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What does a front-end developer do?

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What does a front-end developer do?

Thinking about a career in front-end development? We spoke with John Pham, a front-end developer at Smartsheet and formerly at Microsoft, to find out more about his day to day and what he works on in his front-end role. John was a subject matter expert on our brand new Front-End Engineer Career Path.

John got hooked into programming when he participated in a hackathon in college. He was creating art assets for a game and had to learn how to program the art assets into the game. He describes front-end development as “a great combination of being artistic and being able to program.” In our interview, John defines front-end development, talks about how he got started on his path as a front-end engineer, and shares some tips for aspiring front-end developers who are just starting out.

If you’re interested in becoming a front-end developer, the Front-End Engineer Career Path is designed to prepare you with everything you need to get an entry-level job in front-end development.

What does a front-end engineer do?

In the world of web development, there’s front-end and back-end work. On the back end, programmers do the hidden work and processes that run behind the scenes, that the end user doesn’t see.

Front-end development, on the other hand, deals with the parts of a website or application that the end user actually sees and interacts with. As a front end developer, you’ll be working to make websites beautiful, functional, and accessible. A common thing you’ll do as a front-end engineer, says John, is “working with program managers and designers and customers to figure out what’s the best way to implement a solution for a customer problem.”

Is front-end development right for you?

When it comes to deciding between a career in front-end development or back-end development, the creative and visual nature of front-end is often a determining factor. Back-end development relies a lot on problem solving, but you don’t always get the opportunity to see your work, since you’re focused on the processes that happen behind the scenes.

Front-end development, on the other hand, focuses a lot more on creating a beautiful and engaging user experience. Do you view yourself as a creative person and enjoy bringing things to life visually? “A front-end engineer is someone that likes being at the intersection of art and logic,” says John. “So if you like programming, but also like the artistic side of design and working with customers, being a front-end engineer is the perfect role for you.”

Front-end developers are also very involved in the user experience, and oftentimes work closely with designers and customers to help create the best solutions for customers. “My favorite part about being a front-end engineer is being able to work directly with customers and designers to figure out all of the fine details that end up creating the best user experience,” John says. “That’s one of the most rewarding aspects of being a front-end engineer.”

Advice for aspiring front-end developers

Interested in pursuing a career in front-end development? Start with learning the basics — HTML. CSS, and JavaScript. Then, put what you’re learning into action by building real projects.

“One easy way to get started is just to build your own personal website,” says John. “Your website can be an expression of who you are or what you want to do.” As you work on building your website you’ll learn by doing and gain confidence through experience. Once you’ve built the website, says John, “That’s an awesome way to start marketing yourself.” It’s an example of your work and shows potential clients or hiring managers what type of work you can do for them.

Getting started

If you’re ready to begin your journey towards becoming a front-end developer, our Front-End Engineer Career Path is the path for you. This Path will take you through everything you need to know, from how to build and deploy static web pages to design skills to make your webpages beautiful and usable. You’ll also learn interview techniques and build your portfolio so you can start applying for front-end development jobs. Get started here.

Teenagers in The Times: October 2020

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Teenagers in The Times: October 2020

Here is the October edition of Teenagers in The Times, a roundup of the news and feature stories about young people that have recently appeared across sections of NYTimes.com. We publish a new edition on the first Thursday of each month.

For ideas about how to use Teenagers in The Times with your students, please see our lesson plan and special activity sheet, both of which can be used with this or any other edition.

11 Reality Shows to Watch With Your Older Kids

A list of series that are exciting, funny, educational and exactly the kind of television that parents should be watching with their preteen and teenage children.

‘Charm City Kings’ Review: Growing Up, and Almost Spinning Out

In this sincere drama, a young Baltimore teenager enamored of the city’s vibrant dirt-bike scene, faces hard truths and choices.

‘Tomboy’ Looks at Gender Roles, and Role-Playing, Through the Ages

Lisa Selin Davis’s book asks what it means, really, to “act like a girl,” or not.

