Written by Valeria Roldán and Mariví Rubio
Are you creative? Do you like to solve problems? Do you look at the design of things? Would you like to know how a web page works? Here are some tips to becoming a front-end developer.
Hard skills
Hard skills develop on the left side of the brain and have to do with knowledge and rational skills. So if you are thinking of becoming a great front-end professional, these words that will accompany you throughout your life cannot be missing from your CV:
- HTML5: This is the fundamental mainstay of your web page. HTML provides the initial structure. It helps you, for example, to embed images or other elements in your web page. The “5” tells us that it is the latest version, which is the one currently used. If you want to be really good with HTML, you’re going to need the following two tools.
- CSS3: CSS is mainly about design, it helps you describe how HTML elements have to be displayed. Control things like colors, backgrounds, transitions and animations. CSS also helps you determine the position of the content of your web page. With HTML and CSS you can build a basic web page, but magic really happens if we combine it with this next tool.
- JavaScript: The third piece of the puzzle is your programming language, JavaScript controls the interactions on your web page. It allows you to do many things, so think big: interactive maps that are updated in real time, create online games, or a small movie with interactive elements. For these reasons, JavaScript is the most popular programming language in the world!
- Other tools that are useful: CMS, jQuery, Bootstrap.
Soft skills
Soft skills develop on the right side of the brain and are related to emotional intelligence, creativity, communication skills … That is, they give us flexibility when adapting to different situations or people. Therefore, you should not forget to start cultivating some of the following:
- Be creative.
- Communicative skills.
- Capacity to work under pressure.
- Critical thinking.
- Design knowledge.
- Understand and act as an intermediary between the work of the back-end developer and the web designer.
- Skills for problem solving.
All of these skills will allow you to give life to a static visual design. So do not forget to develop your two hemispheres to be a super front-end developer. Writing code is logic and creativity; letters, numbers and colors; left and right.
