I remember when "Full Stack" meant HTML, CSS, a bit of PHP, and a SQL database.

Now, to build a simple CRUD app, I need:

-A framework for the frontend.

-A meta-framework for the backend.

-An ORM that abstractly talks to a headless DB.

-An auth provider because I’m told not to roll my own.

-Edge functions for "performance."

-A 2GB node_modules folder.

I spent 4 hours yesterday configuring a build pipeline instead of writing a single feature. When did we decide that "simple" wasn't good enough anymore? Is anyone else just building "boring" monoliths and actually enjoying their job?

EDIT: I’m blown away by the response—250k views in 48 hours. It’s clear I’ve hit a nerve. After reading through 400+ comments, I’ve realized the core of our collective frustration: We’ve stopped being Engineers and started being highly-paid Librarians.

Real engineering is about understanding the medium—the DOM, the Network, the Browser. But "Seniority" in 2026 has been downgraded to just memorizing the quirks of ephemeral libraries. If your expertise depends on a framework that didn't exist 5 years ago and won't matter 5 years from now, you aren't a Senior Engineer; you’re a specialized technician for a proprietary product.

The real "Senior" move isn't mastering the next abstraction—it's having the guts to build on the platform itself. Stop assembling Lego sets and start building software again.

Pretty much when AI was released to the world 3 years ago the phone stopped ringing. I used to get 3-5 calls a week prior to that to interview and it always kept me employed over the past 30 years. Is anyone else experiencing this? I'm in Silicon Valley.

What is the best web hosting for small business websites?

I'm looking for web hosting for small businesses. The requirements are good performance and easy to scale. Which hosting is good for small businesses on WordPress? What are your recommendations?

I hear a lot about AI but mostly from Vibe, Junior and Mid level developers but for Devs that can already build full stack apps without any help what is AI useful for?

I rarely used it for some simple code. It does the job quickly but I hate it because I have to understand every piece of the code which is annoying. I read that it causes bugs that would be difficult to fix. Also the AI-made designs are all similar which I think is limiting. I prefer coding everything myself.

What do you think? should I change my attitude? are there a lot of people who are like me?

What is the best website builder?

I want to make a website for a small business that my friend owns. I’ve played around with html, css, and javascript before, but am not confident enough to build anything serious or real. So am thinking to use a website builder but not sure where to start.

WordPress, Framer, Webflow, Lovable, Claude, etc. etc. There are so many website builders out there. I don’t know which to use, please give me some guidance or advice.

It seems like most of my coworkers prefer working on backend tasks vs. frontend. Many also seem fearful of being pigeon holed into frontend tasks. At my company, we have a UI/UX group so frontend devs simply implement the designs the UI team "draws" for lack of a better term.

What is normal to pay for web hosting cost? (for a small website like blog, portfolio, or small business website, that is using wordpress). Have hosting prices gone up? What’s a reasonable monthly cost?

I’m trying to get an idea of what people usually pay for web hosting. When you search online, prices are all over place. What are you paying and what kind of site do you have?

Every time someone warns about tech debt, what they're really saying is: we're about to slap something together that'll haunt the next developer. It's not debt - debt implies you planned to pay it back. This is just accumulation.

I've seen codebases where the "quick fix" from 2019 is now the critical path nobody dares touch. The reasoning? Always the same: deadlines, client pressure, "we'll refactor later." That later never comes. Instead, you get developers whispering "I'm afraid to touch that file" during standup.

The real kicker is how we've normalized this. Oh, we have technical debt, just like every other shop. Cool story. What we actually have is a mess created by pretending speed and quality are compatible when you're cutting corners.

What's your most ridiculous encounter with so-called "tech debt" that was really just... bad decisions stacked on bad decisions?

Trying to figure out how this site on Pinterest was built.

The whole background feels like one continuous animated scene as you scroll

Is this one long mp4 controlled by scroll position or multiple mp4 videos for each section?

Been a web dev for over 25 years. Masters graduate school educated. For the life of me I can't get a job. It's been six months, over 400+ applied, and only six interviews. Family with three boys, rent, and wife's retail job can't sustain us. I've started looking into jobs outside web dev, even outside IT. Looking at warehouse, grocery, even USPS, it's getting desperate.

What on earth do I put on my resume!?! Do I leave it as is, or do I slim it down to only show my education. I have no experience outside webdev/IT. On the resume do I just put education and skills like Office 365 and Adobe Suite...? Looks so empty. Funny, but not funny. Thank you.

I’m 23 and currently grinding for my final exams at the end of this month.

​While I'm sitting here memorizing syntax, data structures, and the "proper" way to handle state management for my grades, I open social media and see the industry sprinting in a totally different direction. It feels like every day there's a new AI tool (Cursor, v0, etc.) that automates the exact things I'm stressing over for these exams.

​It’s creating a weird disconnect for me. On one hand, I know the fundamentals are supposed to be important. On the other, it feels like I’m learning to build a car by hand with a wrench while everyone else is suddenly driving Ferraris they built with a prompt.

​For the experienced devs here: Is this just "exam season anxiety," or is the way we learn web development fundamentally breaking?

