A web developer builds and maintains websites and web applications: the pages people see in a browser (the front end), the servers and databases behind them (the back end), or both. The work leaves its own proof: a live site anyone can open, and code a hiring manager can read.
That proof matters more than it used to. The job pays well: the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts the median annual wage for web developers at $92,650 in May 2025. Getting your first job is harder. In a July 2026 analysis, Indeed Hiring Lab found software development job postings still about 27.5% below their pre-pandemic level, and 71% of the increase from May 2025 to May 2026 came from senior roles. That category covers software jobs broadly, not web developers alone, but it points the same way. A new web developer gets interviews by showing two or three projects that are built, deployed and explained, not by adding one more course to a resume.
In short:
- The job: turn designs and requirements into working pages and features, connect them to data, test them, ship them and keep them running.
- Three ways in: a degree, a bootcamp or teaching yourself. BLS says a specific credential may not be needed if prior work or projects show what you can do.
- What gets interviews: live projects with readable code, and a resume that describes them in the job post’s own terms.
What Does a Web Developer Do?
A web developer writes, tests and maintains the code that makes a website or web app work. On any given day, that can mean building a new page from a design, fixing a form that fails on one browser, or finding out why a page loads slowly on a phone.
The daily work
Most of a web developer’s week falls into a few kinds of tasks:
- Building pages and features. You turn a design file or a written request into code, then make it hold up on phones, tablets and desktops.
- Connecting to data. You wire the page to an API (an interface another system exposes) or a database, so a search box returns real results and a sign-up form saves a real account.
- Testing and debugging. You check your work across browsers and devices, write automated tests for the parts that break most often, and trace bugs to their cause.
- Fixing performance and accessibility. You shrink images, remove code nobody uses, and make sure people using a keyboard or a screen reader can use the site.
- Reviewing and shipping. On a team, you open a pull request in Git, respond to review comments, and deploy once the change is approved.
- Maintaining what exists. Much of the job is older code: updating libraries, patching a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress, and fixing bugs users report.
Front end, back end and full stack
“Web developer” is the broad title. Many postings narrow it to one of three focuses:
| Focus | What you build | Common languages and tools |
|---|---|---|
| Front end | What people see and use in the browser: layout, navigation, forms, interactive features | HTML, CSS, JavaScript or TypeScript, and a framework such as React or Vue |
| Back end | The server side: APIs, databases, sign-in, payments and the logic behind each page | Node.js, PHP, Python, Ruby, Java or C#, plus SQL databases such as PostgreSQL or MySQL |
| Full stack | Both halves, often for whole features or on smaller teams | A mix of both columns |
A posting titled only “Web Developer” can mean any of the three. The stack it lists tells you which one.
Web developer vs web designer
A web designer decides how a site should look and work for the person using it: the layout, type, color and the path through each page. That work usually happens in a design tool such as Figma. A web developer turns those decisions into working code and connects the result to data.
The line between them is blurry. Front-end developers handle layout in CSS every day, and many web designers write HTML and CSS themselves. On a small team or a freelance project, one person often does both. If you enjoy the visual decisions more than the code, the web designer path may suit you better.
Where web developers work
BLS lists the largest employers of web developers in 2025:
- Computer systems design and related services: 21%
- Self-employed workers: 18%
- Information: 11%
- Educational services (state, local and private): 10%
- Management, scientific and technical consulting services: 6%
How to Become a Web Developer
Web development has more than one way in, and all of them end at the same test: can you build something that works and explain how you built it?
Degree, bootcamp or self-taught
BLS lists a bachelor’s degree as the typical entry-level education, though requirements range from a high school diploma to a bachelor’s degree. Then it adds an exception: web developers and digital designers “may not need specific education credentials if they can demonstrate their abilities through prior work experience or projects.”
Each route has a cost and a gap to close:
- A degree in computer science or a related field gives you depth and passes resume filters at employers that still screen for one. It takes years and money, and coursework alone rarely shows the deployed, maintained projects employers ask about.
- A bootcamp gives you structure and a deadline in months instead of years. The market around bootcamps has shifted. Inside Higher Ed reported in January 2025 that Southern New Hampshire University, Epicodus and Momentum Learning closed coding bootcamps between 2023 and August 2024, and 2U announced late in 2024 that it would close its university bootcamps. 2U’s interim CEO, Matt Norden, said in a news release that “the long-form, intensive training that boot camps provide no longer aligns with what the market wants and needs.” Industry experts quoted in the same article suspect several causes, including “the tech industry’s declining demand for entry-level coders.” If you choose a bootcamp, judge it by the projects its graduates can show, and plan to keep building after it ends.
