Recently got a message from an HR employee of a major retailer in the NYC area. The recruiter found me on LinkedIn and sent me a message after seeing some of the projects I posted. They seem pretty interested in me and I’m a little unsure if I fit the bill.
UX Developer role
Hi Nicholas,
Came across your profile, was impressed with your background. Wanted to reach out (hope that’s okay!) and see if you were in market for a UX Front End Dev role that I’m currently recruiting for here at omitted name of comany Union, NJ office.
Attached the job description, if interested, please email me directly (I have linkedin issues sometimes)
The job description itself:
As a member of omitted name of company you’ll develop great customer experiences across our digital channels — for both omitted name of company . Our UX Developers leverage both data and customer insights to help solve complex challenges. For this role, you’ll be part of a dedicated cross-functional agile team who’s goal is to rapidly design, test and learn (and repeat!).
The ideal candidate has 3+ years of responsive web development experience with 1+ year React development.
Responsible for front end development using web technologies (React, HTML, CSS, Javascript, JQuery etc.)
Primarily responsible for front end implementation of A/B testing stories
Keen eye for clean UI implementation and knowledge of web development best practices
Evaluate the customers pain points based on customer feedback and conceptualize new tests
Review business requirements and provide tech feasibility for the best customer experience
Work in a collaborative environment with other developers, designers, product managers, and site-op team members
Prioritize effectively and meet project deadlines
Requirements:
3+ years responsive web development experience
1+ year React development experience
Proficiency in React/HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript/jQuery
Proficiency in DOM Manipulation
Proficiency in code debugging skills using a development tool such as Chrome Developer Tools
Knowledge of AJAX using jQuery
Knowledge of JSON
Knowledge of Adobe Photoshop/Sketch for image optimization and slicing up comps
Knowledge of A/B testing
Knowledge of regular expressions
E-commerce experience
After reading the description the job sounds nice but I’m not confident I fit the bill. I’m 30, halfway through a CS degree (took a hiatus due to health issues), my only real work experience was in the military and non-tech related, and I don’t have the 3 years experience. I also have a couple year work gap due to my health and the Veterans Administration screwing me pretty badly. I guess what I’m saying is my background isn’t typical for a new developer and my confidence isn’t where it used to be. I’m in an awkward position in life at the moment and a dev job sounds awesome.
I’ve been programming as a hobbyist/FreeCodeCamper for 3+ years, know HTML/CSS and SASS very well, decent Javascript skills, did some C++ and software dev classes in college (albeit basic software dev classes), and I’ve been learning React for a few months. I’m decent with working in a Node.js/NPM dev environment with react-create-app, can implement a basic Redux store, can do API requests with Axios, and I’ve been publishing web dev tutorials on a social media site.
It seems like this would be in a sense skipping over the junior dev job and going directly into a 3+ years experience dev job. Can I realistically make this jump? I definitely meet the requirements for HTML/CSS/JSON/AJAX and most likely React. I lack the requirements for e-commerce, Photoshop/Sketch, and A/B testing.
Also, how much does “UX developer” differ from just a front-end developer? Am I correct in thinking UX developer is mostly just a hipper industry term for a front-end dev that also puts a lot of thought into market and whatnot?
What type of salary would this job realistically pay? I’ve seen some really high numbers online that seem a little unrealistic. But then again it’s the NYC metro area and salaries are higher than the national average.