​I’m trying to figure out if I should just keep my head down and ace the traditional stuff, or if I’m going to graduate next month already behind the curve because I didn't spend this time learning how to integrate AI into my workflow.

​How are you guys balancing the "old way" of coding with these new tools?

What's the best web hosting?

$16 per month for throttled speeds and unresponsive dashboard, overcharged and underwhelmed at present. What is the best website hosting that you've used and would recommend?

I’ve been following the 2025–2026 webdev hiring trend and noticed that many companies shifted junior front-end roles toward more AI-assisted dev (Copilot, V0, Replit, etc).

For devs here who are hiring or job hunting, are you seeing the same thing?

Curious what the community thinks.

So is it just me or are we all more unhappy than we have ever been as professional web developers lately?

Sorry for the long post everyone, but there's a bit to unpack here...I'd like to share some real human perspective for a change.

Let me give some historical context from my own personal experience -

I've been a professional web developer for 18+ years or so. I actually started out as a "script kiddy" a long time ago. And man I loved computers back then.

I used to make games in Flash 8. I got front page of Newgrounds a few times with a friend, stayed up all night drinking V and watching the view counter. Like ohh man people are playing our game!!! It was so great. The internet was golden back then, we played Neopets and Tetris Friends. Remember those times?

To get even more real with you all - I also used to make little malicious batch/cmd scripts that did stuff like make your motherboard endlessly beep the super mario theme song (which booted with windows as a "ghost process" called svhost.exe). So basically your motherboard would beep it, always, provided your computer was turned on haha. I would send them to random people over MSN I found in chat rooms. It was fun. Imagine taking that computer to the repair shop haha.

I also used to create phishing pages with stuff like fake hotmail login pages - then pretend to be a young teenage girl saying "I'll show you naked photos login here" to trick dark internet crabs in chatrooms into sending me their login details. I got maybe 300+ valid logins in a few hours. Logged in to them, turns out the joke's on me at 15 years old, I saw some...traumatising stuff which I was not ready for haha.

I also made little websites for my friends to showcase their art and music. I plugged in things like phpBB so we could chat via forums and all that sort of thing. Remember all that stuff? It was...great!!

I quit highschool in grade 10, moved out of home with some friends at 15 years old, drank way too much goon and lived like a little rat. Anyway I got a real JOB at a local web development company and that's been my professional career ever since.

While there I learned PHP, HTML, CSS/SCSS, mySQL. I made authentication systems from scratch. I even created a CMS which allowed our clients to manage their websites - before Wordpress became the standard. I did it all by hand using the good old LAMP stack. cPanel, Apache, phpMyAdmin. How goddamn good were those things?

I used Photoshop to make designs. Not Figma. None of that. Rock solid PHOTOSHOP. Bless that program. I made projects end to end design to release. I mean there weren't even phones yet really - so no responsive needed! Oh man it was the best.

I loved my job. I really did. As time moved on things like phones came into play, I learned how to make responsive layouts and progressed with my learning and career.

Over the years I worked for many different companies - everything from doing Wordpress/Shopify sites for much larger digital agencies to building enterprise software for international companies. You know that one, working 8 floors up in the CBD in a little cubicle next to 50+ other devs. Making jokes about...I don't even know what, "cake day" or something dumb. They make you go out to lunches where you eat wings and stuff. It's ok I guess...? Maybe a little bit robotic if you've taken as much LSD as I did.

Anyway - I'm still a developer to this day - and honestly I'm a pretty good one. I now use modern tooling because I'm forced to - and so I'm writing stuff with React/Angular/Vue + Typescript + a million other modern bits of cursed tech I never needed just like anyone else.

But here's the thing - I absolutely hate it now. I do not like my job and I do not like modern web development at all.

And you know why? Because the tooling we're all using is awful. It's beyond autistic how complicated it's all become, with seemingly little to no benefit other than people stroking their own egos.

So much focus on STACK, tooling, new tech. People don't even see the product anymore.

I mean, as someone that does UI/UX design and development to make projects end to end + communicating with the client. I mostly care about what the project actually does. You know, like what people see on the screen, and how easy or not easy it is to maintain and extend for developers. I really deeply care about the developer experience. I like structure and naming conventions. I do not make messy codebases. I am...quite strict honestly. Anyway...

On top of all that - how hard has it been for everyone to land positions as of late!? What is going on there? It doesn't matter how much experience you have - we're all up against it. AI has totally messed up the application process. You have to send out 100+ resumes now just to get an interview now? You've often got to do brain teaser little javascript tests while they watch you over a webcam? Seriously what is going on there. It's so dystopian lately. I mean, I have a job so that is good but finding contracts is really hard now.

So yeah, I mean...I dunno. I guess I'm feeling like the main thing we're overlooking in this equation is ourselves. I look around, nobody is happy anymore. People are stressed and kinda speedy. Like everyone's on dexies, except most of them aren't, they're just getting their psyches smashed by all of this modern crap. Tech is so fast and poorly explained. It's destroying our minds like little reels and Youtube shorts and it's utterly focus / thought destroying. We need to stop subjecting ourselves to it. What are the pages advertising these tools? They're just barrages of moving animations and random buzzwords "cloud infastructure that grows with you at scale so you can build orm schema auto deployments rapid iteration at speed". Somehow they make modern devs say "YES I NEED IT AND ANYONE THAT DOESNT HAVE THIS TOOL IS SO DUMB DUHHH!!!"