- Teaching yourself costs the least money and the most discipline. Free documentation and tutorials cover every skill on this page. The risk is finishing many tutorials and no projects of your own.
Do not read “no degree required” as a promise. Dropping degree requirements has changed less hiring than you might expect. A Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School report, as summarized by HR Dive in February 2024, found that employers removing degree requirements created opportunities for about 97,000 workers out of 77 million yearly hires, or “fewer than 1 in 700 hires in 2023.” That figure covers all jobs, not web development. Still, it suggests that a posting without a degree requirement does not always change who gets hired, so your projects have to do more of the work if you do not have a degree.
What the entry-level market looks like
Is web development hard to break into? The skills are learnable with steady practice and free documentation. Getting the first job is the hard part.
SignalFire, a venture capital firm, looked at Big Tech only and found that new graduates were 7% of hires in 2024, with new-grad hiring down 25% from 2023 and more than 50% from 2019. The same report says: “Today’s tech employers aren’t looking for potential, they’re looking for proof.”
Freelancing as a route
With 18% of web developers self-employed, freelancing is a path into the field in its own right. Freelance web developers can build and maintain sites for small businesses, nonprofits and local organizations, often on WordPress or another CMS. The work teaches you things a tutorial cannot: scoping a project with a client, setting a price, meeting a deadline and supporting a site after launch.
The tradeoff is that you also find your own clients, handle invoices and taxes, and go without a steady paycheck. Start with one or two paid sites for people you know, and you get live, real-world projects for your portfolio, which helps whether you stay freelance or apply for a salaried role later.
Step 1: Learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Every route starts here. HTML gives a page its structure, CSS controls how it looks and lays out, and JavaScript makes it respond to the user. Learn them well enough to build a small multi-page site without copying a tutorial line by line. Use semantic HTML (the right element for each job, such as a real <button> instead of a clickable <div>), because it is also the base of accessibility.
Step 2: Add one framework and Git
Pick one front-end framework that appears in the postings you want, such as React or Vue, and learn it before you sample others. Learn Git at the same time: commits, branches, pull requests and resolving a merge conflict. If you want back-end or full-stack roles, add one server-side language and one SQL database.
Step 3: Build two or three real projects
A real project solves a problem for someone, uses data, and has more than one page or state. Good examples are a booking form for a local business, a search tool over a public dataset, or a site for a club or nonprofit that people actually use. Two or three finished projects say more than ten half-built ones.
For each project, write down as you go what you built, what broke and how you fixed it. You will need those notes for your resume and your interviews.
Step 4: Deploy them and publish the code
A project on your laptop is invisible to a hiring manager. Put each one online at a public URL, and keep its code in a public GitHub repository with a README that says what it does, how to run it and what you would do next. Check each live site on a phone and run an accessibility checker on it before you share the link.
A portfolio and a resume do different jobs, and you need both. Teal’s guide to portfolio vs resume explains when to send each.
Read the web developer job post
Before you write a single bullet, read the posting for these:
- Required vs nice-to-have stack. Separate the tools listed as requirements from the ones listed as preferred or “a plus.” Do not rule yourself out over the second list.
- Years asked. Check the years of experience in the requirements, not only the title. “Web Developer” with no level can still ask for several years.
- Portfolio or GitHub link. If the post asks for one, put it at the top of your resume.
- A take-home test. Some posts mention a coding exercise. Plan the time before you apply.
Save each posting you are considering in Teal’s Job Tracker, which is free, and note its stack, years and portfolio ask next to it. After ten or so, you can see which ones fit your projects best and apply to those first.
Step 5: Write project-first resume bullets
If you have not held a web developer title yet, your projects are your experience. Give them their own section near the top. Teal’s guide to projects on a resume shows where they belong, and its guide to putting GitHub on your resume covers the link itself.
Draft the resume in Teal’s AI Resume Builder. You do not start from a blank page: import your current resume (.docx or .pdf), your LinkedIn profile URL or pasted text, add your GitHub link, and keep a separate version for each posting. For models, the web developer resume examples include entry-level, junior and self-taught samples.
The pairs below show the shape. Use only work you really did. If you do not remember an exact metric, do not invent one. A concrete action and outcome are still stronger than a made-up figure.
A personal project
- Weaker: “Built a website using React.”
- Stronger: “Built and deployed a recipe search app in React and Node.js with a PostgreSQL database; fixed the keyboard and screen reader issues an accessibility audit flagged, and wrote end-to-end tests for search and saving recipes.”
Why it works: it names the stack a posting lists, shows the app is live, and shows you checked accessibility and wrote tests.
