If someone is able to build with a tool something that a developer would build with code, they are practically a developer (especially if the market starts to identify them as such). Your hiring needs and classic dictionary definitions notwithstanding. Could it be that programming is being commoditized and we don't want to accept it?
Spreadsheets, and Excel in particular is a type of gateway drug for people to become developers. First they put in a few numbers and see things happen and before long they are writing small scripts in Excel to automate. At some point they could at least be called an Excel developer.
You can also script photoshop, so if you are actually "developing" for photoshop then I would say yes although that would be certainly an unconventional way to join the trade.
The members of the finance department at my work are definitely programmers. Their spreadsheets define exceptionally complex functionality and they even work a bit in VBA. When Excel is no longer powerful enough they write a little bit of SQL and run it through a Data Connector. Dismissing what they do as "not programming" is incorrect. We call programmers who only know how to glue vendor APIs together "developers", so we should extend the same professional courtesy to people doing a similar level of programming.
The OP's sentiment runs the risk of alienating people who would potentially be interested in pursuing a more "traditional" software engineering or development career. I am not sure that is ultimately a good thing.
I guess as a technical community, there are at least two forces at work here:
1) The community wants to be as inclusive as possible - get as many people to code as possible, because it is good for everyone to be able to contribute, even if it is using a higher-level tool/abstraction that does much of what we would do writing code by hand manually; and/or
2) The community wants to distinguish itself clearly based on skill-level at some level of core competency or abstraction.
I agree there is a challenge here, with misrepresentation or misappropriation of skill levels. Trust but verify?
Still, let's find a solution as a community. How do we make it easier for people to enter the profession and leave the barrier for entry low while also making it easier for those in the profession to prove their skill-level and commitment to a specific track of the craft?
1) A public list of recognized job titles (think of an employment bureau catalog or else) that defines the job description by an authority. At least a reference that most would pay attention to.
2) A unified training program for each branch (or developers in question) outlining the required skills or targets for developers
3) A WordPress.org profile that showcases the work in a better manner - think of a GitHub/LinkedIn version in the WordPress context
I also wouldn't necessarily vouch for a licensing program (probably commercial/financial interests), but some standardization and guidelines could help immensely and solve various problems for employers, clients, expert and beginner developers, site builders, even users.
One more thought - I am not sure we want to go down this route, but organizing into professional trade organizations (I hesitate to call it a union) could provide for "licensed/certified" software engineers/etc. to help distinguish.
I know we have plenty of professional certifications, but I don't know of one as general as this which exists yet and has any true merit. I think the IEEE was working on something like this.
I really appreciate your train of thought on this subject, because I can tell you've got a pragmatic, inclusive desire in mind. Hopefully my little bit on guitarists/guitar players in this thread kind of aligns. I just wanted to respond because in guitar, there are top 1% players. Chet Atkins was one of the undisputed greats, and he used to bestow upon people the term "Certified Guitar Player" to convey his approval and admiration. If you'd like to see what he meant, feel free to check out some live work by Tommy Emmanuel, a CGP according to Chet. Since Chet has passed away, I don't think anybody feels it's their role to take his place giving people the term, but it remains a very highly regarded professional distinction!
I think what you said both here and in your post are very valuable additions indeed.
To me what it feels like you're saying is - when you are truly an "expert", it is more likely that you can identify/recognize other "experts" - or even people with that potential.
When I look at my own skills, I try to rate myself honestly on the following scale with regards to some particular skill: expert, professional or amateur.
Expert is a guru-level understanding. If I say that I am an expert, I am saying I think I am as good as the top x% (where x is maybe 1-10) in a particular skill. For me, I pretty much never rate myself as this in any skill!
Professional is practiced, practical, hands-on real world skill. You've honed this skill, you've been formally trained, you've employed this skill successfully in a repeated, demonstrated way.
Amateur is a hobby, done it a few times, do it for fun or would like to do it/get better at it level of experience.
I observed that in traditional skilled tradesmanship, we have the apprentice, who progresses to the journeyman, who progresses to the master craftsman. These are the same levels of what I mean by amateur, professional and expert.
I don't know why our industry seems to reject some of these concepts from skilled trades in terms of organizing into better/stronger professional trade organizations and certifications.
Actually, the way we often talk about coding as a "craft", it's almost like we would feel a lot better with a formal organization and such a career progression/structure in place.
We have our 1%'ers in the software community, our gurus/experts/master craftsman. I often think of these as the core contributing past and current "fathers" and "mothers" of our industry, people ranging anywhere from Ada Lovelace to Vint Cerf. Reality is, those core thinkers are probably where many of us learn from anyway - that and "hacking/tinkering" which is what many of us do and can still lead to progress too.
To me it's all connected, but something about our community always holds us back... maybe there it is the element of not wanting to be forced into structure either. After all, the "hacker" ethos is also a source of our strength, and part of the art.
Right, but the point being, that if you have to interview AND REJECT upwards of 100 candidates, sifting through countless resumes that misrepresent themselves, and fail to meet the needs of the role being hired for, there's no other way to bridge the painfully evident gap in communications.
You have to send the message, and be clear about it.
Developers have responsibilities. Serious obligations that can cause harm when not met properly.
