From Deesigner to Programmer... is there a happy medium?

[13kft]

I fell like I am some sort of professional purgatory...

I have been designing web sites for about 4 years now. In high school and college I was a photographer and liberal arts major.
I am pretty much expert with HTML and all the graphics programs.

Last year I took the MCSD, and began scripting in ASP and JavaScript. I have not really workied with compiled programs outside of class.

Lately I have been tearing up Flash 5, and have really begun to enjoy the programming. Flash is a wonderful marriage of visuals and code. You get instant gratification for your code, y'know?

However, I really like working on information architecture and database design, too. The concepts and issues are captivating.

However, as I wander through the job market as a freelance Flash/Web guy, I see a disturbing trend in employers: They seem to categorize people by the skills on their resume, and warehouse them accordingly. I have never worked anywhere that had the designers and developers in the same room.

All this mess-of-a-post leads to this question: what gives?

I know I am not the only curious artist guy with a penchant for math. What are your experiences?

By the way, I am in the Mid-Atlantic region, USA.

tim

[namgor]

It depends, myself is a both a designer and a programmer, so the designer and the programmer is always in the same room

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[13kft]

Of course, the same goes for me
However, I wonder if I am going to spend the rest of my life consulting online forums and my own (often limited) imagination for ideas and help... when I should just be able to turn around and ask my coworkers.
You know what I'm saying? If all I did was program Java, then I'd be in a room with 5 other Java dudes and we'd be able to ask each other questions.

In my case, I know Photoshop, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Flash, ASP, JavaScript, VB, CSS, HTML, video editing, sound editing, physics, geometry, literature... and often I am surrounded by
a) a bunch of HTML-only people
b) a bunch of Photoshop-only people
c) a bunch of network-admin-only people
d) a bunch of ASP-only people
My elitism is going to shine thru a bit here, but I think it's warranted. As I continue to be hired and managed by people who have little inclination to learn new things or hire challenging people, I wonder if I should just create code-art and work as a bike courier. Do you guys and girls feel like your resume defines who you are? Are you happy JUST doing code all day in a room full of people who ONLY KNOW CODE?

Where is the mix? the clash of minds? I see programming as much much more than code... the creativity required to make a program really flow, and for it to be pleasant to use, really requires the programmer to be challenged by his own ambition and the people around him.

I guess after 2 years on the job market I haven't really explored every type of working environment...

I guess I am just frustrated by the general nervousness of the market right now and the desperation so many people have about their jobs. Yech. What ever happened to curiosity and fun? Why does every gig feel like a funeral?

wow... I'm getting way OT...

tim

[Grizzly]

I know how you feel 13kft.

But programmers & designers are often seperated because typically...programmers can't design for beans, and also very typically...designers can't code for beans.

Myself...I'm a programmer at heart, and I *can* design if I have to, but the results usually aren't too pretty.

Sooooo...you can't really blame management, it's just a simple fact that most people aren't a "Jack of all Trades."

[dighn]

Originally posted by 13kft:
I fell like I am some sort of professional purgatory...

I have been designing web sites for about 4 years now. In high school and college I was a photographer and liberal arts major.
I am pretty much expert with HTML and all the graphics programs.

Last year I took the MCSD, and began scripting in ASP and JavaScript. I have not really workied with compiled programs outside of class.

Lately I have been tearing up Flash 5, and have really begun to enjoy the programming. Flash is a wonderful marriage of visuals and code. You get instant gratification for your code, y'know?

However, I really like working on information architecture and database design, too. The concepts and issues are captivating.

However, as I wander through the job market as a freelance Flash/Web guy, I see a disturbing trend in employers: They seem to categorize people by the skills on their resume, and warehouse them accordingly. I have never worked anywhere that had the designers and developers in the same room.

All this mess-of-a-post leads to this question: what gives?

I know I am not the only curious artist guy with a penchant for math. What are your experiences?

By the way, I am in the Mid-Atlantic region, USA.

tim

I can understand why they want to categorize people... I think one reason is they want people to be really good at the job they are assigned to ie they should have a lot of experience with that individual task. Let's say someone wants a backend for database intergration for their website, they could care less about your flash skills and photoshop skills and would only want someone who is good at databases and server side scripting.

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[13kft]

the generalization that programmers can't design for beans and vice versa holds true most of the time... but what is frustrating is that management doesn't see the value of mixing up the two personalities.
For instance, I am signed up with a few different recruiting firms. They all base my placement on my resume. I don't even interview for these jobs! I'm just sent in to perform a very specific task. Is this the future of programming? Where you are nothing more than a C++ robot?
You may love code, as I do, but this **** gets real old real quick when that is all you do. I think I read one of your posts that you are still in college... if this is true, then prepare thyself for reality.
Most of the poeple you will work with are vapid, incompetent and lazy, clutching desperately to their jobs. ugh.
This is why I ask, What gives?
Code is more than math, more than syntax... read "Art and Physics" if you get a change, or just read up on Fibonacci sequences and the Golden Mean.
Keep this in mind when you pick your electives. You'd be surprised now much the structure of a novel can relate to user interface... etc... etc...

tim

[dighn]

Originally posted by 13kft:
the generalization that programmers can't design for beans and vice versa holds true most of the time... but what is frustrating is that management doesn't see the value of mixing up the two personalities.
For instance, I am signed up with a few different recruiting firms. They all base my placement on my resume. I don't even interview for these jobs! I'm just sent in to perform a very specific task. Is this the future of programming? Where you are nothing more than a C++ robot?
You may love code, as I do, but this **** gets real old real quick when that is all you do. I think I read one of your posts that you are still in college... if this is true, then prepare thyself for reality.
Most of the poeple you will work with are vapid, incompetent and lazy, clutching desperately to their jobs. ugh.
This is why I ask, What gives?
Code is more than math, more than syntax... read "Art and Physics" if you get a change, or just read up on Fibonacci sequences and the Golden Mean.
Keep this in mind when you pick your electives. You'd be surprised now much the structure of a novel can relate to user interface... etc... etc...

tim

When you have a big job, of course you are gonna divide it up and give specific tasks to everyone based on their expertise... I really don't see what's wrong with that?