A freelance or volunteer site
- Weaker: “Made websites for small businesses.”
- Stronger: “Built WordPress sites for [number] local businesses, including a custom booking form, and cut one client’s home page load time from [x] seconds to [y] by compressing images and removing unused plugins.”
Why it works: real clients, a custom feature and a performance fix read as professional work. Fill in the brackets only with figures you measured, or drop the numbers.
Web work inside another job
- Weaker: “Updated the company website.”
- Stronger: “Rebuilt the nonprofit’s donation page in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, connected it to the payment provider’s API, and fixed a mobile layout bug that hid the Donate button on small screens.”
Why it works: it turns a vague duty into a specific build, an integration and a fix, which is what a hiring manager would ask about anyway.
Step 6: Match your resume to one posting, then apply
Pick the posting you want most. Paste it into Teal’s Job Description Match to see which of its keywords your resume does not yet include. The free version shows the top 5 keywords; Teal+ shows all of them and lets you add custom ones.
Then use the posting’s own terms wherever they describe work you really did, such as “responsive design” or “REST APIs.” Do not copy full sentences, add skills you do not have, or repeat keywords unnaturally. If the post asks for a framework you have not used, show your closest relevant experience and let the employer decide whether the gap is acceptable.
Web Developer Skills
Web developer skills come in two groups: the technical ones a posting lists, and the working ones that decide whether you can build with a team.
| Skill | What it looks like on the job | How to show it |
|---|---|---|
| HTML and CSS | Pages that hold their layout on any screen size | A deployed site that works on a phone |
| JavaScript or TypeScript | Interactive features, form handling, calls to APIs | A project with real user interaction |
| A front-end framework | Components, state and routing in React, Vue or Angular | A project built in the framework the posting names |
| APIs and data | Fetching, saving and displaying real data | A project that reads from or writes to an API or database |
| Git | Branches, pull requests and clean commit history | A public repository others can follow |
| Testing | Automated checks that catch regressions | Tests in your repo, and a note on what they cover |
| Performance | Fast loads on slow connections | A before and after you measured |
| Accessibility | Pages usable by keyboard and screen reader | An audit you ran and the fixes you made |
| Communication | Clear pull requests, questions and handoffs | A README and project notes a stranger can follow |
Technical skills
Back-end and full-stack roles also expect a server-side language, a database and a working grasp of API design. Testing and performance are what separate a project that works on your machine from one that works for users.
Accessibility deserves extra attention, because there is now a legal deadline behind it. Under the Department of Justice’s ADA Title II web rule, state and local government websites and apps must meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 26, 2027 for governments serving 50,000 people or more, and by April 26, 2028 for smaller governments and special districts. That holds “even if a local web design company made the web page and updates it for the county,” so the agencies that build those sites need developers who can do this work now. The newest version of the standard is WCAG 2.2, which the W3C published in October 2023 and updated in December 2024.
Working skills
Most web development happens on a team or for a client, so the working skills show up in every task. You explain a tradeoff to a designer, ask a product manager what a vague request means, estimate how long a change will take, and write a pull request a reviewer can follow. On a resume, show these with examples, not adjectives. “Strong communicator” says little. A bullet about the client you scoped a booking form with says a lot.
Web Developer Tools & Software
The exact tools change by employer, but the categories stay the same. Learn one tool in each category well before you collect more.
| Category | What it does | Common examples |
|---|---|---|
| Code editor | Where you write and navigate code | Visual Studio Code, WebStorm |
| Version control | Tracks changes and lets a team work on the same code | Git, GitHub, GitLab |
| Browser tools | Inspects pages, debugs scripts and measures performance | Chrome DevTools, Firefox Developer Tools, Lighthouse |
| Front-end frameworks | Builds interfaces from reusable components | React, Vue, Angular, Svelte |
| Back end and runtimes | Runs server code and APIs | Node.js, PHP, Python with Django, Ruby on Rails |
| Databases | Stores and retrieves data | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB |
| CMS | Lets non-developers edit site content | WordPress, Drupal |
| Testing | Checks that code still works after a change | Jest, Vitest, Playwright, Cypress, axe |
| Build and packages | Bundles code and manages libraries | npm, Vite, webpack |
| Deployment and hosting | Puts the site online | Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare Pages, AWS |
| Design handoff | Shares designs and specs with developers | Figma |
| AI coding assistants | Suggests, explains and drafts code | GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor |
On your resume, list only the tools you have used, and say where if it helps. “PostgreSQL (personal project)” is honest and still useful to a recruiter searching for the name.
