What Is Front-End Development?

Front-end development is designing and creating the front end or design side of a website, application, or other development project. If you think of a website you like to visit, such as the Coursera website, you might picture the colors, logo, and other design elements you see when you navigate to the home page. You can click links that take you to other pages on the website, each containing text, images, links to navigate to other pages, buttons to click, menus that expand when you hover your pointer over them, and more. All of these elements allow you, the user, to find the information you’re looking for in an intuitive and pleasant way. While a back-end developer is the professional who writes the base code that allows the website to function, a front-end designer is the professional who designs these elements so that users can have a positive experience while engaging with the website. 

Explore what a front-end developer does and the skills you’ll need to know to start a career in the field. 

What is front-end development?

A front-end development team designs and codes a website's visual experience. This can include designing the website, writing the code that creates its visual aspects, and optimizing it for performance and search engine readability. 

While the exact makeup of your front-end development team will vary depending on several factors, a few different professionals might work together to create the front end of a development project. This could include a user interface designer or user experience designer, a front-end developer, a quality assurance engineer, a project manager, and a requirement analyst. You may also have specialized professionals like a content specialist or search engine optimization strategist. 

Depending on the size of your team, you may be responsible for a wider or narrower variety of tasks, but some of the average day-to-day responsibilities of a front-end developer include: 

• Writing the code for websites

• Designing user journeys

• Optimizing web pages for speed, security, reliability, and marketing

• Testing web elements

• Creating user interfaces

• Designing the structure and layout of a website

Front-end languages and frameworks

As a front-end developer, you will work with a variety of front-end programming languages, frameworks, and other tools. Explore a few of the systems you’ll need to know in this role: 

Front-end programming languages

You’ll need to be familiar with the main programming languages for front-end development: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Each offers different functionality for the design side of an app or website. 

• HTML: An abbreviation of hypertext markup language, HTML defines where the content will go on the page, such as headers at the top, boxes of text or images, and other page components. 

• CSS: CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, which allows you to add elements like color, fonts, or animations, as well as page layout. 

• JavaScript: JavaScript is a programming language that allows your users to interact with your website and for your site to respond. For example, JavaScript allows menus to appear when you hover over icons or for multimedia elements. 

Frameworks

You’ll also need to know how to use front-end frameworks like Bootstrap, TailWind CSS, React, Vue, and Angular. Frameworks are collections of pre-written code that you can use to speed up the development process and to keep code standardized and neat. Instead of writing the code for a clickable button from scratch every time you need to include one in your project, you can reach for a framework for faster and more consistent code. 

Other front-end development tools

As a front end developer, you’ll also need to know other skills that play an important role in your daily tasks. These include things like version control, which allows you to track and document changes in your program as you edit, and testing/debugging, which is looking for and correcting errors in your code. 

Who works in front-end development?

According to the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 30.7 percent of developers consider themselves a full stack developer, working both on the front and back end. Back-end developers represent 16.7 percent of the field, and 5.6 percent of developers reported their job duties as front-end developers [1]. While both front-end and full-stack developers need to learn front-end skills, you can also explore other careers on a front-end development team, such as a search engine optimization strategist. Explore these careers along with the job outlook and average US salary for the position. 

Front end developers

Average annual salary in the US (Glassdoor): $86,949 [2]

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 8 percent [3]

As a front-end developer, you will help design and create the front end or design side of webpages. In this role, you will be responsible for writing code to create the visual aspects of a development project, collaborating with other development professionals, and designing the structure and layout of websites and applications. 

Full stack developers

Average annual salary in the US (Glassdoor): $91,992 [4]

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 8 percent [3]

As a full-stack developer, you can work on the front end and back end of development projects. The exact responsibilities you’ll be in charge of will vary depending on the size of your team, but you may work on designing and coding the front end or working on the back end to write code, manage databases, or program logical functions. 

Search engine optimization strategist

Average annual salary in the US (Glassdoor): $74,686 [5]

Job outlook (projected growth from 2023 to 2033): 8 percent [6]

As a search engine optimization strategist, you will design and implement a strategy for your client’s web pages and digital assets to appear in search engine results. In this role, you will research and select the keywords, link-building strategy, and technical optimization a website uses so that search engines will understand what the web page is about and deliver it as an option to users looking for information. 

Get started with front-end development

To start a career in front-end development, you will need to complete your education, learn relevant developer skills, and gain experience for your portfolio. Explore the details of each step.

Step 1: Complete your education.

You don’t have to earn a specific degree to qualify as a front-end developer, but it’s more important to have the right demonstrable skills. One way to demonstrate that you’ve studied what you need to be successful in the role is to earn a bachelor’s degree. You can also consider earning a master’s degree. If you decide to take this route, you could consider studying computer science, programming, or a related field. 

You can also learn skills through coding boot camps, online courses, or through self-study using a host of online resources. 

Step 2: Learn skills.

Whether you’ll need to learn additional skills after completing your education or whether you’re planning your own education through learning skills, you will need to develop a number of competencies to be successful as a developer. These include programming languages like CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, frameworks, version control, and testing and debugging tools. You can also focus on topics like user experience/user interface design or website architecture. Some of the workplace skills you’ll need include problem-solving, attention to detail, and communication. 

Step 3: Get experience and build a portfolio.

The last thing you’ll need to do to start a career as a front end developer is to gain experience and build a portfolio you can show to potential employers. A portfolio is a place to demonstrate your skills by linking to projects you’ve created. This helps demonstrate that you have hands-on experience with development concepts. You can create mock websites as an example of your skills or start an independent project highlighting your best work. You can also get involved with projects on GitHub to build your portfolio. 

Learn front-end development with Coursera

Front end development is a field where you can help design and shape the look and feel of websites so users can enjoy their experiences engaging with your product. To learn more about a career in front-end development, consider the IBM Front-End Developer Professional Certificate on Coursera. In this 11-course series, you’ll learn the industry standards for the skills and tools that front-end developers use, gain hands-on experience, and build a portfolio to show potential future employers.