Web Development: It Takes a Village

Did you know the World Wide Web turns 27 years old in 2016? In less than three decades it went from an idea in the mind of a British computer scientist to an integral part of our lives. The Web is young and is still growing and changing with each passing year. How we build websites is evolving too. So when a project at Ascedia is placed in the hands of web developers, how are we are able to keep up with this quickly-changing industry and produce a quality product? It all comes down to the kinds of people who fill development roles.

With everything that goes into creating a website, it's nice to have help! A lot of projects at Ascedia involve a team of developers with different areas of expertise. Most Ascedians on the development team are divided into two broad categories of specialization. There are Application Developers who primarily deal with the “back end” of websites where data is stored and manipulated on a server. Then there are Interface Developers who mostly work with the “front end” of websites that users interact with directly on their own computers. 

If a Website Were a House...

Application Developers would be framing the walls, installing the plumbing, running electrical lines, and so on, while Interface Developers would be more concerned with things like laying carpet and installing windows. In collaboration with people outside the development team, like designers and marketing specialists, developers strive to make a website that will be a safe, functional home that visitors will find comfortable and familiar. 

Development is not just about technical know-how. It's also important that a development team is able to work well together. When adding new Ascedians to our family, we value well-rounded people who are excited about what they do and strive to make Ascedia better. It also helps to have a team of people with diverse experiences and backgrounds so that decision-making can benefit from a variety of perspectives.

Diverse Foundations

For a lot of Ascedians, particularly Application Developers, that experience includes a degree in a field like Computer Science. This kind of education is common for programmers and is rooted in ideas that have been around much longer than the Web itself. These Ascedians have chosen to use their skills and knowledge to create smart solutions for the increasingly complex things we use websites to accomplish.

For others, the path that brought them to their current career choice was less traditional. Many Ascedians started learning web development as a hobby or as a tool to support an unrelated endeavor. Their backgrounds are evidence of the kind of curious, open-minded, and adaptable nature that helps good developers stay on the cutting edge of their industry. While “developer” might conjure up images of left-brained people more concerned with analytics than creativity, a surprising number of Ascedia's developers have backgrounds in art or graphic design. For Interface Developers especially, this is valuable as they collaborate closely with the design team. 

The Web started as a humble project to organize information and improve communication. While a lot has changed in 27 years in terms of the size of the web, the complexity of the things we use it for, and its role in our lives, it all still hinges on the same concepts it began with. Similarly, web developers possess the same resourcefulness and problem-solving skills that were used to create the Web in the first place. At Ascedia, we bring together teams of enthusiastic people who use their collective knowledge and experience to create websites that provide the best experiences for users.