You don't want to hire someone, and plunge them into the deep end, get them into a situation where they're in over their heads, and then have it end in tears, because you were uncomfortable about hurting someone's feelings up front.
I agree, it is the responsibility of the community to define the standards they wish to represent and be judged by. The message is valuable if it helps people navigate the community or make decisions about how to represent themselves.
Sending the message might help dissuade some people from misrepresenting, but those who choose to misrepresent may likely do so regardless.
>If someone is able to build with a tool something that a developer would build with code
If they could actually do this, yes it would. But they can't actually build something that a developer would build with code. If someone can't code at all, they can use WordPress to build a very small subset of what a developer can build with code.
A person who spend 30 seconds setting up a blog on tumblr is able to build something that a developer would build with code, but again it's just a small subset.
Now if that subset is all you need then it's fine to hire WordPress admin instead of a developer. But the term "developer" has a current meaning, and that meaning is analogous to "programmer".
That being said, language changes, and developer could become another meaningless job title like engineer (in some countries), and people will have to use another term for someone who can code.
There are ways to prevent this, in some jurisdictions they limit the use of titles like Engineer.
It wasn't that long ago (in society scale, the scale that most of these people's clients reckon with, not on technology scale that most readers here will use) that you couldn't just configure up an interactive publishing workflow, something these folks deliver, and would have to hire someone to "develop" it to your needs. I think it is that context in which they are called developers.
That's the case for almost everyone who uses any software to build anything.
Not too long ago, an off the shelf solution didn't exist for anything, so you had to hire someone to build it from scratch.
By that definition, almost anyone should be called a "developer".
20 years ago, you needed to be a developer to set up a small homepage. Now my grandma can do that with Facebook, but I'm not going to call her a "developer" just because she's doing something that used to require one.
I find it fascinating how obsessed people are with titles.
Edit: I code, but I honestly couldn't care less what someone else calls themselves. If I'm interviewing them, they'd have to prove their abilities in the relevant code right then.
If we're just having a conversation, most disciplines are different enough that you have to explain many things from the bottom up anyway.
Backend developers lead entirely different lives from frontend developers, and both lead entirely different lives from low level developers. Game developers or data science devs similarly work nothing like anyone else. So why does it matter that someone calls themselves a Wordpress Developer?
Unfortunately, in medium to large organizations titles matter for responsibility and compensation, much in the same way what school someone graduated from matters.
But titles don't matter outside of that organization. Because what you do may be called a developer in one organization doesn't mean you'll get paid more or less in another because they call that position a Software Engineer and developer means something else there.
most companies these days do salary surveys to make sure your salary is aligned to the "industry standard" and if you are, say, a senior engineer, your pay is tied to the average of all "senior engineers" in your area, and it doesn't matter if at your company you really are operating at a different level, you still get slotted with "industry standard senior engineer" salary and stock compensation.
It is unfortunate but titles do matter, and they matter also when you apply to future jobs to pass the HR filter.
No they don't. Companies align positions to industry standard rates, not job titles. One place will call you programmer level 3, some other place will call you Senior developer but if they have the same responsibility, they will be aligned in pay.
Where I am doesn't use the title 'Developer' or
'Programmer. Do you think that means they have no idea how to gauge people coming in or other areas of the industry that do use those titles?
The same reason you wouldn't call an apple a motorcycle.
Words have meaning. For people who can discern the differences between these titles - probably most visitors to HN - these distinctions seem silly and almost trivial at times because we think "of course those are different!"
But 99.9%+ of the world is not like us.
They don't know the difference between "web developer" and "WordPress developer" or which framework to use. They don't even know there are lots of frameworks, let alone which use which languages.
This is why when you visit family for the holidays, you constantly hear "oh, you work with computers.. can you see what's wrong with my computer?"
> This is why when you visit family for the holidays, you constantly hear "oh, you work with computers.. can you see what's wrong with my computer?"
In my opinion, the correct answer to that is, "Yes, for a fee.", and has nothing to do with the overloading of terms, but everything to do with the undervaluation of tech-related labor. I am perfectly capable of fixing your computer, I just don't want to waste my leisure time doing it for free.
Next time you get this, tell the family (especially if they are distant family) – "If your relative was a doctor, would you ask them to give you a quick once-over physical every time they came over? Or if your accountant brother-in-law comes along, do you ask them to glance over your tax forms for free? No? Then stop asking me to look at your computer."
In my opinion, the correct answer to that is, "Yes, for a fee.", and has nothing to do with the overloading of terms, but everything to do with the undervaluation of tech-related labor.
It's also to do with the large gap between consumer-level knowledge and professional knowledge, and the fact that amateurs enthusiastically fill that gap for free, and often competently. Often, "fix my computer" equates to "uninstall this bloatware" and that's non-trivial but simple enough for Gary the precocious 8 year old grandchild to do for kicks.
That there's a world of difference between Gary and real tech-related labour is entirely opaque to someone who thinks Gary knows everything about computers.
I see what you are saying, and largely agree with it – but I think we should work on reducing that opacity. We shouldn't be a Gary substitute – Gary doesn't make a whole lot in pocket money, does he. :)
One step further - when you are hiring for such a position, you ask for a reasonable demonstration of the skill needed in the interview.
