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Ask DN: Where are all the UI engineers?

almost 7 years ago from Mattan Ingram, http://mattaningram.com

  • Siddhartha Gudipati, almost 7 years ago (edited almost 7 years ago )

    I'm a recent grad with a CS and HCI degree. I love doing UI dev & UX design. When I was trying to find a job after graduation I realized that UX Engineering positions are not that popular and Its hard to find the position.

    So, either I had to brand myself as a Front-end Developer(JS/Angular/Ember etc.) or an Interaction Designer(Just do pure design and leave the rest to Engineering team) to find a job.

    And also I was told that(this may not be completely true), UI/UX Engineers are generally paid less than Interaction Designers/UX Designers. And also UI Engineers in some places are branded under UX Designers are seen as people who build what designers say. I would love to know more thoughts about this.

    So to check that I did an Front-end dev internship at a decently big company and realized that how less they cared about design. Which made me to brand myself as an Interaction designer moving forward even though I get paid a lot more as a developer.

    And not to mention, I know a ton of UX Designer who are really good at UI Dev they understand OOCSS, SASS or paint times etc. But they don't brand them self as a UI Dev.

    And I guess with the increasing number of new tools and techniques makes us focus less on CSS, for example frameworks like Angular 2, React, Polymer.

    To conclude though I'm really love doing UI Dev. I had to brand myself as a Designer to land on my dream job. That being said I satisfy my UI Dev craving by doing side project on the weekends.

    Yes, there can be lot of people thinking UI Dev is not the coolest job or they don't get paid much. May be you should change the job description a bit and let the people know that they are equal to any other designer/developer.

    I would really love to know everyones thoughts on this.

    3 points
    • Mattan IngramMattan Ingram, almost 7 years ago

      I like the idea of emphasizing equality with other roles on the development team.

      I was a bit offended when my company decided to replace my senior role with a junior one, and it was quite clear that they do not realize the amount of knowledge that goes into really good CSS. I'm paid fairly well but not because I'm a dev, more because I wear like five hats and have been at the company longer than anyone but the founder.

      This has inspired me to make a point about this at work tomorrow, thank you.

      2 points
    • Account deleted almost 7 years ago (edited almost 7 years ago )

      The question is - can so many people specialize in UX at this very high level (meaning do user research, work with customers, work with data, statistics, etc.) and still be open-minded, user-centered coders (not choosing solutions that are fast and efficient to implement but satisfy users' needs)? I doubt that. One has to go some way at some point.

      0 points