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I have been building web applications for almost 6 years now. With the latest developments of no coding platforms I have a feeling that soon there will be no requirement for a web developer like me anymore and that makes me wonder if I should look at other fields like ML/AI, demand for which is only growing?

Throughout the career I worked on multiple web technologies but now it just feels waste of time to pick another language only to accomplish the same.

Can someone please tell me how the career path looks like for a web developer?

Thank you.

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    We cannot make a personal decision for you, maybe if you could rework it into more suitable format, how to weigh pros and cons of possibilites it will be more suitable for here, check out: workplace.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2693/… for a general idea.
    – Aida Paul
    Commented Sep 13, 2020 at 14:57
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    Maybe you should edit which languages and tech stacks you know. There are a lot of web apps use cases you can't build with "no coding" like a complicated frontend design (e.g. based on react) or a lot of backend logic (e.g. e-commerce stores for special industries or CRM software). There is also a raising need for API development (e.g. connecting to microservices) and cloud computing (e.g. "serverless" website with AWS)
    – user120107
    Commented Sep 13, 2020 at 15:02
  • I agree with you @TymoteuszPaul but what I’m asking here does not only applies to me but to all web developers in a similar situation. What I’m looking for is an advice on whether should we stick to web or it’s time to move on, from the experienced developers like you
    – Abhinay
    Commented Sep 13, 2020 at 15:07
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    @Abhinay except every person is different and lives in different circumstances, which is why giving our specific advice generally doesn't help short of one person. Now trying to determine how to arrive at a decision, now that's someting most webdevs could possibly relate to, so if you can somehow rework it into that format, it will likely be on topic here.
    – Aida Paul
    Commented Sep 13, 2020 at 15:16
  • Hi @TymoteuszPaul sorry if I misunderstand your point but are you suggesting I should ask something like ‘I want to be a Machine Learning engineer and is that a right career choice for a web developer?’
    – Abhinay
    Commented Sep 13, 2020 at 15:45

2 Answers 2

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FWIW, people had the same thoughts when Macromedia Dreamweaver came out in 1997 and suddenly graphic designers could directly generate HTML code.

Technology always has a convenience vs flexibility trade-off, and a new tool that offers more convenience will be useful for fewer use cases, while a tool that is designed around flexibility will spawn a new ecosystem of supporting elements to make it convenient enough to use.

There is always a mass market that doesn't really need the flexibility, and these are well served by "no coding" platforms -- but they have been served by those for decades now, and this market has never had enough of a profit margin for humans in the loop anyway.

As a web developer, you do things that are not handled by off-the-shelf software.

Web sites that are the product, like service platforms, will always require more and more features to distinguish themselves from the competition, and there are a lot of other companies that need special tweaks for their websites as well.

So it is rather unlikely that the amount of work will significantly change.

What does change are frameworks, because every time a framework got far enough into "convenient" territory, someone else will find it too inflexible, and build a new one that handles something that wasn't easily doable before.

ML/AI is a growing field, but most of the demand they have is in designing training sets and verifying models, which are theory heavy and do not have a tight feedback loop, so the work style in that field is completely different. It may still be worth looking at it if it's interesting to you, though.

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  • Thanks Simon, after reading responses from you and others I feel it could just be the kind of work I have been doing for all these years. Thanks again for taking your time out to write a detailed response 🙂
    – Abhinay
    Commented Sep 13, 2020 at 15:39
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With the latest developments of no coding platforms I have a feeling that soon there will be no requirement for a web developer

Oh man. With the latest developments 25 years ago of no coding application development platforms I would expect there soon to be no requirement for programmers anymore. Did not happen in 25 years. WIll not happen.

Yes, LOW END STATIC WEBSITES - done. CMS replace that. Larger complex application level websites? I fail to see the no coding Angular (or whatever) platform that magically transforms the end user into a programmer.

Can someone please tell me how the career path looks like for a web developer?

Yeah. Become a developer. THe moment you actually PROGRAM LOGIC - not just move around pretty boxes - you are in an area no graphical UI Editor can magically replace. Front End Designers do not turn end users into programmers. And also understand that if your target are low end websites (i.e. cost optimized) for small businesses - little functionality, low budget UI - then yes, that may get into problems. But if you are the web UI guy in a larger team working for YEARS on a singular application or set of applications... ah, no.

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  • Thank you for the detailed response, it’s comforting to know that the web development at least the complex ones would still require developers for years to come. 🙂
    – Abhinay
    Commented Sep 13, 2020 at 15:36
  • Seriously, this whole "replace professionals" even in web development - look up MS FrontPage. This was considered the pinnacle of this, allowing COM level server side objects to render the UI (so programmers can expand it and provide things like data grids). DISAPPEARED. Normal people have ZERO idea how to make a good UI - and the moment you get into even simple programming you get "ah, variable?" and "hm. This loop thingy". And we move more and more apps into the web (hence my reference to angular).
    – TomTom
    Commented Sep 13, 2020 at 15:43
  • 😁 I was not sure whether I should ask this question cause I kind of had the feeling that it will end up getting down votes and probably no one would care to respond but I was wrong. Thank you so much for answering with examples even though my question was hinting towards asking for opinion and not very clear.
    – Abhinay
    Commented Sep 13, 2020 at 15:50

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