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I've just come out of an interview that I believe didn't go as well as what I expected it to. And I find my self now somewhat confused as to where I want to go with my career. Besides feeling quite dissapointed as to how the interview went, I don't know if I would like to continue in the hard-core server side programming that I'm currently into / looking for.

I've always thought of myself as artisting and I've done some web design work for a few clients that they were very happy with. Which leads to the think that my forte might be more in the front-end and UI side of the scale. This is quite strange because most developers out there aren't the greatest designers (just generalizing here).

But.. is there market for that out there? Being someone that loves front end development, how easy is it getting a job out there? Is the salary any good? What do you call a person like that, a "front-end developer"? Just a bit confused at the moment I think...

Any advice on this would really be appreciated!

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    If you want to make the move into UX specifically, this question might help. If you're thinking more about front end development, it's probably out of scope for UX.SE.
    – Matt Obee
    Feb 27, 2013 at 12:22
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    If you're still on the fence, I'd recommend reading Don't make me think. It's a book you can read cover to cover in an afternoon that will give you the right view of the field. Everything else follows quite naturally from the core principles described in this book.
    – Peter
    Feb 27, 2013 at 13:18

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Front end / UI development is a growing demand. The best companies are trying to get as much done in the browser or client side to improve the user experience. This means understanding user experience (UX) - I would buy a couple books from Amazon to get started. But with backbone.js, Angular, Spine, etc. doing pretty significant "Development" in the user experience arena is becoming more popular and it's hard to find people who are great at it. You could also still use some of your backend development skills and look at Node.js, but overall transitioning to a designer / front-end designer I think is a solid career move.

It's hard to find designer / developer combos, so you would be in a good spot.

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  • In particular UX designer/developer is a very good combination. It means that you can design a project from the ground up, focusing on the user and human factors, while keeping implementability in the back of your head. It's surprising how difficult it is to find people who can do both well.
    – Peter
    Feb 27, 2013 at 13:15

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