Based on your need as an interviewer/organization, you may choose to accept someone who shows passion but less refined skill with a learning opportunity, or you may require someone at a high skill level ready to go on day one.
To me, this is the interviewer's responsibility, to know their requirement and make it clear to candidates.
Totally. I don't have a degree myself, so I know that sometimes the best candidates don't look like it on paper. I was just making a generalization, not meaning to only target the overqualified.
The issue is with non-technical clients that can't judge technical skill. Since in software, anyone can call themselves whatever they want (as opposed to medicine and party engineering), the less sophisticated clients are the ones who suffer for it.
I've been there with non-technical clients. I've seen people get ripped off by those who misrepresent themselves or their abilities. I agree, there is pain there and it is wrong. But this is not a problem exclusive to our occupation.
All I can say is, personally, my own professional ethics require me to try to know my own limits and abilities and present those honestly. So, for example, if a client came to me with a technical need, and I felt that I wanted to fulfill it, but it was reasonably out of my wheelhouse, I would either turn down or direct that client to the best alternative I could think of, if I could not provide it.
I suppose, ethics training is a part of professional development in more rigid occupations, maybe if ours was formalized more, this would be more prevalent.
I couldn't agree more. But people need to make a living, and often loud folks take over an ecosystem if they are allowed to do so, and without standardization or a way to verify skills, we'll turn into the Internet marketing community which is flooded with self-titled marketing gurus - but at least their job requires them to be super visible and exposed so it's way easier to verify their credentials and/or skills.
Two of the problems we struggle with here as technical people:
1) You receive hundreds of spam applications even if you mention explicitly code-related stuff - like GitHub/Bitbucket repo, years of programming experience, know-how in TDD, we sometimes experiment with continuous integration experience or others. The wave comes as long as you mention WordPress.
2) Other than the spam applications and standard "bots", many people simply don't know what's included in "developer" or what real "developers" do. Even if they do want to learn and get better, they don't know the limits and can't aim higher than they are.
Sometimes it's important - I would never go around calling myself "Doctor." In the US we don't have the engineering distinction that countries like Canada do, so I don't mind when people call themselves whatever they want in software.
I always feel like the authors of posts like these suffer from a terrible lack of confidence.
I'm reminded of a saying that I'm going to butcher: "At the bottom of the ladder, the rungs are closer together, and the distinctions between them more important."
Confidence ain't the problem here; it is polluting the market with broken extensions, underpricing services that have been estimated by Lego builders first, and being unable to find an actual developer in the wide pool of people with no skills. The bigger picture is that bothers me, as stated in the bullet list with problems in the post.
I agreed with your one liner and agree even more with your expanded explanation!
The term developer is so broad, so overloaded, and will only keep getting more overloaded as the tech industry continues to expand.
If I meet someone at a party and they say they're a developer, even as a developer myself I have no idea what that really means, and I have to ask more questions and probably drill down for at least a couple more minutes before I have the slightest clue what their actual specialty and interests are, let alone what they do or are capable of doing day to day.
In such a specialised world, there's not really much sense in reserving any particular word for any particular category of job or skill, because to do so would be so high level as to be almost useless anyway. High level titles in this world are completely, utterly meaningless because people can and do use them liberally. We're in a place now where it's necessary to have a fairly involved discussion with someone to figure out what their real job and skillset actually are, whereas maybe 50 or more years ago, that perhaps wasn't so much the case. That's a very good thing and we should embrace it and not worry about broad definitions being 'misused'.
Put it this way, if I was being interviewed by somebody who wanted a custom web app building, and they genuinely confused someone advertising themselves as a WordPress developer with a full stack web developer, to an extent that it caused me not to be hired, I think that would ultimately be a positive thing as I'd almost certainly not want to work on that project anyway! There is no danger of the market for custom software becoming confused with the market for WordPress sites, and if there is an overlap, you don't, as a 'real developer' (air quotes very much emphasised) really want to be there anyway, right?
Since it sounds like "Wordpress developer" is a title used to refer to people who add wordpress plugins, I wonder what you would call actual developers working on Wordpress core engine.
WordPress Core developer is standard, but my business for example is building large multisite solutions for enterprise clients and while I do have 30+ patches in Core, that's not what I do for a living and can't compare with those who do that 40+ hours a week
It's an arms race. You are competing for jobs, promotions, raises and other opportunities with people who are optimizing their titles for the gatekeepers of those opportunities. Developer, engineer, architect, now even "scientist". If you insist on not playing the game, fair enough, but you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. Or throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Or something.
My title is "Evil Mastermind." Now, a person might say, don't call yourself an "evil mastermind" if you haven't taken over the world, or at least made some strides towards doing so. I would say to them that there are other ways to be an evil mastermind, and world conquest will always remain the goal anyway....
Correct - 500 interviews for developers including requirements for a GitHub/Bitbucket repo, X years of programming experience etc and 400 of them haven't seen code in their lifetime. The fact that people are so assured that what they do is programming is making it close to impossible to find or grow talent to a certain set of skills (which is fairly well defined in other dev communities)
It doesn't, unless you provide services that consist of installing WordPress and a premium theme and playing with available options, or switching to a new one if a color settings isn't available.