AI coding tools and the job
AI coding assistants are now part of the toolkit, and the evidence on them points in more than one direction. In Stack Overflow’s 2025 Developer Survey, which covers developers of every kind, not only web developers, 84% of respondents said they use or plan to use AI tools in their development process, and 51% of professional developers use them daily. The same survey found that more developers distrust the accuracy of AI tools (46%) than trust it (33%), and the biggest single frustration, cited by 66%, is “AI solutions that are almost right, but not quite.”
BLS addresses AI directly in its job outlook: “improving web development tools and increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) for web development may soften the employment growth of these workers.” It adds that these tools “may make these workers more productive, and it may also allow some workers in other occupations to do basic web development tasks.” Looking at the recent rise in software postings, Indeed Hiring Lab concludes that “demand is growing for experienced professionals who can work with AI, not necessarily a broad-based recovery across all software roles.” In the same analysis, 37% of the past year’s increase came from jobs that mention AI in their title.
So is web development still a good career with AI? Yes. BLS still projects web developer jobs to grow through 2035, with AI already in its outlook. What changes is what a junior developer is valued for. If a tool writes the first draft, the person who can tell whether that draft is “almost right, but not quite,” fix it, test it and explain it is the one who gets hired. Use these tools on your projects, and be ready to explain every line they wrote for you.
Web Developer Job Titles & Career Progression
Search for every version of the title. The same job is posted under several names.
Title variants to search
| Title | What to check in the posting |
|---|---|
| Web Developer | The stack listed |
| Front-End Developer or Front-End Web Developer | The framework named, and whether design work is part of the job |
| Back-End Developer | The server language and database named |
| Full-Stack Developer | How the work splits between the two halves |
| WordPress Developer | Whether it means custom themes and plugins or content updates |
| Web Programmer | The stack, since it can mean any of the three focuses |
| UI Developer | How much of the job is turning designs into components |
Career ladder
Employers set their own levels, so the same title can sit on different rungs at different companies.
| Level | Common titles | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | Junior Web Developer, Associate Web Developer, Web Developer Intern | You build assigned features with review and guidance, and learn the team’s codebase |
| Mid-level | Web Developer, Front-End or Full-Stack Developer | You own features from request to release and review others’ code |
| Senior | Senior Web Developer, Senior Full-Stack Developer | You make architecture choices, set standards and mentor junior developers |
| Lead or staff | Lead Web Developer, Staff Web Developer | You guide technical direction across a team or several projects |
| Management | Web Development Manager, Engineering Manager | You hire, plan the team’s work and own its results more than its code |
Where the role leads
Many web developers specialize as they go: deeper into the front end, into back-end and infrastructure work, or into broader software engineering. Others move toward management, product work or running their own freelance business. The path usually follows the part of the job you liked best: the interface, the data, the people or the clients.
Web Developer Salary & Work-Life Balance
BLS puts the median annual wage for web developers at $92,650 in May 2025. Other figures you see quoted measure something different, so check what each one covers before comparing.
Web developer pay by source
| Source and date | What it measures | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| BLS, web developers (May 2025) | Median annual wage, all levels | $92,650 (lowest 10% under $48,100; highest 10% over $162,290) |
| Indeed (updated October 19, 2026) | Average base salary from 1.5k salaries in web developer job postings over the past 36 months | $87,406, plus a $2,500 cash bonus (typical range $49,641 to $153,899) |
| BLS, web developers and digital designers combined (May 2025) | Median pay for the wider occupation, which also includes web and digital interface designers | $99,520 ($47.85 an hour) |
| BLS, web and digital interface designers (May 2025) | Median annual wage for the designer half of that group | $104,000 (lowest 10% under $53,750; highest 10% over $201,550) |
Indeed’s page also lists $75,527 for entry-level web developers and $114,174 for senior ones.
Why the figures disagree
The BLS web developer median comes from employer wage data across every level. Indeed’s average comes only from postings that list a salary, over three years. The $99,520 headline on the BLS page blends in web and digital interface designers, who earn more, so it is not a web developer figure.
Pay by industry
Where you work moves the number. BLS median wages for web developers by industry, May 2025:
| Industry | Median annual wage |
|---|---|
| Information | $119,940 |
| Computer systems design and related services | $88,690 |
| Management, scientific and technical consulting services | $86,690 |
| Educational services (state, local and private) | $84,450 |
Job outlook
BLS says web developers held about 87,400 jobs in 2025 and projects 90,600 by 2035, a 4% increase of about 3,300 jobs. The 5% growth (“faster than average”) and the 13,600 openings a year on the BLS page cover web developers and digital designers together. BLS expects many of those openings to come from replacing workers who move to other occupations or leave the labor force.
