UX/UI Designer V.S Web Developer
To all professionals reading this post, thank you for your precious time!
I just started my journey in coding (HTML/CSS/Javascript) three months ago, I love it and I experience the so-called 'flow' state when I'm coding. (definitely a great sign!)
I was wondering if you could share some career advice or your experiences in the tech industry?
Why did you choose to become a web developer rather than a UX designer or UI designer? (or vice versa)
Thank you so much!
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11 answers

Katy Tsai
Katy’s Answer
I'm a UX Designer based in San Francisco. I studied Art and Computer Science in college and started my journey with HTML/CSS/Javascript, but ultimately decided I was more excited about design than coding. Personally, I've experienced 'flow state' in both, but I really enjoyed spending time thinking about user problems and dreaming up how to visualize solutions to address those problems. When I was coding, I spent more time coming up with the best way to implement the solution. Also fun, but I tend to gravitate to the former.
Katy recommends the following next steps:
Jake’s Answer
I think it really comes down to whether you'd be happy building other people's designs, or are you like me, and you'd rather design the things yourself. I don't mean to put one above the other, both are incredibly important of course!
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Hunter’s Answer
1. I enjoyed actually coding and implementing things better
2. There are a lot of people that have WAY better taste than me
I really like puzzles and when i get a new mockup from our designer i kinda see it as the picture on the outside of a puzzle box. I then go and find how it should fit all together with code (html, css, js). Which to me, is a lot more fun.
So one way to look at it would be: Do you want to paint the puzzles or solve the puzzles?

Julia Hinger
Julia’s Answer

Eric Ning
Eric’s Answer
It depends on what impact on the products that you're working on.
Designers will be expected to think a lot more about the real-world user experience for the product, while developers will have to spend a vast majority of the time actually doing the implementation. You can think of designers as the architects of the product, while the developer is the builder.
Developers have some influence, but their main responsibility is to take the design from a sketch into reality.
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Hyesun An
Hyesun’s Answer
I also thought about becoming a UI/UX designer, but I am currently experiencing with software development. There's a course in my school that is related to UI/UX design, and I could learn how UI/UX is applied to actual products. I liked to know about that, but I noticed that that is not my thing. UI/UX design has a little bit vague to me. For sure, it could be controversial, but at least for me, software development has a very clear concept.
I recommend you to take some UI/UX course and try a small project to know whether you'd like or not.
Kudos for your career! :)
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Mohammad Rameez Mata
Mohammad Rameez’s Answer
My suggestion would be to try designing while you code. In this way you will understand what are you more interested in. As per my experience the wider your experiences are better chances for you to survive in this industry.
Simona’s Answer
Web developer (software engineer) would give you a broader scope of professional choices. UX designers are also in demand but there are also more people doing it. The number of women in tech is rising but the field is still dominated by men, this mean that there is still a lot of room for growth for women.
Kirthan’s Answer
Kirthan recommends the following next steps:

Molly Castro
Molly’s Answer
I recommend staying a designer and continuing to grow your coding skills. You will become an invaluable asset to any development team because you "get it" when you design something. You will know how to quickly adjust a design if it's technically difficult to implement without sacrificing the design. I've had to suffer through developers trying to solve design problems in less-than-aesthetically-pleasing ways because the designer asked for something outrageous. It's also extremely satisfying to be the designer that developers love to work with because not only can you design something beautiful, it's easy to implement too!
There is also the balance of pushing the limits of the design too. Having the knowledge of how it gets implemented will only help you figure out where to push development for the sake of design.
Then for finding roles, you should definitely push that you have ABC skills of a designer plus XYZ skills of a developer, making you worth more than a normal UI/UX Designer. Push for more money than your fellow designers because you do have other skills they won't have.

Donal O Mahony

Donal’s Answer
When you experience flow that is a great sign, expand out from there.
Choose a company that values UX, ask that the company questions around that in the interview.