages (or has reached the topmost one), think for a second if you should actually have stopped with your career growth a stage earlier (see 'The Peter Principle' of incompetence)
More Answers (8)
As in all areas, while you're young and don't have any responsability, jump from place to place, until you find a nice one (your desired salary and work conditions). If in the middle of the way you get yourself inside a small company with clearly chances to grow, you can choose to stay and grow together with it or not.
About technology, just learn what everybody is using, get a job with it, and be ready for the new waves when they come, don't become passionate enough for a language to ignore job opportunities.
Matt W
Online Marketing Manager at Batanga
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (5), E-Commerce (3), Search Marketing (1), Futures Markets (1)
Great tips so far. I'd also suggest spending some time in quality control and useability testing if you get the chance.
Now web developer is very general definition. There are a lot of technical specialties involved: UI experts, graphic artists, business logic software engineers, rich client software engineers and so on. Whatever, since technologies are evolving so fast, we have to study, study and study again. Somebody who finally considers that he or she is "cool enough" will definitely fail.
Thomas A
Computer & Internet Professional
Best Answers in: Computers and Software (1), Telecommunications (1), Software Development (1), Web Development (1)
I'll give the counter to Jonas' advice. While in a strong market, it pays to learn what everyone else is using and go with the flow, this ultimately makes you a commodity. You are no different than any other developer and can be hired or fired on the whim of the business cycle. If you want to stand out, you need to become a specialist in something, and preferably something difficult and obscure. Not something that's going out of style, per se, but something that not everyone chooses to master. This will make you a lynch pin for a company that depends on those skills, good market or bad. And it will demand a premium on the job market for anyone depending on those skills as well. It also makes you stand out as an elite programmer to have mastered what others haven't, especially if you can also do the commodity programming in addition. Now that's not to say that you should allow yourself to get into a rut -- you still need to keep up with technology and update your skills -- but you should adopt specialties to keep yourself ahead of the pack.
Clarification added March 22, 2008:
For a deeper look into what I'm proposing, see Paul Graham's article <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html" target="_new">Great Hackers</a>
Ed S
Director at N3W MEDIA
Best Answers in: Web Development (4), Small Business (1), Software Development (1)
As every some great points raised! I think Jonas and Thomas raise some particularly valuable ideas. Despite the fact that they put forward opposite views I think they are both right - but it is all about timing.
My suggestion would be that in the early years of your career it would be best to gain as broad a range of skills as possible. Try out as many different roles as can be sensibly achieved and don't let yourself get put in a box.
As you career moves forward then you will probably start to specialize, as others have said already, this maybe management or technical - but almost certainly you will end up becoming more focused.
Having gained a broad appreciation of the MANY disciplines involved in web development, will hopefully equip you to decide which areas you enjoy most and want to really focus in.
Also bear in mind that non of us in the 'making of web sites' work in a vacuum and for anything other than the most trivial of projects there will be a multi-disciplined team. My experience has been that team members with the broadest appreciation of other peoples roles make for the best members. You don't have to know HOW to do there jobs, but it is very useful to know WHAT their job entails.
Scott C
Web Business Strategist / Web Marketing Expert
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Read "The Dip" by Seth Godin. Then, consider how easy it is to become a web developer. No scarcity = no value.
So... you must find ways to ADD value. This is done by finding ways to grow profit centers and reduce costs. Whether it's selling widgets, growing memberships, or selling subscriptions, it's the same.
Hint: It doesn't happen with Flash animation and pretty portfolios. At least not if you want to make decent money. I am not putting down folks who like to do this for a living. It's valid if you love it.
The money comes with demonstratively consistent business performance and project management skills, and ability and willingness to outsource all tasks that are outside of your particular skills.
I would (and do) specialize in analytics-driven landing page optimization, rapid-launch development tools (ala 37signals/Ruby) and social media optimization. This stuff is hard work. That's why it has a "dip"
I wish you best of luck and happiness in your work.
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Some great information here! I would only add that a crucial skill you need to develop, regardless of which web developer discipline you decide on, is being a great team player.
As you start out if you find yourself on a diverse team (server admins, database admins, graphic artists, code developers, etc) try to learn a bit about everyone else's duties. Like Ed suggested this will give you great perspective on the other possibilities, but it can also have another great benefit. Having an obvious interest can encourage communication between teams/team members, and where communication is encouraged so is cooperation. You'll be seen as a great team player, and you'll be learning about other possible paths at the same time.
From my experience, if you have good/great skills and are also viewed as a great team player then a lot of opportunities will open for you. If you decide to make a change from, say, coder to database admin and you're chums with your company's current database admins, then they're likely to vouch for you, making that transition much easier, whether it's in the same company or in a different one.
This question is easy. A developer can work for and make a company rich. Or they can work for themselves.
