Backend, Frontend or DevOps? How to Decide!

If you're trying to become a developer then chances are you are making this one mistake - and it's likely what is holding you back from landing a job. This mistake is jumping from topic to topic & field to field without really understanding what it is that you need to focus on.

⏳ Timestamps ⏳
00:00 | The BIGGEST Mistake
01:57 | A DevOps Tool You NEED
02:49 | Difficulty/Ease of Access
05:59 | The MONEY
07:35 | A Detailed Breakdown (Frontend)
09:42 | A Detailed Breakdown (Backend)
12:30 | A Detailed Breakdown (DevOps)
14:00 | What About Other Roles?
15:13 | How To Decide!

Hashtags
#techwithtim
#frontenddevelopment
#backendwebdevelopment
#devops

[nedthehead]

Started right out of college in a devops role. I knew nothing going into it. Never even heard of any of tools that we use. My tech lead told me told me he chose me based on my attitude and my willingness to learn. A little more than 2 years in and I am thriving on my team. I love it and truly couldn’t imagine doing anything else!

[DJRanoia]

Don’t forget devOp/platform engineering means you have to be ok with an on call rotation so expect to be available 24/7 when you are on call.

[bugra]

A backend developer is never just a backender. He is also expected to know frontend, devops, cloud at some degree

[TheXamazing]

Defining what you want to do was one of the most crucial steps I took on my journey so far. It helps focus your efforts on what really matters to landing a job especially as a self taught dev. I loved your advise to spend a few days looking at tutorials and small projects for each field to see what resonates. Overall great video!

[victoryamadi]

I'm about to finish my foundations course, and I'm to choose between front-end or backend for my 3 months specialisations. I open YouTube and this is the first video I see. I love you God!

[Basta]

I started as front end, then full stack, then backend data engineering stuff, then now mostly devops work. Your career will take you wherever, you'll never know.

[devilbg]

Nice content. I have almost 7 years of experience, and now I am a lead developer and I am specialised in backend and recently devops. I think some transitions will appear very natural, but I agree that devops can't be a job for beginners as you need to have a lot of knowledge and knows how everything works. I sucks in Front-End development because I am not really a visual person, but I still like the logic behind some framework, and I help my team to keep the code clean, with some architectural work.
The software engineer, if you like, is one of the most interesting career that you can get, because sometimes the switch between one position, to another will be natural, maybe some job needs to be done within the same company etc...

[sadique_x_]

thank you so much Tim, this really helped me solidify my decision as i'm currently a junior frontend developer

[zucchinirosti]

Currently looking for my 1st job as a developer, this video is a godsend. Thank you Tim for helping me in realizing that I need to focus on backend instead of trying to do everything at once!

[kevanbarter]

Great video! I started of as a Software Test Engineer after my Masters Degree in Computer Science making around $60k back in September of 2022. Just landed my first junior Frontend Developer position back in November last making around $85k. Just got to take what ever position to break into the industry and keep growing your skills

[johnharmon]

From personal experience I can say the transition from many engineering positions to devops is quite natural, although I came from a system admin and later system engineering background so a lot of the larger scale system stuff was more familiar to me than it may be to many developers making the transition. That being said, I would say that DevOps is great if you like a medium breadth and medium depth of understanding (ill write code in python, go, shell, powershell, etc, but am not a true expert developer in any of them except maybe *nix shell, but I understand a lot of os/system/networking concepts much better than most dedicated developers) and really enjoy automation. There is something immensely satisfying about being able to run say an ansible playbook that will wrap everything you need to automatically build your infrastructure and deploy + configure your entire application suite with one button.

[Dilluded]

This video came at the right time, I just started learning PHP (LAMP Stack), really enjoying modern PHP and going to go all in on backend learning

[stalinengoma]

Really nice video.
As an experienced DevOps engineer I will add Linux system administrator on the list as well if you don’t mind.

[jessecovington]

Love your video, really helped me decided. I am a Graphic Designer & Animator by trade and I wanted to stay in IT whole pursuing art as my passion. Basically staying creative while I work towards an art career and Front end sounds perfect. So thank you from the bottom of my heart bro!

[hardiklokwani]

Great video Tim ! I think you missed one major fundamental skill everyone needs to master in order to work in DevOps and that's Linux. A best advice for people who are actually trying to get into IT and specifically DevOps can start with a role of an Linux SysAdmin and then try to work their way up ! I am doing the same and couldn't have found a better way... It only sounds difficult but once you give it some time you'll start building up the confidence !!!

[typethedeveloper]

I’m going with backend. I like the idea of server logic, working with Databases.

[crimsonx_]

in today's job market, all these 3 are needed. Either passively or actively.

[neomangeo]

Just to mention that there are many roles which are sort of more generalist out there eg. Software Developer/Software Engineer/Full Stack (Developer/Engineer). For people newly getting into the industry - just be aware that these roles can vary a lot on where your focus may be, no two jobs are the same there usually... so just be aware of that.

[Thatnerdyfella]

I’m studying and doing projects with both front end and backend (basically full stack) for web and app development currently. I’m trying to get well knowledgeable and well versed before landing a job somewhere.

[aristonsaizoxic]

Since I already like python and i also weak in maths (so no AI backend pathway by becoming python developer is the only way.