------------------
So easy to use, no wonder it's number one!!!
Where do you want to go today?
Member of NT Jocks
Tesla coils are not weapons

[13kft]

I understand your point about appropriate skills... and in the corporate environments I am banging my head against, this holds true. They hire someone for a specific task and that's it.

This is just plain wrong. I guess I'm screaming at a wall here, but after a few years of working like this I am ready to friggin explode.

I don't fit in easily to any category. I have a fluid understanding of the relationship between the backend and the front end. I see beauty in code, movement, and graphics. This is rare, and this rarity sucks when it come to feeling fulfilled professionally.

My initial post was to see if any of you guys were caught in the same place, and if so what are you doing about it?

[13kft]

Yes of course the jobs get divided up... what I am railing against is the fact that the job gets divided up and scattered to three different offices. there is little contact from one team to another. You have the Designers... The Coders... The Database People... and the Server Guys. The only people communicating with one another are the Project Managers, and we all know they are retarded.

I guess it's boiling down to two things:

1)many of the people I meet have blinders on, and are way too focused on bulding their one skillset to notice the importance of incorporating different modes of thinking in to their skills.

2)physically dividing the workforce on a project further reinforces this notion that we are defined by our skillset.

Again, if the only people you are around are Java people, you will have no insight to the hows and whys of the rest of your project. Why did the designers pick green? Why are we using 3 differnt databases? Why is the directory structure bottom-up? The answers: You don't care. You are paid to code Java.

tim

[Grizzly]

Hey 13kft, I can totally see where you're coming from.

You're right, I am still in college, but I also work for an IT company where I'm a fulltime ColdFusion/PHP programmer.

When you said:
Most of the poeple you will work with are vapid, incompetent and lazy, clutching desperately to their jobs

I nearly fell on the floor laughing! Hahah, I've worked with too many people like that.
The IT industry is filled with em, and yes....it's definitely a shame.

Good help is hard to find these days, which more or less forces management do it's best with what it's got.

Programmers with good personel / management skills are far & few between.

Designers which are logically inclined are also far & few between. For that reason entirely Management finds it easiest to stick people doing with what they know, and only that. It's just more productive that way.

My advice to you....stick with what you're doing, suck it up for a couple years, and before you know it you'll be in management. THEN, you can make the administrative changes which you feel would make the company a happier, more creative environment.

Telling a manager how to do his/her job is definitely not the way to go about it

[13kft]

true, true... though becoming "management" sounds like kinda like becoming "testicle-free".

anyhoo, i am in a much better mood now... it's just that my current contract is ending and I'm back on the market... ready to bend over for some new client... I did get to work with some cool peeps on this last one

tim

[reklis]

Perhaps I can help. I've been doing this for what's going on 7 years now. I've been a designer, an architect, a dba, a network administrator, a unix/linux admin, an nt admin, and a programmer. More often than not, especially in my current position, I'm more than one of these all day long. I consider myself a programmer, and I'm trying to focus more on that now that I'm further along in my career.

I have to say the ideal position for anybody that wants to spread themselves across the "coder" and "designer" lines is probably UI Developer. In the psuedo-traditional multi-tiered web architecture of today, good UI Developers have to design a beautiful, and functional interface. In order to do this (well), it means making the developers, possibly the other designers, the marketing camp, and not to mention your boss, happy. It's a big job, and not many people can handle all the role switching. UI Developers also tend to lead off other projects with their creative ideas (for instance... an accompanying integrated dhtml help system for it all)

My girlfriend is a UI Developer for Partnerware, and she loves it! On a typical day, she'll mess with HTML, JavaScript, CSS-P, Java (swing, JFC...), JSP, Photoshop (raster stuff), Illustrator (vector stuff), etc. She doesn't mess with the back-end much because she's on the web-tier, but it definately effects what she does. In turn she can impact the design and layout indirectly with her front-end ideas.

In all my days (esspecially at the small shops) it's by far the most "hat-changing" speciality I've seen. It seems that's where you want your carreer to go. If you want to do both design and coding, without getting pigeon-holed, this is the role for you. If your good at what you do, managers will take notice, because what you do will be the first thing they experience, no matter how good or bad anything else is.

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[13kft]

thank you thank you, that is the reply I've been looking for. I knew there had to be something out there that would feel like a good fit. It's funny, because I spend my spare time perfecting my complex Flash datbase-driven interfaces, with the idea that a few good portfolio pieces will get me in to a more challenging sector of design/coding.

Thanks for the tip... and Hook Em Horns (1997 alum)

tim

[reklis]

Originally posted by 13kft:
... and Hook Em Horns (1997 alum)

I'm drinking my coffee from a UT mug right now, so that was kind of funny. Glad I could help!

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Advocate of the Sharky (Ultra) High-Resolution Club [SHRC]
main(i){putchar(341513875>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<<6)&&main(++i);}