Web developer

A web developer is a programmer who specializes in, or is specifically engaged in, the development of World Wide Web applications, or distributed network applications that are run over HTTP from a web server to a web browser.

Nature of employment

Web developers are found working in all types of organizations, including large corporations and governments, small and medium - sized companies, or alone as freelancers. Some web developers work for one organization as a permanent full-time employee, while others may work as independent consultants, or as contractors for an employment agency. Web developers typically handle both server-side and front-end logic. This usually involves implementing all the visual elements that users see and use in the web application, as well as all the web services and APIs that are necessary to power the front-end.

Type of work performed

Modern web applications often contain three or more tiers, and depending on the size of the team a developer works on, he or she may specialize in one or more of these tiers - or may take a more interdisciplinary role. For example, in a two-person team, one developer may focus on the technologies sent to the client such as HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and on the server-side frameworks (such as Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, ASP, ASP.NET) used to deliver content and scripts to the client. Meanwhile the other developer might focus on the interaction between server-side frameworks, the web server, and a database system. Further, depending on the size of their organization, the aforementioned developers might work closely with a content creator/copy writer, marketing advisor, user experience designer, web designer, web producer, project manager, software architect, or database administrator - or they may be responsible for such tasks as web design and project management themselves.