It's like calling yourself a doctor after watching Grey's Anatomy and House, while the majority of the people study for 10 years and do real work.
I can relate to this. A few years ago, as a young student that have invested time to learn PHP, MySQL and the inner workings of WordPress Themes and Plugins I found that people who didn't even know HTML where filling the local freelance market with prices I can't beat.
I ended-up offering higher prices for custom solutions (that took me more and more time) finally it reached the point where the highest price I could ask for (as a 20y/o student) wasn't worth the time invested in each project, and I quit freelancing.
I have a few reasonably popular Wordpress plugin, maybe around 500k installs. I get offers all the time from people wanting me to build them something for $25.
If you use Wordpress to find clients, it's tough to find good paying work. But if you find clients elsewhere, then you can use Wordpress as a part of your overall solution and save time.
These "WordPress admins" are just giving the rest of us a bad name.
Last time I tried to convince a client that a WordPress would suit their needs just fine with a custom theme that I'll write, they first disagreed and wanted some framework then tried to cut the budget in half (just for mentioning WordPress)
most _capable_ people selling WordPress nowadays don't sell WordPress itself, but a solution, purely because of the bad rap and the "WordPress developers" out there. I personally don't feel comfortable being "ashamed" of what I work because of the fact that 9 out of 10 people out on the street sell WordPress websites and claim that they are developers.
And I don't see a reason to switch to a more elitist community just to avoid the ones who've intruded or don't know better due to the lack of educational resources and standards.
This is a context thing. As OP depicts, in this context developer means someone who codes. A WordPress "developer" may call herself a "developer" just fine in the right context, but when used in places where the OP is coming from, the word does not contain the expected information.
title is only important if recognized by a client. Clients have no clue of underlying technology for the website or application they need, in most cases. But they often know 'WordPress' or 'Drupal'. You want a client? You have to call yourself 'WordPress Developer'. Never seen a client for website or application, who wanted to be aware of C++ or assembly skills of potential contractor.
In some countries, you can't. Those countries decided that preserving the meaning of "Engineer" was worth it.
In the US we mostly haven't done this, so you end up with all kinds of ridiculous job titles with engineer added on. This is probably exactly what will happen with the term developer, and we'll have to move on to using something else.
You can't call yourself a "professional engineer" unless you are one but if you have a CS degree you can actually become a "professional software engineer" if you go through the process, pass all the tests and meet all the requirements.
On the bright side, calling themselves "engineers" only creates even more drama, so given that extremely likely alternative, "developer" is the less evil.
Some of it comes from various state / federal labor law and relates to compensation. Someone who, lets face it, is the online equivalent of a sign spinner, has certain legal obligations WRT overtime compensation that isn't an issue for a "professional engineer" or "software developer"... A lot of overtime pay is saved by calling data entry clerks "developers".
Oh I feel bad for laughing at this post, because yeah, the term "developer" genuinely infers a distinction worth pointing out. Words do matter, and using terms improperly cheapen the meaning. This is important in the realm of commerce.
Why do I laugh? Welcome to the world of "guitarists." Sure, some people have spent 1-3 years learning the instrument, as a general concept, and they can play the open chords, the barre chords, and maybe even know 10+ cover songs. Great! They can play guitar, but are they a guitarist?
Not really, because these same people don't really know how things work "under the hood" when it comes to the instrument. There's a laundry list of techniques, genres, ancillary skills and more which in layman's terms equates to a genuine "guitarist." It's a very broad label that can be used appropriately, or, like the article says, be employed by over-confident amateurs.
There's nothing wrong with being a "guitar player" and having fun with the instrument, and if those guys and gals want to join a cover band or do Open Mic night performances to improve their craft, awesome. Enjoy it. In my experience though, "guitar player" folks quickly check their ego when a tried and true "guitarist" starts playing in front of a crowd. There's usually a communal appreciation, in that a guitarist won't talk down to guitar players because there's a shared love of the instrument, of the purpose, and an appreciation for a mutual desire to make music...and every once and a while, there's a heckler or arrogant ass who can't stand the ego check.
That's why in guitar-land we have "head cutting" - the one vs. one, get up on stage, "put up or shut up" mentality for bragging rights. Some people who inappropriately call themselves developers should be easy to call out in this fashion. Those who deserve the term will treat it with respect, and act accordingly.
My neighbor is a person who develops property. He's a property developer. A developer doesn't have to write code, they have to "grow or cause to grow and become more mature, advanced, or elaborate". I think a wordpress developer does just that.
Yeah, it's really bizarre to get hung up on such a vague term. Don't appropriate a generic word, give it a specific meaning, then complain when other people don't comply.
If you want a word for people who write computer programs, there's a word that means specifically that: "programmer."
>Mario Peshev is a CEO and WordPress Architect at DevriX, a technical WordPress development agency building scalable projects for successful businesses.
Don't call yourself an architect if you don't plan, design, and construct buildings.
That would be absurd of me to expect, clearly the meaning of the word "architect" has different meaning in different contexts, to different people, and in different fields of work. "Engineer" is another good example. If you have specific definitions, use them in your job postings so people know what you mean, but don't cry foul when people use a term in an accepted but different manner than you prefer.