What Students Are Saying About Voting, the Complexities of Identity and Love Across Distances

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What Students Are Saying About Voting, the Complexities of Identity and Love Across Distances

When people ask where I’m from, I’m usually conflicted. While I currently reside in Texas, I wasn’t born nor raised here. When I moved from California, I was asked a few times where I was from. I’d simply just say, “California.” Then, they’d ask, “Oh, really? What part?” I’d think to myself, “Well, do I tell them SoCal or the actual city? But, if I do say the city, which one should I say? The one I was born in or the one I actually moved from?” Both cities feel like home to me, but what should I actually answer with? To me, it’s like choosing between my mom’s and my dad’s sides. What side do I feel like I represent the most?

— Annmarie Faleafine, Lubbock, TX

When people ask me where I am from, I can usually feel my cheeks turn hot as I spend the next few seconds pondering the response I would give to the predicament my interrogator just put me in. For me, this question represents both a complex cultural and identity conflict that I’ve been combatting my entire life. I, along with every member of my family, was born in China. However, my time there was brief, and I’ve spent a significant portion of my life in the United States. So in response to this question, do I say that I am from China, making myself the target of xenophobia and mockery regarding COVID-19 (aka the “China Flu”), or do I say that I am from the United States, being completely doomed to the awkward follow-up question of where I am ACTUALLY from? In that sense, Vanessa Hua’s “The Complexity in ‘Where Are You From?’ hits close to home. Whenever I tell others that am American, the raised eyebrows and uneasy silence come instantly, prompting me to clarify and tell them that, although my family is from China, I’ve lived in the U.S. for most of my life. A satisfied smile spreads across my interrogator’s face as they realize that, once again, Asian-Americans haven’t assimilated into American society.

— Leyuan Zhou, New York, NY

“Lubbock, Texas. Born and raised,” I tell my peers. Their responses are full of enthusiasm, I know. Nobody ever asks any more questions, because they know that Lubbock is a boring place. They also can’t imagine living in the same place their entire lives. Something that they’re missing, though, is that I have seen Lubbock’s city limit expand two times. My address changed when I was in Elementary School. It used to be a county road, now it is a painted street. As a little girl who’s lived outside the city her life, so far, it was super exciting to see the workers paving and painting the road in front of my house. (Considering the fact that the road beside my house was made of nothing but dirt) I’ve seen three Elementary Schools get built, including the school that I went to all 7 years of Elementary. I’ve seen the Middle School I attended get built. Lubbock has changed so much over the 16 years that I have been a resident. I love it here, but I can’t wait to live in a city where I don’t have to be full of shame when telling someone where I am from.

— Olivia Bonner, Lubbock Cooper High School

In my life, I have moved around frequently and had many different places that I called my home. Even though throughout my life my location has changed, I will always consider the place that I’m “from” to be my hometown in California, even though I’ve since spent the majority of my life in other places. Despite my limited time there, I made almost every core memory growing up in that town. There, I was shaped as a person in my young age and continue to visit every summer in remembrance of the unforgettable childhood I created there. Where you’re “from” doesn’t ever have to be where you are in the moment. I think where you are truly from is where you feel you were the most shaped as a person. For me, that place was California because there I discovered who I was going to be growing up and developed passions, friendships, and aspirations that I still hold on to to this day.

— Leah Schraff (Block 4), Hoggard High School in Wilmington, NC

Half Italian and half Indian, when people look at me they can rarely guess my race. People don’t recognize the Indian in me, asking me if I tan everyday, or if I am Latina. “No,” I tell them proudly, “I am half Indian” … While I might not look like what you think of when you picture someone Italian, this identity could not be a bigger part of me. I have had the opportunity to not only be a tourist and learn to make pasta in Italy, but to blow glass in my relative’s glass factory outside of Venice. Back at home I often dream of living in Italy. In the meantime, I do what I can to bring a bit of Italian life into my home, cooking my great grandmother’s gnocchi and risotto and taking Italian language lessons. As I fill out applications, it sometimes asks me to select my race and I check both Asian and White. But on some applications it asks me to just pick one, so I default to “other.” I am “other” and proud to be.

