Whether you are a newbie or professional, chances are that some of these points will help you to bring your front-end development career to the next level.
Here are 8 tips to help you to become a better front-end developer at any web development company US.
- Plan your projects
Planning Tools for Front End Developers
The first mistake and surprisingly very common even with senior developers is that most of us don’t plan.
It’s boring, we don’t know how to plan and we feel that it’s not our job.
That’s why we quite often skip this very important step.
Good planning can help you to:
- save you a lot of time
- reduce stress when the deadline is approaching
- comfortably finish on time everyday
And it doesn’t have to be complicated.
Simply putting down a list of templates and elements which need to be converted from PSD to HTML or breaking up any complex elements into a smaller parts and writing them down is enough.
Making a simple project based to-do list will allow you to:
- stay organized
- keep your head clear and focused on the task at hand
- highlight any roadblocks early in the project phase
- easily keep your client, boss or project manager in the loop
More on the last benefit in the point #2.
Helpful tools for planning
Workflowy – dump a list of templates into a Workflowy bullet list
Writemaps – create a website site map
Trello – create a project board and cards for each of your templates and elements
Pen and paper – all of the above in an old fashioned but still effective way
Planning is important, but not always everything goes as carefully planned.
- Be Proactive
Reminder Tools for Front End Developers
There is nothing worse than telling your client or boss, that things are taking longer than expected and that the project won’t be delivered on time.
Proactively highlighting any roadblocks or delays is a very powerful way to keep everyone happy.
It’s ok if things are taking longer than initially planned, but it’s not ok to keeping this for yourself.
You’re stacked with a bug or can’t figure something out? You are not alone, everyone even the most experienced developers have the same issues on almost every project.
When this happens, call it out!
Everyone will appreciate that you are trying your best and keeping them in the loop with the progress.
Do you want to delight your client and boss? Send them a short summary of what you did today and what you will be working on tomorrow, highlighting any concerns.
It should only take 5 minutes, and if you use tools from #1, even less time.
They will love you for that because it gives them a time to think about a plan B, which might be simply asking the client for more money or extending the deadline.
Other reasons why to be proactive:
- it makes you look more professional
- it boosts your credibility
- it helps to build a trust
Setting a daily or weekly reminder will help you to never forget to give a project progress update.
Helpful tools for reminders
Google Calendar – create a simple reoccurring event
Evernote – create a note with a checklist of your tasks and set a reminder
iOS Reminders – doesn’t need a description, does it.
Curious about the next point? Great.
- Be curious
Newsletters for Front End Developers
I believe that one of the most important attributes on this list is being curious.
New tools, plugins, techniques and languages are being released almost every day.
It is very important that you stay open to all the new things and will make an effort to explore and understand them.
The bad and at the same time the beauty of front-end development is that it’s moving forward very fast.
This means that you can quickly become an expert but also your skills can become very quickly outdated.
Tip: You don’t need to know everything, just having a rough overview about a topic or technique is fine if want to become great frontend developer at any web development company US. You can then dive deeper into it when the right project comes along.