.NET developer role/skills [closed]

Question

I recently joined an organization heading up the Internet Marketing team. The company overall is dated, no place more than its use (or lack thereof) of technology.

We interface extensively with our in-house IT group, who are responsible for the development/maintenance of our systems that help power our website. The IT group uses the .NET framework exclusively, while the Internet Marketing team primarily uses HTML/CSS/JS within Classic ASP. We are fluent in translating creative designs and functionality within our framework.

The IT group's .NET developers have no HTML or CSS skills, and are unable to integrate such into their .NET work/projects. They are asking the Internet Marketing team to work within their .NET environment (which we've never done before) and provide all code and efforts related to coding the creative layer via HTML/CSS/JS.

This seems inefficient to me, however this is my first gig working with a .NET team. I have historically worked with developers who are able to do both "front end" (modern HTML, etc.) and "back end" (.NET, SQL, etc.) work and take a Photoshop file and create its look in the front end.

Do most .NET developers out there not work with the "presentation layer", to make it beautiful and functional via HTML/CSS/JS? I'm wondering how other companies structure their tech teams and associated skillsets.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Do most .NET developers out there not work with the "presentation layer", to make it beautiful and functional via HTML/CSS/JS?

No. Most have at least a cursory knowledge of web languages, and vaguely competent ones could pick up enough to be dangerous in a few weeks. That won't be enough to make good looking or complex websites, but it should be enough to work with you.

This is one of those situations where everyone needs to sit down and work together. Your IT staff might need to learn a little front end to get your stuff working and you'll need to learn how to adapt the front end skills you have to work in MVC or whatever non-ASP classic framework you end up using.

If your IT people aren't that sort of developer, you might need new developers. If you marketing people can only make mockups and not actual working html, you might need new marketing people (and/or new developers).

Most companies I've seen will have marketing people that can't write HTML, but just come up with problems/ideas. They will have some developers that are good with the front end, some developers that are good with the back end, and some creative people who can make graphics/css and the site layout itself. The actual mix of responsibilities will vary depending on your needs and available resources. One size will not fit all.

Answer 2

Do most .NET developers out there not work with the "presentation layer", to make it beautiful and functional via HTML/CSS/JS?

Some do, most don't.

Most should at least know the basics from a functional perspective.

Generally teams will be divided between front-end and back-end (programmers and UX developers.) The programmers should focus on back-end tasks such as database, security, data processing, etc. While the front-end people, those who do HTML/CSS/JS like you mentioned... do HTML/CSS/JS. If you are integrating the two teams, drop ASP and don't expect the programmers to do anything beautiful.

On the other hand it is unreasonable for the .NET programmers to assume the marketers should learn how to integrate the work with .NET. It is there job to advise the marketers on how to implement the front-end with their system.