I get your point and I'd genuinely apologize to every architect graduate (in the construction space) who feels insulted by that.
Even if my day-to-day follows the "software architect" definition, I would gladly replace it with something closer to the technical field if it wasn't polluted by the majority of people mislabeling themselves. Which is more or less the point of the post.
However, I'm having trouble understanding on what's it doing on top of HN. Are there actually a lot of people who have regular encounters with WP developers, or WP at all, aside from may be people from the WP company itself, that read or comment here? I had such a good impression of a crowd here that I assumed that working with WP requires far less programming skills that people here usually have.
"You can't call yourself an engineer when you don't have a degree from an engineering school", "You are not an architect if you didn't study architecture in college" blah blah blah
Can we please put these debates to rest? it's tiring already. Yeah, recruitment is frustrating since everyone likes to over inflate or lie outright about the accomplishments and qualifications on their CV but it's been established a long time ago that this is part of the process and the onus is on the interviewer or recruiter to screen the applicants and tell who's the real deal and who's not, it's part of their job after all.
Title inflation lowers the perceived value of professional development work. It goes from "I don't understand what you're doing, but it looks hard" to "My ten year old nephew set up a WordPress site, so why should I pay you $150k a year to build the CRUD backend for my brilliant startup idea?"
All professions that don't have gatekeepers, certification, and strong professional associations suffer from declining salaries.
The difference between good and bad web dev is the difference between a site that scales, is maintainable, secure, and reliable, and looks nice, as opposed to a WP site that does none of the above. (But looks nice - maybe.)
I've talked to "designers" who say things like "I don't know if we can do that - I leave all those details to my technical people."
It turns out all the "designer" did was pick a font and a colour scheme and draw a few wireframes. And they got the job because they knew someone on the board.
Meanwhile the "technical people" have done all the real work - and could probably make a site look just as good if they'd been asked to.
Agreed with all of the above. I'm even surprised that more of the "hardcore devs" didn't get annoyed by WordPress crossing the 25% web market share a week ago. I can see how more and more large businesses turn to WordPress to cut license costs, decrease salaries, reduce development time and invest more in marketing/advertisement instead.
That comment is also for everyone who mentioned that the post reflects only to the state of a single business instead of an entire community, ecosystem and the business of web development as a whole.
I tell my clients: would you use an 18 wheeler to move one small box from A to B?
Not only WP devs are not devs, they do not truly understand/care about real client needs. In than sense, the are not solution architects/designer either.
I'm surprised how many commenters here argue that those who care about the meaning associated with the word developer are somehow obsessed with titles. Titles are useful (especially fairly generic titles like software developer) and serve to convey meaning among the multitude of disciplines we have in the industry.
If you've never written code, why call yourself a developer? I know language changes over time, but that's just being purposefully misleading.
Precisely. I wouldn't care if it was 0.01% of the "developers" in WordPress. But when it's the vast majority, actual developers become a limited and hardly visible minority.
To people who are not involved with web development in any way, they just don't care whether someone writes code for a living, or admins a site via a CMS like Wordpress. To most of the world, both types of people "make web sites".
Trying to claim a specific title for yourself, while telling other people that they have no right to claim that same title, is purely an exercise in your own ego.
And the author mentioned how it has negative consequences when there is in fact an actual difference that the clients are not able to distinguish between. Some self-policing on the part of the people who can would help a lot with that.
Are you referring to that bulleted list of problems that he claims impact the "entire industry"?
Because that list sounded more like negative consequences to the author's business, not an entire industry. If he were truly succeeding as a services company focused on the Wordpress niche, those would be pain points toward which he would focus his own marketing, and they would be business opportunities, not global problems with people's titles.
Other than the bulleted list I linked a few articles as well, including the problem with having to educate the customers. While education is always required, most of the "developers" underprice the market, sell unstable solutions and so on. A lot of enterprise customers avoid WordPress as being unreliable and hard to find a reliable team for, which leads to other problems.
We do have a decent business strategy that seems to be working and have some high-end clients (including banks, automotive manufacturers, SaaS providers), but our growth is somewhat constrained due to the limited opportunities thanks to the bad rap of the platform, hiring is incredibly challenging, selling to enterprises has an added overhead and so on. And yes, we can switch to another platform, but I do believe that a few actionable steps (like settings standards and simply separating site builders from developers) can solve many of those problems.
I'd like to more about why 'WordPress Developers' are such a magnet for the author's ire.
The last paragraph was pretty weak. The bald assertion that "Installing a website itself is of no service to most clients who can accomplish the same in a couple of hours with a cheap host providing a detailed guide on their website", must be false. At least two hours of technically knowledgeable work is definitely a worthwhile service, and deserves adequate remuneration. The next sentence, about "providing real value" doesn't stand up, then, because such WordPress Devs are providing real value.
There's no reason why success should require taking on custom projects for larger businesses, when there is an ample market of small businesses and new businesses that are well-served with just WordPress and plugins.
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You can also script photoshop, so if you are actually "developing" for photoshop then I would say yes although that would be certainly an unconventional way to join the trade.
I guess as a technical community, there are at least two forces at work here: 1) The community wants to be as inclusive as possible - get as many people to code as possible, because it is good for everyone to be able to contribute, even if it is using a higher-level tool/abstraction that does much of what we would do writing code by hand manually; and/or 2) The community wants to distinguish itself clearly based on skill-level at some level of core competency or abstraction.