Work-life balance
Most web development is desk work, and the schedule depends on the employer. Launches, client deadlines and broken production sites can mean long days, and back-end or full-stack roles on some teams include taking turns on call. Agency work can mean several clients and deadlines at once. In-house roles can mean fewer projects and more maintenance of one product. Freelancing trades a steady schedule for one you set yourself.
In interviews, ask how the team handles launches and urgent fixes, and whether there is an on-call rotation.
Web Developer Professional Development Goals
Web developers keep learning on the job. In Stack Overflow’s 2025 survey, 69% of developers had spent time in the last year learning a new coding technique or language, and technical documentation was the most used learning resource, at nearly 68%. These goals turn that learning into proof.
Ship one project with tests and a real user
Take one project all the way: add automated tests, deploy it, and get at least one real person or client using it. Why: a tested project with a real user is proof a hiring manager can check.
Learn accessibility properly
Audit one of your sites against WCAG, fix what you find, and test it with a keyboard and a screen reader. Why: the audit and the fixes you made become a resume bullet you can walk an interviewer through.
Learn one back-end skill
If you work on the front end, build one small API and connect it to a database. Why: knowing how the data reaches the page makes you a better front-end developer and opens full-stack postings.
Contribute to an open source project
Start with documentation or a small, labeled “good first issue,” and get one pull request merged. Why: it shows you can read someone else’s code, follow a project’s rules and take review comments, which is most of a team job.
Measure and fix one performance problem
Pick a slow page, measure it, change one thing at a time, and record the before and after. Why: a measured improvement gives you a real number for your resume instead of an invented one.
Web Developer LinkedIn Profile Tips
Recruiters can search LinkedIn by title and skill, so use the terms web developer postings use where they honestly describe your work. If you have not held a web developer title, do not claim one.
- Headline: name what you build and with what. For example: “Front-end developer building accessible React apps | JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js.”
- About section: two or three sentences on the kind of sites or apps you build, the stack you use, and the type of role you want.
- Featured section: add your two or three best live projects with their links, so a recruiter can open your work without asking.
- Skills: list the languages and frameworks you have used and that appear in the postings you want.
- Experience: reuse your project-first resume bullets, and list freelance or volunteer sites as real experience with the client type named.
Web Developer Certifications
Certifications are optional for web developers. Your live projects and your code show what you can do directly; a certificate shows what you studied. A certification can help you structure your learning or show progress in a specific tool, but it does not replace a deployed project.
If you want one, choose it to fill a gap your target postings point to, such as a cloud platform or a framework, and put your projects above it on your resume. For specific programs, see Teal’s guides to front-end developer certifications and full-stack developer certifications.
Web Developer Interview Prep
Web developer interviews test whether you can build, debug and explain. Processes differ by company, so expect some mix of these:
- A take-home or live coding task. Build a small feature, such as a filtered list from an API, under a time limit, then expect questions about the choices you made.
- A project walkthrough. Explain one of your projects: why you chose the stack, what broke, how you fixed it and what you would change.
- Debugging. Find why a layout breaks or a request fails, and talk through your steps as you go.
- Accessibility and performance questions. Expect questions on making a form usable by keyboard and screen reader, and on what you would check first on a slow page.
- Behavioral questions. Prepare stories about a disagreement on a technical choice, a deadline you met or missed, and feedback you acted on.
Pick the two projects you know best and practice explaining each in three minutes. For practice questions, use Teal’s front-end developer interview questions and full-stack developer interview questions.
Related Career Paths
Each of these careers shares part of the web developer’s work or sits one step away from it.
Front End Developer
Front-end developers specialize in what people see and use in the browser. It is a good fit if you would rather work on the interface than the server.
Full Stack Developer
Full-stack developers build both the interface and the server side of a feature. It suits web developers who want to own work from the database to the page.
Backend Developer
Backend developers build the servers, APIs and databases behind a site or app. It is the natural move if you prefer data and logic to layout.
Web Designer
Web designers decide how a site looks and how people move through it. Many web developers work with them every day.
WordPress Developer
WordPress developers build custom themes, plugins and sites on WordPress. It is a common path for freelance web developers who build sites for small businesses.
Software Engineer
Software engineers build software of every kind, not only for the web. Many web developers move into the title as they take on larger systems.
Your first web developer resume is a record of what you built and shipped. Build it in Teal’s AI Resume Builder. Create and download unlimited resumes for free—no credit card required. Teal+ unlocks additional templates, settings, and advanced features.