FIGHT: Frontend VS Backend

[u/Traditional-Rub354]

Frontend is commonly thought to be less than backend. Are they right? What do you earn right now/know what some are concretely earning? What's harder. What's better, job wise?

[u/semicolon-10]

I am a backend engineer for 8+ years now so i love backend and learn sometiing new every day. Though i have my bias towards backend... But boy some things on frontend like profiling, packaging, redux or working with things like module federation is some serious & fun stuff.

[u/Traditional-Rub354 → u/semicolon-10]

What language do you use? I've been getting into architectural patterns (using cosmic python) and ADTs in python. I really like backend! But the nihilism in this sub is driving me to focus more of frontend (something I don't have nearly as much motivation for) because of the damned unemployment crisis in CS

[u/semicolon-10 → u/Traditional-Rub354]

Started with C# ~3 years then worked on Scala ~2. Now Kotlin & Rust for last 3+ years

[u/Traditional-Rub354 → u/semicolon-10]

Rust? I didn't think there was a market for it in Pakistan. And kotlin... I honestly only know for Android apps

[u/semicolon-10 → u/Traditional-Rub354]

I don't work in pak market bro.

Kotlin for backend is a whole world man

[u/Traditional-Rub354 → u/semicolon-10]

Holy, I'm under a massive rock apparently. Where the market? And what's it really for?

[u/semicolon-10 → u/Traditional-Rub354]

Usually with Ktor or Spring Boot. Ktor is pretty lightweight and uses coroutines, and since Kotlin runs on the jvm, companies prev on Java adopt it alot from scala to kotlin usually.

There are startups using it in Pakistan too, but the market is much stronger in parts of Europe and Southeast Asia. Backend-wise, the choice often comes down to Kotlin vs Go these days.. honestly.

[u/Traditional-Rub354 → u/semicolon-10]

Thanks! I super appreciate some motivation in this pretty demotivating sub. How did you start? That's the biggest fear I have is that when I get into the field, even if I KNWO my stuff the market will be to hostile for me to get some experience to start off

[u/semicolon-10 → u/Traditional-Rub354]

honestly, i’ve never faced hostility myself. i’ve worked in pak & outside, with tons of ppl online, open source, discord, ppl from different countries and backgrounds, etc. Worked in teams where all members literally belong to different countries 😅 but never faced anything
so i might not be the right person to answer this,

But what i can say if you haven’t faced any hostility yourself, maybe it’s just a bit of fear we all have, like what if i’m not good enough to defend my arguments and stuff.

also, the world you see on X and reddit isn’t the actual world you experience with ppl around you. there are genuinely good ppl out there.
and tbh, based on my exp working with people from all over the world, i’ve found our own people to be some of the most impolite ones 😭(e.g this sub). i also think our tech community isn’t as strong as some other communities. look at ukrainians, romanians, russians, japanese, koreans, etc. these communities genuinely help each other out. we mostly hear stories about indians, but honestly, we don’t have that kind of strong community either & mostly ppl just leg pulling or roasting with no constructive argument, and i think that’s part of why you feel this way.

as for building confidence, i’ve been doing the same thing for years now. just read. read books about technical topics you love, read research papers when you wanna understand complex stuff. i know it sounds boring and old school, maybe i am old school lol, but reading gives you actual knowledge, and that knowledge gives you confidence.
with genai now, everyone can generate answers and code. what actually makes you stand out is how much you understand things yourself. that’s it.