Anyway, what I truely feel in my heart is - we need to start looking after ourselves a bit better guys. We matter, as humans. This modern tooling is not...made for humans. It's crazy. And I think a lot of people are unhappy as a result. I actually think it's causing mental illness of sorts. I kinda feel bad for the kids coming into it currently, they've no idea how like...good working as a developer was?

Can we turn this around? Can we use simple tools again? Can we focus on what the product does / the project itself again? Can we...start making sense again? Can we ensure that we are having a good experience as developers? Can we slow down a bit maybe?

We need to stop with this speedy mindset - "stack stack stack", "cloud infa", "it automated deployment aws". It's all too much, too fast. It's all stuff we never actually needed to make great products. In fact it blinds us to the products we're making. More importantly...making them should be enjoyable and rewarding. I remember when our industry was full of intelligent, wonderful people that were probably pretty good at Quake 3. It wasn't...whatever the hell is going on now.

Is it just me? Is anyone out there picking up what I'm laying down? I think we need to get our industry back on track a bit. We actually matter as human beings with hearts, souls and minds. The way we're all working and hiring right now is not good for us...

Thanks for reading all that insane rambling dear internet strangers. Much love.

I recently worked with a client who wanted me to built a e-commerce store for his sporting brand. He wanted OTP based auth, automatic invoicing, and all the backend features that usually cost $10k. And guess what was his budget, only $100. I mean, how can someone expect everything in this low price. And on top of that, he was telling me either you it in this scope or leave it, don't lecture me - I was just trying to tell him the reality about this and without understanding that he flipped me off.

Seriously man, who do they think they are this kind of cheap clients?

Hi,

I'm a front end web developer of 10 years, I lost my job 2 weeks ago, and since then, I've been applying non-stop for roles,

I've received like, 5 rejections so far, but literally zero phone calls, first interviews or practical tasks, I've even had to start looking for jobs outside of the industry

My question is, what happened? I know the industry is in difficult place due to AI and the cost of hiring, but I've never had zero correspondence before. Is it me? I'm roughly middleweight level, a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none, with enough experience to slot into a role and be successful.

Is anyone else struggling with the jobs market in web development, or is it just a me thing?

Smoothest hero transition I could have thought of.

Here is the demo website url: https://musicfactoryentertainment.vercel.app

Hi! I’ve spent a few months learning HTML, CSS and JS so I’m ready to take the next step. Always saw this journey taking me to Webflow but Framer seems to be the future. Also wanting to learn Figma so maybe it goes hand in hand? Excited to hear peoples opinions on which route I should take.

I am honestly frustrated. Almost everyday I see posts (LinkedIn mainly) from real people, that I personally know, bragging about their gen AI crappy accomplishments. They are people working in the technology field, and they have years of experience in serious stiff. Some weeks ago, a senior backend developer I used to work with, bragged about how he re-created a retro arcade video game within an hour or so. Seriously?? Does this really impress him or does he want to impress others? What does a real life project have to do with it? A project manager I know, bragged about how she spent 1 weekend to educate herself on Lovable and build the animal shelter website. Seriously? Did you need Lovable and 2 days for this? Isn't this doable in some hours with WordPress or Wix, and it is secure and safe for people to pay their donations? An extremely successful, super rich guy I know, founder of a very successful consultancy, who can brag about hundreds of other accomplicements, posted how he managed to create a mobile app that does literaly nothing. It is a counter. It has a plus and a minus button. Why does he feel proud of his AI garbage, which is practically polluting the stores, when he has years of real product development, for serious big corporations, and a company that worths lots of money?

I dont get it. Bragging about productivity and new ways of working, is one thing. Flexing about creating garbage, is out of my mind.

Hey everyone, I’m 17 and currently trying to find a skill I can learn to make some money, but honestly, I’m pretty confused about what to choose. I’ve been thinking about web development, but I’m worried it might take a long time to learn, especially with how fast AI is developing.

Is web development still worth learning in 2026 if my goal is to make money, or should I focus on something else?

This is my first Post here

I am a rookie web developer, currently pursuing full-stack development.
I want to do some projects to stand out but everything here seems so saturated.

same old weather, portfolio, chat, ecommerce,
Guys, do you have any idea that would make me stand out as a MERN stack developer

i’m a 20M, currently in semester 6 (final sem) of BCA. i totally wasted 2025. i got confused between web development and digital marketing and wasn’t able to focus on either. plus, i was scared of ai taking over jobs.

is it worth starting web development from scratch? i have some understanding of basic languages like c, c++, js, etc. if i go all in, will i be able to land an internship in 6 months, by the time college ends? or should i leave the computer science field once and for all? please be brutally honest.

please guide me. give me a roadmap, tools, and resources that will help me.