Hi Reader,

what you are reading now took me a long time to write. In fact I started over three times.

The question I'm trying to answer is simple: What's it like to be a WordPress developer in 2024?

And by extension of course trying to deduct the future from that.

The challenge here is that I want to:

1. Warn about the dangers for your career without wanting to create panic.
2. Encourage you to grow your skills without sounding too negative about your current situation.

It's not about Full-Site Editing

I read plenty of complaints from developers on Facebook and X on how hard Full-Site Editing is.

But complaining about Full-Site Editing is shooting the messenger.

To understand why, we need to look at the user experience, and the technology.

When it comes to the new building experience, users in 2024 expect a visual builder. In the same way that users in the past wanted a content management system instead of hardcoded HTML pages: they want to save costs.

Now if you are one of those freelancers or agencies that gets paid to change content on your client's websites, then good for you. However your business is the exception, not the rule. Nearly all clients want a website that they can change themselves.

Among the same lines if clients want new pages or features, they want them delivered rapidly, at an attractive price, and the highest level of quality.

Which brings us to the technology part. The truth is that no matter how good you are at using ACF and building custom templates, you'll never be able to build as fast and as high quality as with Full-Site Editing.

But this is often countered with "but then I need to learn custom block development, and that is hard!"

And my answer is: so what?

The truth is this: if it were easy, then your clients wouldn't need you, would they?

I understand developers ranting about how hard things are. I do so as well quite often! But genuinely complaining how hard it is to develop for modern WordPress is misplaced.

Plenty of business whether they are in client services or product manage do work with modern WordPress. So it's not like it's now impossible to work with WordPress.

But of course depending on how current you have kept your development skills, you have a lot to catching up to do.

Web development vs. WordPress development

The Gutenberg project, of which Full-Site Editing is a part of, is not an elaborate scheme to anger WordPress developers. Instead it's about WordPress wanting to catch up with modern web development.

In the same way that users today expect more than the classic editor with a few meta boxes, modern editing experiences require more than PHP driven pages with a few Ajax calls.

While from the WordPress perspective, JavaScript is seen as hard and difficult, it is in reality the most popular programming language in the world. And it is the language of choice for teaching web development to beginners.

Along the same lines, React, seen as "new and shiny", is over a decade old. In fact the first release was in 2013, and it is the most popular framework behind Node.js.

By introducing these tools, WordPress is not only enabling the visual and interactive user experience that we want. The project is also closing the gap between WordPress development, and the wider web development practices.

And this is crucial to ensure that WordPress makes it through the next decade. In the past, the project has suffered from "not invented here" syndrome.

This not only creates problems for WordPress Core, which needs a steady stream of maintainers. But also for businesses in client services that can't find the developers they need.

And it's this mismatch of skills that creates the current situation in which we have both WordPress agencies looking to hire, and developers looking to get hired.

The changing nature of work

That being said, the situation for professionals building websites for clients isn't exactly rosy.

The truth is that we are asked to achieve more with less.

So many of the olden ways of website building are going away. Like starting design from scratch or "hand coding" templates.

And for those who don't want to use page builders, the answer is clear: use Full-Site Editing. It reduces the production time considerably, while offerings lots of builtin performance benefits.

And as Full-Site Editing gets more feature complete, and the plugin ecosystem increases support for block-based building, tasks that required a developer now no longer do.

Designers can now develop entire websites on their own. And the themes by designers such as Rafal Thomal, Brian Gardner, or even Mike McAlister show the promise that Full-Site Editing brings.

All in all this means that many of the straightforward development tasks that we are used to are going away.

So, what's the solution?

A lot of people in WordPress are what I call "reluctant engineers". They do like to write some HTML and CSS, and also some bits of PHP. But they aren't really passionate about all the other stuff that modern development brings with it.

And the good news is that you don't need to write code anymore if you don't want to. So if you rather like design, or are passionate about copywriting, then lean into this.

Because a website is nothing but an empty vehicle to deliver whatever value needs to be delivered. And you can get plenty of value from using out of the box features and a few plugins.

But is it all bad news? No, because no page builder, AI-tool, or other software will make developers obsolete. But at the same tine the tasks for which developers are needed are becoming more and more complex.

We shouldn't forget that while it's great to have all the fantastic plugins and blocks available to work with, somebody needs to build all these tools. And that's what developers do, both at product companies and of course in client services.

Therefore if you do like writing code, you still have a bright future ahead of you. Because with a higher barrier for entry for being a professional WordPress developer has increased significantly, the benefits in terms of job opportunities and salaries have as well.

So checkout my top resources to learn WordPress development skills. Here you can find everything you need to grow your development skills.

And if you are not sure what skills you need, check out the new WordPress skill hierarchy. It shows you where to start your learning path, and especially where to stop.

Because as much as I like JavaScript-driven custom block development, it's not a must for everybody. Again if you have strong design skills, really good at marketing, or a master writer, then don't waste your time on learning development.

Rather learn the foundations, which is block theme development, combine it with your unique skills, and outsource the development work.

If you are in a special scenario, and not sure where you fit in feel free to reply. I'm happy to come up with recommendations for learning resources based on your unique situation.

Cheers,
Fränk