— Shaila Patel, Farmington, CT

The mysteries of my family parallel those of Hua’s father. My grandfather was an illegitimate son born somewhere around Monterrey, Mexico. He was adopted by Joseph Garcia, but his assumed last name was Contrelez. My family will probably never know our kinfolk in Mexico. While Hua is offended when she is interrogated about her ancestry, I am indifferent when I am questioned about my cultural background. The inability to answer questions about my family has never insulted me, and no one has ever been unsatisfied when I omit information about my heritage. Instead of clinging to one’s motherland, people should find something like Hua’s family necklace, something to represent a family’s legacy other than a last name. If Americans can find value in their present home, we take a step closer to eliminating ethical stereotypes in our society.

— Aaron Garcia, Bryant High School, Arkansas

My family and I are from Ethiopia. Ethiopia is known for being one of the two uncolonized countries and the origin of coffee. My family takes pride in that and tend to talk about it freely when someone asks. If someone asks where I’m from, I used to be happy and say Ethiopia but people can’t seem to get their mind around that there is a country named that. They joke around and say, Utopia?, Zootopia? So I stopped saying Ethiopia and started saying Arizona. It seems people accept that more. But I do take pride in my beautiful country.

— Elshaday Admasu, Cary High School

Word + Quiz: paroxysm

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Word + Quiz: paroxysm

: a sudden uncontrollable attack

_________

The word paroxysm has appeared in 10 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Sept. 11 in “The Other Way Covid Will Kill: Hunger” by Peter S. Goodman, Abdi Latif Dahir and Karan Deep Singh:

In Juba, the capital of South Sudan, the pandemic was merely the most recent form of grave danger.

A sense of crisis has prevailed since a paroxysm of violence four years ago in a long-running civil war fueled by ethnic division. Amid the fighting, people fled the surrounding countryside for refuge in camps inside the city. Without access to their fields, many became dependent on food distributed by relief agencies along with anything they could buy at the market.

________

Doors

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Doors

Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021.

What story do these doors inspire for you?

Use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem inspired by this illustration — or tell us about a memory from your own life that this image makes you think of.

Another option: Consider these doors a metaphor and tell us what new beginnings you hope for by describing the door you’d like to walk through, and what might be on the other side.

Tell us in the comments, then read the related article (written in 2018) to learn more.

About Picture Prompts

• Find all our Picture Prompts in this column.
• Have an idea for a Picture Prompt? Tell us about it.
• Teachers, discover more ways to teach with our Picture Prompts and learn how to use our free daily writing prompts for remote learning.

Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Alison launches the new Android App!

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Alison launches the new Android App!

When the world went into lockdown, millions of people turned to online courses to upskill and empower themselves – and to keep boredom at bay! As a result, the demand for easy-to-access knowledge and skills training is now higher than ever. With the launch of the new Alison Courses App, learners now have over 2000 free courses at the tips of their fingers. 

The app has the same user-friendly dashboard as the Alison desktop platform and has all the same features, including course progress, completed courses, and available certificates, which can be downloaded within the app. 

 

“The improved layout and functionality of the new version of the app allows for a better user experience” says Tim Potenz, Product Manager at Alison. “It was important to us to streamline navigation and to make the learning process as intuitive as possible.”

Other new features include:

  • Improved search: Autocomplete, autosuggest and the ability to search within categories allow learners to easily find courses. 
  • Full-screen support for video content to make studying on-the-go even easier. 
  • Fewer ads for a better user experience!

 

On-the-go learning is now easier than ever as the desktop platform and mobile app seamlessly integrate and sync automatically. Learners can easily move between learning on the website and learning on the app. A learner can start a course on their laptop and then pick up where they left off on their mobile phone, as course progress is shared across platforms. 

Learning on Alison is completely free and learners have access to all 2000+ free online courses via the Alison Courses app. Should a learner wish to purchase a digital or printed certificate or diploma after passing a course, they can do so through the Alison shop which is fully accessible within the app. The process of purchasing certification has been made much easier and all discounts can now also be applied to purchases within the app.

The Alison Courses app is available to download from the Google Play Store.