Like a former salesperson at a startup with a few months of fumbling around with jquery documentation who calls himself an "engineer."
Still, let's find a solution as a community. How do we make it easier for people to enter the profession and leave the barrier for entry low while also making it easier for those in the profession to prove their skill-level and commitment to a specific track of the craft?
1) A public list of recognized job titles (think of an employment bureau catalog or else) that defines the job description by an authority. At least a reference that most would pay attention to.
2) A unified training program for each branch (or developers in question) outlining the required skills or targets for developers
3) A WordPress.org profile that showcases the work in a better manner - think of a GitHub/LinkedIn version in the WordPress context
I also wouldn't necessarily vouch for a licensing program (probably commercial/financial interests), but some standardization and guidelines could help immensely and solve various problems for employers, clients, expert and beginner developers, site builders, even users.
I know we have plenty of professional certifications, but I don't know of one as general as this which exists yet and has any true merit. I think the IEEE was working on something like this.
To me what it feels like you're saying is - when you are truly an "expert", it is more likely that you can identify/recognize other "experts" - or even people with that potential.
When I look at my own skills, I try to rate myself honestly on the following scale with regards to some particular skill: expert, professional or amateur.
Expert is a guru-level understanding. If I say that I am an expert, I am saying I think I am as good as the top x% (where x is maybe 1-10) in a particular skill. For me, I pretty much never rate myself as this in any skill!
Professional is practiced, practical, hands-on real world skill. You've honed this skill, you've been formally trained, you've employed this skill successfully in a repeated, demonstrated way.
Amateur is a hobby, done it a few times, do it for fun or would like to do it/get better at it level of experience.
I observed that in traditional skilled tradesmanship, we have the apprentice, who progresses to the journeyman, who progresses to the master craftsman. These are the same levels of what I mean by amateur, professional and expert.
I don't know why our industry seems to reject some of these concepts from skilled trades in terms of organizing into better/stronger professional trade organizations and certifications.
Actually, the way we often talk about coding as a "craft", it's almost like we would feel a lot better with a formal organization and such a career progression/structure in place.
We have our 1%'ers in the software community, our gurus/experts/master craftsman. I often think of these as the core contributing past and current "fathers" and "mothers" of our industry, people ranging anywhere from Ada Lovelace to Vint Cerf. Reality is, those core thinkers are probably where many of us learn from anyway - that and "hacking/tinkering" which is what many of us do and can still lead to progress too.
To me it's all connected, but something about our community always holds us back... maybe there it is the element of not wanting to be forced into structure either. After all, the "hacker" ethos is also a source of our strength, and part of the art.
And as someone said its more about who you know not what you know.
You have to send the message, and be clear about it.
Developers have responsibilities. Serious obligations that can cause harm when not met properly.
You don't want to hire someone, and plunge them into the deep end, get them into a situation where they're in over their heads, and then have it end in tears, because you were uncomfortable about hurting someone's feelings up front.
Sending the message might help dissuade some people from misrepresenting, but those who choose to misrepresent may likely do so regardless.
If they could actually do this, yes it would. But they can't actually build something that a developer would build with code. If someone can't code at all, they can use WordPress to build a very small subset of what a developer can build with code.
A person who spend 30 seconds setting up a blog on tumblr is able to build something that a developer would build with code, but again it's just a small subset.
Now if that subset is all you need then it's fine to hire WordPress admin instead of a developer. But the term "developer" has a current meaning, and that meaning is analogous to "programmer".
That being said, language changes, and developer could become another meaningless job title like engineer (in some countries), and people will have to use another term for someone who can code.
There are ways to prevent this, in some jurisdictions they limit the use of titles like Engineer.
Not too long ago, an off the shelf solution didn't exist for anything, so you had to hire someone to build it from scratch.
By that definition, almost anyone should be called a "developer".
20 years ago, you needed to be a developer to set up a small homepage. Now my grandma can do that with Facebook, but I'm not going to call her a "developer" just because she's doing something that used to require one.
Edit: I code, but I honestly couldn't care less what someone else calls themselves. If I'm interviewing them, they'd have to prove their abilities in the relevant code right then.
If we're just having a conversation, most disciplines are different enough that you have to explain many things from the bottom up anyway.
Backend developers lead entirely different lives from frontend developers, and both lead entirely different lives from low level developers. Game developers or data science devs similarly work nothing like anyone else. So why does it matter that someone calls themselves a Wordpress Developer?
Hopefully corporate attitudes toward work categories changes in the future. It only leads to inefficiency and finding a reason for superiority.
It is unfortunate but titles do matter, and they matter also when you apply to future jobs to pass the HR filter.
No they don't. Companies align positions to industry standard rates, not job titles. One place will call you programmer level 3, some other place will call you Senior developer but if they have the same responsibility, they will be aligned in pay.
Where I am doesn't use the title 'Developer' or 'Programmer. Do you think that means they have no idea how to gauge people coming in or other areas of the industry that do use those titles?
Words have meaning. For people who can discern the differences between these titles - probably most visitors to HN - these distinctions seem silly and almost trivial at times because we think "of course those are different!"
