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I'm currently the Flash developer at an Ad agency. Knowing that Flash is becoming antiquated, I have spent the last few years absorbing everything that my coworkers do.

At this point, I can say that...

  • I am competent in UX, Wireframes, and IA's. I often work with our strategy team, and lend my thoughts in brainstorming sessions.
  • I am good at HTML/CSS/JS and can handle site builds, and have a lot of experience with AS3/animation that translates over to standards compliant websites. AJAX, LESS, and other emerging technologies greatly interest me, and I can tell that I'm ahead of my coworkers who are UI Developers.
  • I have some experience with PHP/MySQL and have built basic backend systems that contain log-ins, quiz games, search functionality and other miscellaneous stuff.
  • I also design on a semi-regular basis. Everything from sites, promotions, and banner ads.

At a small agency, this wouldn't be all that strange... But I work for a mid-sized agency where everyone is very siloed, and I seem to be the only person who bridges the divides.

My questions is, what do I call myself? I am going to be asking for a promotion in the coming weeks, and I am afraid I can't come up with a simple title that quantifies my role. Because my job encompasses both design and development, it has been tough finding a grey area in-between the two.

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@squeemish no, that is what HR calls you. Which is quite often not all that accurate. – DA. Feb 26 at 21:44
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So, voting to re-open. I see it was closed for being too localized. My assumption is that it's too localized to a particular industry (it) though would argue that a majority of people on SE are in IT. – DA. Feb 26 at 21:59
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@DA. i would say its too localised to him more than to IT. if we allow questions like this will we allow any and all combintions of roles and we have to combine them into a suitable title? – RhysW Feb 27 at 9:06
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MrFox, I disagree. This question is valid because it is relevant to anyone who does design and development. Those are the two most popular roles in companies that create digital products. I went in to further detail only because I felt it may help clarify my position and lead to better answers. – lostPixels Feb 28 at 19:32
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@MrFox I disagree. It's not that there's a specific set of skills, but rather that there's a broad general set of skills. Maybe a better way to word the question "When my skill set is that of a generalist, how should I present myself?" That's an extremely common problem in the technology industries, and I'd say could even be pushed out into other industries as well. – DA. Feb 28 at 20:06
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closed as too localized by squeemish, Paul Brown, jcmeloni, gnat, ChrisF Feb 26 at 21:50

This question is unlikely to help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet. For help making this question more broadly applicable, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

up vote 0 down vote

I've struggled with this all my career.

I have a degree in Graphic Design. I've built ASP.net apps and administered SharePoint servers. I've designed logos and done UX analysis and wireframing. I've created icons in Photoshop, and built jQuery interactions. What am I?

Ultimately, I am what is needed for the particular job I am applying for. In other words, I tailor my 'sales pitch' based on the job I'm going after. If it's visual design centric, I'll show more of my graphic design portfolio. If it's UI development, I'll talk more about coding best practices.

In terms of both asking for a promotion and/or searching for a new job, your title isn't all that important. What is key is your resume.

But if you want to come up with a particular title, these are ones that I've used to various degrees:

  • web guy (honestly, this is the one I prefer)
  • UX designer
  • web generalist
  • web designer
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"Web Developer" is also often a good title for people in this field. – Tom Marthenal Feb 27 at 2:00
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Front-end web developer. There needs to be a differentiation between this and those "web guys" that do J2EE. – MrFox Feb 28 at 19:05
@MrFox "FrontEnd developer" is the correct answer to this question. – NewAlexandria Mar 24 at 19:21
@NewAlexandria alas, 'FE developer' does not necessarily always incorporate skills such as UI or UX design, which some FE Developers are also skilled at. Ultimately, there is no 'correct' answer since, at least in the web dev industry, there are so many different skills and no two people necessarily share the same set of skills. – DA. Mar 24 at 21:03
@MrFox well no but we have to attempt some form of consensus. A front-end developer can apply to someone that has a degree of the UI and UX skills mentioned. The ontology isn't a grammar. – NewAlexandria Mar 24 at 21:12

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