How To Become a Web Developer in 2021

What you should know for Web Development in 2021

5 min readJan 1, 2021

In my schooldays, while browsing the web I always wanted to design a website of my own. I am sure Everyone would have thought the same — a website of their own or a personal portfolio showcasing their work, skills, and achievements or a Start-Up/Business website.

Web Development is the most in-demand skill to have and with the Digital world growing rapidly the demand for Web Developers has increased.

If you are a beginner in this Web Development field then this article covers all the skills and technologies required that will help you in your Web development journey and provide a complete roadmap on how to prepare for the Web Developer role.

Let’s begin the journey to become a Modern Web Developer today!

Understand how the Internet Works

When you create a website the objective is to publish it on the Internet or Web. We need to have a basic understanding of how the internet works and how a request is made from the browser and a response is sent from the server.

In simple terms, the Internet is a large network of computers that communicates with each other. When we use a browser and enter the URL, we are using a domain name to reach a website that is hosted on a server.

Hosting has become very easy today, you don’t have to get a domain name or set up a server. Many free websites will host your website for free, e.g Github Pages or Netlify.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

There are three types of Web Developers

The process of Website creation starts with a design and mockup where the appearance of the website is decided. The Developers then start designing the Interface, add functionalities, and make the website responsive. They then send it to another set of Developers who handle the server-side code and deploy it on the server.

Front-end Developers: They are responsible for the User Interface and design of the website and make it responsive for all devices.

Back-end Developers: They handle the server-side code and deploy the website on the server which handles the requests and response.

Full Stack Developers: They are developers who have both frontend and backend skills.

Front-end Development

Front-end Developers are responsible for how the website looks. The basics skills required to learn Front-end are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Nowadays most users browse websites on their mobile, So when creating a website, developers must also keep in mind how it looks on Desktop and Mobile devices. CSS Media Queries are used for this purpose with a Mobile-first design approach.

The next step is mastering a framework, once you have understood the above concepts using frameworks makes it easy to create websites quickly and are user friendly. With Frameworks, you do not have to code everything from scratch and can use various functionalities provided.

Some Popular Frameworks are Bootstrap, Material CSS, Tailwind.

The above skills will help you create static websites but to become industry-ready you need to learn how to create dynamic websites and web applications. Advanced Frontend developers use Frameworks like React JS, Angular, or Vue to create dynamic and large-scale applications. I would suggest you learn any one of these frameworks

Back-end Development

A Backend Developer handles a lot of functionalities other than deploying the code on the server. If the website is static then it can be hosted on a platform like Github or Netlify. But when the application involves dynamic functionalities like the use of database and authentication that’s where a Backend Engineer comes in.

The role of the Backend developer involves:

Designing and Managing Database and connecting it with a server.
Adding Authentication and handle Requests from Clients.
Scalability and Version Control
Implementing Automated testing

There are a lot of technologies that can be used to learn Backend Development. Expertise in languages like Python, Java, .Net, Javascript is a must.

Knowledge of SQL and NoSQL databases like MYSQL and MongoDB

If you are a beginner I would suggest getting started with Node.js as it is a JavaScript framework for Server Side Code. Other frameworks are Django, Flask, ASP .Net, J2EE, etc.

How to Prepare for Web Development Interviews

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If you are aiming for a Web Developer role and preparing for interviews, then the most important skill which is most asked is JavaScript.

JavaScript Concepts and Frameworks like React and Node are the most in-demand skills that companies look for. You can expect a lot of questions from these topics.

You need to have good knowledge in one stack Frontend or Backend and a good knowledge of Database Management Systems. If you are a beginner you can get started with Freelancing or Open Source Contribution to get some experience in this field and have some projects for your portfolio.

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Thank You for reading till the end and I hope this article would help you with your Preparations. All the Best!