1 on 1 with Engineering Leaders: Stripe Engineering Manager Smruti Patel

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1 on 1 with Engineering Leaders: Stripe Engineering Manager Smruti Patel

Over the past couple months, Codecademy for Business and our friends at Code Climate have been meeting each week with an engineering leader to talk about their career journey, leadership tactics and advice for the next generation of engineers. This week, we hear from Smruti Patel, an Engineering Manager at Stripe.

Here on the Codecademy blog, Smruti shares advice for those considering careers in engineering or engineering management. For more from the interview with Smruti, head over to the Code Climate blog.

Q: What interested you about engineering when you were just starting out?

I was always interested in STEM. Math and Science were my strengths, even back in school growing up, and so it made logical sense for me to pick Computer Science and Computer Engineering as the things I specialized in.

I would say that problem solving was also always something that I was curious and excited about. So engineering fit well in all of that. It’s a personality trait for me.

Q: What advice do you have for people who might be considering a career in engineering?

I think it depends a lot on where you are on the planet. I think it’s hard for a lot of people, given the lack of support that they might need — at the family level, at the social level, and at the financial level. So, acknowledging privilege is important and, consequently, so is humility, curiosity, and self awareness. Basically, none of us are perfect, we all have room to grow and improve. So, if you’re considering something in engineering, I’d say be humble, be curious — and be okay with failing.

For someone starting out, I would tell them what I would tell my younger self, which is that it’s okay to fail. I was too worried about failure for the longest time. I’d only take on things that I knew I was good at and things I could excel at. But I think a few failures early on, trying more risky things up front, is what I would probably try to get my younger self to do. Don’t be too comfortable. Push yourself.

The extrinsic part is more around how you communicate what you’re thinking. Especially in the changing times, a lot of weight is put on how well you present your ideas, how methodical you are in your approach, and how willing you are to go the last mile. So, I would say clarity in thinking and communication also takes engineers a long way.

Q: What advice do you have for engineers who are considering management one day?

To me it comes down to three things. For one, it’s all about the people you manage: the people you work with, your partners, peers, and stakeholders; the people you report to; and your managers or leaders. Managing up down and across becomes super crucial. Build relationships, foster trust with the people you work with, and then provide ongoing feedback to your peers, or even the leaders.

The second thing that comes to mind is systems thinking. I was introduced to a book called Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows. It’s a framework for how you think about things, which is that nothing is broken or awesome in isolation. Being able to understand that interconnectedness goes a long way.

Finally, as a manager, you’ve got to be able to deal with ambiguity, living with constraints, and you need to be adaptable and flexible. Personally, I’ve felt that no given day in management is like business as usual. Either you’ve got a key business product which has suddenly found a catastrophic bug a couple of days from release, or you’ve got a really angry customer you need to jump on a call with and say, “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out,” or some other teammate’s received life-altering news, and you need to be there to support them. In that way, being a manager can be very humbling and very rewarding. So, one thing I tell people who are thinking about this space is, you’ve got to be able to deal with that ambiguity, and then adapt.

For more about Smruti’s career journey and leadership strategies, head over to the Code Climate blog.

Weekly News Quiz for Students: Voter Turnout, World Series Champs, Sean Connery

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Weekly News Quiz for Students: Voter Turnout, World Series Champs, Sean Connery

Above is an image related to one of the news stories we followed over the past week. Do you know what it shows? At the bottom of this quiz, you’ll find the answer.

Have you been paying attention to the news recently? See how many of these 10 questions you can get right.

Lesson of the Day: Learning With The Times’s ‘Family, Interrupted’ Series

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Lesson of the Day: Learning With The Times’s ‘Family, Interrupted’ Series

Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021.

Featured Articles: The “Family, Interrupted” series

The coronavirus pandemic has upended the lives of many American families. “Family, Interrupted,” a new weekly series from The Times’s National desk, takes readers inside the upside-down worlds of pandemic-weary Americans and chronicles the myriad irritations, sorrows, panics and even small joys of life right now.

In this lesson, you will reflect on how your own family has been affected by the pandemic, then read about how other families are navigating the new abnormal. In a Going Further activity, you will create your own portrait of a family using the Times series as a mentor text.

How has the coronavirus pandemic affected your family — its roles, rules, rituals and daily life?