But 99.9%+ of the world is not like us.
They don't know the difference between "web developer" and "WordPress developer" or which framework to use. They don't even know there are lots of frameworks, let alone which use which languages.
This is why when you visit family for the holidays, you constantly hear "oh, you work with computers.. can you see what's wrong with my computer?"
In my opinion, the correct answer to that is, "Yes, for a fee.", and has nothing to do with the overloading of terms, but everything to do with the undervaluation of tech-related labor. I am perfectly capable of fixing your computer, I just don't want to waste my leisure time doing it for free.
Next time you get this, tell the family (especially if they are distant family) – "If your relative was a doctor, would you ask them to give you a quick once-over physical every time they came over? Or if your accountant brother-in-law comes along, do you ask them to glance over your tax forms for free? No? Then stop asking me to look at your computer."
It's also to do with the large gap between consumer-level knowledge and professional knowledge, and the fact that amateurs enthusiastically fill that gap for free, and often competently. Often, "fix my computer" equates to "uninstall this bloatware" and that's non-trivial but simple enough for Gary the precocious 8 year old grandchild to do for kicks.
That there's a world of difference between Gary and real tech-related labour is entirely opaque to someone who thinks Gary knows everything about computers.
Based on your need as an interviewer/organization, you may choose to accept someone who shows passion but less refined skill with a learning opportunity, or you may require someone at a high skill level ready to go on day one.
To me, this is the interviewer's responsibility, to know their requirement and make it clear to candidates.
All I can say is, personally, my own professional ethics require me to try to know my own limits and abilities and present those honestly. So, for example, if a client came to me with a technical need, and I felt that I wanted to fulfill it, but it was reasonably out of my wheelhouse, I would either turn down or direct that client to the best alternative I could think of, if I could not provide it.
I suppose, ethics training is a part of professional development in more rigid occupations, maybe if ours was formalized more, this would be more prevalent.
1) You receive hundreds of spam applications even if you mention explicitly code-related stuff - like GitHub/Bitbucket repo, years of programming experience, know-how in TDD, we sometimes experiment with continuous integration experience or others. The wave comes as long as you mention WordPress.
2) Other than the spam applications and standard "bots", many people simply don't know what's included in "developer" or what real "developers" do. Even if they do want to learn and get better, they don't know the limits and can't aim higher than they are.
I always feel like the authors of posts like these suffer from a terrible lack of confidence.
The term developer is so broad, so overloaded, and will only keep getting more overloaded as the tech industry continues to expand.
If I meet someone at a party and they say they're a developer, even as a developer myself I have no idea what that really means, and I have to ask more questions and probably drill down for at least a couple more minutes before I have the slightest clue what their actual specialty and interests are, let alone what they do or are capable of doing day to day.
In such a specialised world, there's not really much sense in reserving any particular word for any particular category of job or skill, because to do so would be so high level as to be almost useless anyway. High level titles in this world are completely, utterly meaningless because people can and do use them liberally. We're in a place now where it's necessary to have a fairly involved discussion with someone to figure out what their real job and skillset actually are, whereas maybe 50 or more years ago, that perhaps wasn't so much the case. That's a very good thing and we should embrace it and not worry about broad definitions being 'misused'.
Put it this way, if I was being interviewed by somebody who wanted a custom web app building, and they genuinely confused someone advertising themselves as a WordPress developer with a full stack web developer, to an extent that it caused me not to be hired, I think that would ultimately be a positive thing as I'd almost certainly not want to work on that project anyway! There is no danger of the market for custom software becoming confused with the market for WordPress sites, and if there is an overlap, you don't, as a 'real developer' (air quotes very much emphasised) really want to be there anyway, right?
I'd understand the distinction, as would most of my colleagues.
Tim Berners-Lee, Web Developer
David Shing, AOL Digital Prophet
https://mobile.twitter.com/ElSatanico/status/514340801468706...
And 'interview' is not a great answer because the signal to noise ratio is so low.
It's like calling yourself a doctor after watching Grey's Anatomy and House, while the majority of the people study for 10 years and do real work.
I ended-up offering higher prices for custom solutions (that took me more and more time) finally it reached the point where the highest price I could ask for (as a 20y/o student) wasn't worth the time invested in each project, and I quit freelancing.
If you use Wordpress to find clients, it's tough to find good paying work. But if you find clients elsewhere, then you can use Wordpress as a part of your overall solution and save time.
And I don't see a reason to switch to a more elitist community just to avoid the ones who've intruded or don't know better due to the lack of educational resources and standards.
No, but I would expect a Word Press Developer to know PHP, HTML and CSS.
"Don't call yourself developer if you know only one programming language"
"Don't call yourself developer if you don't know (put any algorithm here)"
"Don't call yourself developer if you don't (have this one particualr skill that I have)"
Nothing changed.
In the US we mostly haven't done this, so you end up with all kinds of ridiculous job titles with engineer added on. This is probably exactly what will happen with the term developer, and we'll have to move on to using something else.
You can't call yourself a "professional engineer" unless you are one but if you have a CS degree you can actually become a "professional software engineer" if you go through the process, pass all the tests and meet all the requirements.
