What's it like being a web designer/developer?

[elrasho]

Here's the thing, for the past 4 years I've been working in IT Support. Not specialising in any area, just a jack of all trades. I'm looking into specialising in something but I don't know what. I've always had a keen eye on becoming a web developer/designer (I know these two are different but I'm not sure which is more suitable to me).

So here's this thread, I would like to know what it's like working as a web designer and web developer. This will help me which route I want to go down.

 

[robmiller]

It depends on your personality and who you work for? My last job was developing an in-house web application in the energy industry and it was the most boring, repetitive and soul-crushing thing I've ever done in my life; my current job is working for a design agency and it's one of the most exciting, interesting and varied things I've ever done in my life — even though both of them were similar on paper (PHP/mySQL development).

 

[d_brennen]

Web design is highly competitive, can be quite low paid and can be very monotonous. All depends if you have the passion for it, like every career I guess!

 

[Tetsujin]

Well, the choice between designer or developer should be easy - are you a crayon or a maths nerd? If you're not already artistically minded then design possibly isn't for you, and if you're not strong at maths/logic then coding isn't. Assuming you went into IT Support at 16 and that you're 20 now, you'd probably know by now if you were of a crayon bent, so I'm guessing coding will be the avenue to investigate, most likely.

As the other two posters posted, experience will vary hugely with who you work for, and everyone and their dog is a web designer/developer so the market is crowded. What it's like for me (as a developer) is different than for most as I work in a close knit group of serial entrepreneurs so I'm always planning/building new things and, worst of all, modifying a recently-designed thing to do something entirely different. Never a dull moment. Plenty of coding jobs out there are chock full of dull moments, though.