Take a few minutes to write about or discuss with a partner how your family life has changed since the pandemic began, using the following prompts:

  • How is your family life different now than before the pandemic began? What has changed? What has remained the same?

  • How has the pandemic strengthened your family bonds? How has it tested or hurt them?

  • What lessons have you learned about your family, your parents and yourself?

Choose at least two articles in the “Family, Interrupted” series to read in their entirety:

Answer the questions below based on the articles you read.

1. Why did you select the articles you did? What drew you to these families and their stories?

2. How has the pandemic affected each family featured in your chosen articles? What did you learn from each? To which family’s story do you most relate? Why?

3. What’s your reaction to these family stories? What did you find most memorable, surprising, thought-provoking or moving? Why?

4. Media Literacy: The New York Times is full of stories about the coronavirus pandemic and the nation’s progress toward containing it. What does the “Family, Interrupted” series capture that traditional news articles might not about how Americans are experiencing everyday life in 2020? If you could interview any of the families profiled in the series, what would you ask them and why? As the “Family, Interrupted” series continues, what types of families and stories do you hope to see?

5. How did reading about other families living through the pandemic give perspective on your family and its hardships and joys? What has the crisis revealed to you about the importance of those relationships?

Option 1: Watch and Respond to a Times Video

In June 2020, The Times created the eight-minute film “Three Families. Nine Weeks. ‘Things Are Getting Annoying.’” which we recently featured in our Film Club. It profiles three families, each of whom filmed themselves to share what it has been like to work, parent, school, eat, sleep and hang out under the same roof for three months straight during quarantine.

Watch the film and respond to the following questions adapted from our Film Club:

  • What messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? Why?

  • What do you think of the rules on parenting offered in the film like “Trust your kids to do their work,” “Don’t force mindfulness” and “Don’t forget to follow your own rules.” What rules for parents would you add?

If you want to engage with this film further, you can participate in our Film Club.

Option 2: Create Your Own Portrait of a Family Living Through the Pandemic

Imagine you have been hired to write the next entry in the “Family, Interrupted” series. What family would you profile and why? What questions would you ask? How might these experiences help readers of The Times?

You can, of course, choose to spotlight your own family. But whoever you choose, your portrait should include a photo, a brief preface introducing the family members — describing both their lives before the pandemic and their current situations — and an interview excerpt that you feel highlights the families members’ stories in their own words.

Keep in mind that even though the series is focused on short stories that give readers a glimpse into the challenging lives we’re leading behind closed doors, producing these short stories is still time-consuming. A Times Insider piece on the series notes:

“Short” is perhaps misleading. For while the interviews are distilled into tightly condensed pieces, National desk correspondents have spent considerable time getting to know their subjects through multiple lengthy conversations — not just about their current upside-down existence but also about their pre-pandemic lives.

Be sure to do some background research on the family you choose to profile and to develop a set of interview questions in advance. Additionally, when interviewing, remember to build trust, even with people you already know, and save the tough, more intimate questions for the end.

Read the entire Times Insider article for more insights into the process of creating the series, including the kinds of questions the writers like to explore. And for more interviewing tips, watch the five-minute video “Four Tips for an Effective Interview” by StoryCorps or read “Interview Tips Sheet” by What Kids Can Do.

If you are working as part of a class doing this as a project, you might bring your stories together when everyone is done and publish them somehow, whether on a school website or via social media, or by printing them and hanging them in a public place.

About Lesson of the Day

• Find all our Lessons of the Day in this column.
• Teachers, watch our on-demand webinar to learn how to use this feature in your classroom.

What’s Going On in This Picture? | Nov. 2, 2020

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What’s Going On in This Picture? | Nov. 2, 2020

Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021.

1. After looking closely at the image above (or at the full-size image), think about these three questions:

2. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)

3. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the “Reply” button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.

Each Monday, our collaborator, Visual Thinking Strategies, will facilitate a discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time by paraphrasing comments and linking to responses to help students’ understanding go deeper. You might use their responses as models for your own.

4. On Thursday afternoons, we will reveal at the bottom of this post more information about the photo. How does reading the caption and learning its back story help you see the image differently?

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