Front-end development is a rewarding career for software engineers. It gives them the opportunity to bring creative ideas to life through visuals, graphics, and other features.
If you are preparing for a front-end engineering interview, check out our technical interview checklist, interview questions page, and salary negotiation e-book to get interview-ready! Also, read How to Crack the Front-End Coding Interview, Google Front-End Engineer Interview Process, and Amazon Front-End Engineer Interview Prep for specific insights into the front-end engineer interview process at FAANG companies.
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In this article, we’ve rounded up the important skills you need to be a successful front-end developer at FAANG+ companies and enjoy a rewarding and stimulating career. Here’s what we’ll discuss:
Responsibilities of a Front-End Engineer
Front-end engineers develop interfaces and work closely with back-end developers to build the user side of applications and web pages.
As for the difference between back-end and front-end development, think of the back-end as what happens on the side that isn’t exposed to the user — the technical aspects that involve coding and building applications. Back-end essentially has to do with how users or subscribers interact with your web page or platform and individual elements that contribute to the design and visuals.
Everything that’s visible to you on a web application or page and the action you take by clicking on buttons, inputting information, etc., fall under the front-end umbrella.
Take a look at some of the specific responsibilities of a front-end engineer:
- Create visuals and graphics to improve user experience and enhance engagement
- Optimize the page speed and other features to ensure that the website speed is high
- Create on-page SEO elements to improve page ranking
- Design and develop the user interface for interactive web applications
- Test the core elements of a website to rectify design flaws
- Work with the back-end team to develop web pages and applications
- Ensure the website performs seamlessly across devices and browsers - mobile, desktop, and tablets
- Build tools for web and mobile applications
- Implement on-site search engine optimization (SEO)
Related reading: What Is the Role of a Facebook Front-End Engineer?
7 Skills Required to Become a Front-End Engineer
Listed below are seven skills you will require to become a front-end engineer:
1. HTML and CSS
HTML and CSS are the most fundamental scripting languages that are used for front-end development. While HTML gives the website, web page, or application the overall structure, CSS provides the visuals, text, fonts, layouts, and templates. Being adept at both HTML and CSS is crucial to enjoying a successful career in front-end development.
2. JavaScript
Your fundamentals in JavaScript are exhaustively tested at front-end engineer interviews while interviewing at FAANG and other tier-1 tech companies. As a client-side language, JavaScript is used extensively around the world to make websites interactive and responsive.
It adds loads of features, including dynamic features such as animation, video, audio, etc., of web pages and applications, making it one of the most important skills to have for front-end development.
3. Frameworks and Libraries
Your knowledge of JavaScript frameworks and libraries is also extremely essential to land a successful career in front-end development. Frameworks are modules of prewritten code for various website elements such as search interfaces and login boxes. Libraries are a mix of extensions and plugins that add additional design features to applications and pages.
Technical interviews at FAANG+ companies require you to have sound knowledge of frameworks and libraries. These aspects are evaluated during on-site interviews.
4. Version Control
Having an effective version control system to monitor changes in code over time is another essential skill for front-end developers. Through version control software, front-end developers can compare different elements of code and identify optimal code for a particular website function.
5. Web Performance Optimization (WPO)
Ensuring that the website runs smoothly and seamlessly across browsers, devices, and systems is important to ensure that user engagement isn’t interrupted. A website that is slow and not actively responsive can kill the user experience, thereby severely impacting the performance of the webpage or application.
Front-end developers constantly need to optimize web pages and applications to ensure peak performance. Creating tools to automate this activity is the best way to make the process robust and effective.
6. On-Page SEO Elements
Front-end developers need to optimize web pages with optimal SEO elements to improve page and domain authority. Without the right on-page elements, user interaction and website rankings can be severely affected.
7. Problem-Solving and Analytical Skills
Being a good problem-solver is extremely crucial to enjoying a rewarding career in front-end development. Technical interviews at FAANG+ companies keenly evaluate the problem-solving approach of front-end engineers during the technical screen and on-site rounds. In order to ace these interviews, your problem-solving skills need to be excellent.
Get Ready for Your Next Front-End Developer Interview
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We’ve trained over 6,000 engineers in the last 5 years and helped them land multiple high-value offers from the biggest tech companies. These reviews from our huge network of alums will tell you how we’ve helped thousands of engineers scale new career highs through our Masterclass courses.
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