"Don't call yourself developer if you've never built and sold a house".
Some of it comes from various state / federal labor law and relates to compensation. Someone who, lets face it, is the online equivalent of a sign spinner, has certain legal obligations WRT overtime compensation that isn't an issue for a "professional engineer" or "software developer"... A lot of overtime pay is saved by calling data entry clerks "developers".
Why do I laugh? Welcome to the world of "guitarists." Sure, some people have spent 1-3 years learning the instrument, as a general concept, and they can play the open chords, the barre chords, and maybe even know 10+ cover songs. Great! They can play guitar, but are they a guitarist?
Not really, because these same people don't really know how things work "under the hood" when it comes to the instrument. There's a laundry list of techniques, genres, ancillary skills and more which in layman's terms equates to a genuine "guitarist." It's a very broad label that can be used appropriately, or, like the article says, be employed by over-confident amateurs.
There's nothing wrong with being a "guitar player" and having fun with the instrument, and if those guys and gals want to join a cover band or do Open Mic night performances to improve their craft, awesome. Enjoy it. In my experience though, "guitar player" folks quickly check their ego when a tried and true "guitarist" starts playing in front of a crowd. There's usually a communal appreciation, in that a guitarist won't talk down to guitar players because there's a shared love of the instrument, of the purpose, and an appreciation for a mutual desire to make music...and every once and a while, there's a heckler or arrogant ass who can't stand the ego check.
That's why in guitar-land we have "head cutting" - the one vs. one, get up on stage, "put up or shut up" mentality for bragging rights. Some people who inappropriately call themselves developers should be easy to call out in this fashion. Those who deserve the term will treat it with respect, and act accordingly.
YMMV!
If you want a word for people who write computer programs, there's a word that means specifically that: "programmer."
Don't call yourself an architect if you don't plan, design, and construct buildings.
That would be absurd of me to expect, clearly the meaning of the word "architect" has different meaning in different contexts, to different people, and in different fields of work. "Engineer" is another good example. If you have specific definitions, use them in your job postings so people know what you mean, but don't cry foul when people use a term in an accepted but different manner than you prefer.
Even if my day-to-day follows the "software architect" definition, I would gladly replace it with something closer to the technical field if it wasn't polluted by the majority of people mislabeling themselves. Which is more or less the point of the post.
However, I'm having trouble understanding on what's it doing on top of HN. Are there actually a lot of people who have regular encounters with WP developers, or WP at all, aside from may be people from the WP company itself, that read or comment here? I had such a good impression of a crowd here that I assumed that working with WP requires far less programming skills that people here usually have.
"You can't call yourself an engineer when you don't have a degree from an engineering school", "You are not an architect if you didn't study architecture in college" blah blah blah
Can we please put these debates to rest? it's tiring already. Yeah, recruitment is frustrating since everyone likes to over inflate or lie outright about the accomplishments and qualifications on their CV but it's been established a long time ago that this is part of the process and the onus is on the interviewer or recruiter to screen the applicants and tell who's the real deal and who's not, it's part of their job after all.
All professions that don't have gatekeepers, certification, and strong professional associations suffer from declining salaries.
The difference between good and bad web dev is the difference between a site that scales, is maintainable, secure, and reliable, and looks nice, as opposed to a WP site that does none of the above. (But looks nice - maybe.)
I've talked to "designers" who say things like "I don't know if we can do that - I leave all those details to my technical people."
It turns out all the "designer" did was pick a font and a colour scheme and draw a few wireframes. And they got the job because they knew someone on the board.
Meanwhile the "technical people" have done all the real work - and could probably make a site look just as good if they'd been asked to.
That comment is also for everyone who mentioned that the post reflects only to the state of a single business instead of an entire community, ecosystem and the business of web development as a whole.
Not only WP devs are not devs, they do not truly understand/care about real client needs. In than sense, the are not solution architects/designer either.
If you've never written code, why call yourself a developer? I know language changes over time, but that's just being purposefully misleading.
Trying to claim a specific title for yourself, while telling other people that they have no right to claim that same title, is purely an exercise in your own ego.
Because that list sounded more like negative consequences to the author's business, not an entire industry. If he were truly succeeding as a services company focused on the Wordpress niche, those would be pain points toward which he would focus his own marketing, and they would be business opportunities, not global problems with people's titles.
We do have a decent business strategy that seems to be working and have some high-end clients (including banks, automotive manufacturers, SaaS providers), but our growth is somewhat constrained due to the limited opportunities thanks to the bad rap of the platform, hiring is incredibly challenging, selling to enterprises has an added overhead and so on. And yes, we can switch to another platform, but I do believe that a few actionable steps (like settings standards and simply separating site builders from developers) can solve many of those problems.
The last paragraph was pretty weak. The bald assertion that "Installing a website itself is of no service to most clients who can accomplish the same in a couple of hours with a cheap host providing a detailed guide on their website", must be false. At least two hours of technically knowledgeable work is definitely a worthwhile service, and deserves adequate remuneration. The next sentence, about "providing real value" doesn't stand up, then, because such WordPress Devs are providing real value.
There's no reason why success should require taking on custom projects for larger businesses, when there is an ample market of small businesses and new businesses that are well-served with just WordPress and plugins.