Will WordPress eliminate the need for web developers?
WordPress will not be able to take the role of web developers. It will, at the very least, provide chances and work for WordPress developers. The other day, I was a participant in a fascinating Clubhouse discussion. Someone who was just starting out as a web developer had seen what WordPress could accomplish and asked the question correctly…
Will WordPress eliminate the need for web developers?
WordPress will not be able to take the role of web developers. WordPress makes creating and editing websites easier, faster, and less expensive. However, developers will always be needed to create the WordPress core, as well as the themes and plugins that allow website owners to alter the design and extend the functions of the platform. WordPress, like Drupal and Joomla, is a free and open-source content management system (CMS).
When constructing websites, it minimizes the necessity for repetitive development. Developers can build on top of WordPress and use it as the technical backbone for dynamic websites instead of starting from scratch. Will WordPress ever completely remove the need for site development? The question That is the question you and I should be asking. you and I should be asking.
I have my doubts.
First and foremost WordPress is, a content management system (CMS). A CMS, on the other hand, is a generic tool that reduces the time and expense of developing the fundamentals. But, more often than not, it necessitates special creation to address unfulfilled use cases.
Most WordPress users, including web publishers, fast-growing startups, Fortune 500 businesses, consulting firms, and development agencies, have very defined and often unmet use cases for enabling (which is also why they tend to have a very pretty big in-house WordPress DevOps teams).
Second, even if WordPress powered 100 percent of the Internet’s websites (which it will never do), developers would still be in high demand. Of course, they’d need to be familiar with and utilize WordPress just as much as they’d need to be familiar with PHP or SQL queries. However, that knowledge would be more important than ever in order to keep the Internet running.
WordPress already runs 35% of all websites on the Internet, and it’s still expanding. As of February 2021, the web had 5.45 billion pages indexed, according to WorldWideWebSize. This means WordPress is responsible for about 1.9 billion of the web’s pages.
Remember that this figure is overstated.
There are thousands of abandoned websites on the Internet today, and many of them utilize WordPress as their content management system. Even if you knew the precise number of abandoned websites and deducted it from the 1.9 billion figure, you’d still have a sizable user base of people and businesses in need of WordPress-related products and services. Third, WordPress is always changing.
WordPress was development and created in 2003 to compete with Typepad as a blog platform with a visual editor (and, for fellow dinosaurs who remember, PHP Nuke and Nucleus CMS, which were very popular at the time). Today, a WordPress-powered website can be used for a variety of purposes.
It is used by many of the world’s largest media corporations for their news sites and blogs. It is used to power the websites of companies’ brands. It can also be used to sell items, services, and courses. WordPress is swiftly becoming a favorite among software architects and web developers charged with creating Headless CMS systems, thanks to the release of the WordPress REST APIs.
Overall, anyone who chooses to pursue a technical profession through WordPress has a bright future ahead of them. This is why.
As a WordPress developer, you have a variety of options.
If you’re a PHP developer wondering what type of future you’ll have if you concentrate in WordPress, here are some of the most frequent career prospects for someone in your position. As a WordPress developer, you’ll be able to pursue a variety of professional paths. Aside from freelancing, you may work for a company that develops themes or plugins, an online publisher, or a fast-growing startup or Fortune 500 firm.
As a freelance WordPress developer, you can work on one or many projects at the same time. You’ll probably need to look for employment on Upwork, Freelancer, and PeoplePerHour at first.
With time, you’ll begin to receive referrals from your satisfied customers, and your network will grow into a steady stream of future clients. You can work for a WordPress development agency and become a member of their team of developers. You’ll have employment security, and you won’t have to worry about marketing, sales, negotiating, or project management.
You’ll also get to conduct a lot of WordPress development for a variety of customers and use cases. Working for a company that creates WordPress themes and plugins is an option. The market for WordPress themes and plugins has exploded in recent years, and the trend is set to continue as more and more people and businesses use it to power their websites.
Developers that can create intuitive and functional tools for today’s and tomorrow’s WordPress users are in high demand. Consider Elegant Themes’ Divi theme and Divi website builder plugin, or MemberPress’s most popular WordPress membership plugin for course designers and community builders.
You can work as part of the DevOps team that builds and maintains a media company’s high-traffic WordPress websites, such as a news organisation, magazine, or blog. Your main focus will be on extending and scaling WordPress, creating subscriber paywalls, and gathering statistics to figure out what kind of content website visitors enjoy. As I was writing this piece, Fortune, Time, Quartz, and Wired were just a handful of the major publishers that sprang to mind.
You can work for a fast-growing startup or a Fortune 500 firm that uses WordPress as the content management system for its portfolio of multi-brand, multi-product, multi-language websites. On top of your to-do list will be spinning up sites and landing pages for large campaigns, enabling e-commerce, and interacting with the rest of the advertising (AdTech) and marketing technology (MarTech) stacks.
In 2019, Capgemini, a technology consulting firm, converted 38 of its websites to WordPress. Facebook Research is also powered by WordPress. Microsoft, Spotify, and Slack are among the firms who utilise it as a CMS for their employee- and customer-facing websites.
If you’re a WordPress developer, there are three different (often unappreciated) types of companies to work for: ManageWP, for example, is a WordPress multi-site tool. Managed WordPress hosting services like WP Engine Advertising technology (AdTech) platforms like Ezoic WordPress development tools like GenerateWP
Automattic Inc., the company behind WordPress, WordPress.com, WP VIP, and the Jetpack plugin suite, is hiring. The goal of Automattic is to make the internet a better place. They have a well-known good work atmosphere for developers, as well as a varied selection of products and services, ensuring that WordPress fans will never be bored.
WordPress is also owned by Automattic, which also owns the subscription-based backup and security service VaultPress, the anti-spam WordPress service Akismet, the longform storey curation site Longreads, and the Markdown-based note-taking software Simplenote.
Finally, if you’re prepared to put in the time and are willing to take on more risk, you may design your own WordPress product or service and start a business with it. Your Career Path in WordPress Development Most WordPress developers begin their careers as Junior Developers in an agency or firm shortly after graduation.
A lesser percentage begin their careers as DevOps Engineers, IT Operations Engineers, or Support Reps before becoming Junior Developers. A Junior Developer progresses to a Mid-Level Developer after two to three years. Your line of work will determine how much experience and talents you’ve gained at this point.
A Mid-Level Developer employed by a small agency will have a different background and skill set than one employed by a large publisher. To become a Senior Developer, it can take anywhere from a few years to a decade. At this point, you’ll know enough about WordPress to coach the Junior and Mid-Level Developers on your team, as well as HTML/CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, Apache, Linux servers, and version control.
A Senior Developer can progress into a Tech Lead role, architecting high-level WordPress solutions and monitoring the “-ilities” of WordPress implementations, or into an Engineering Lead role, which is more people management oriented. Tech Leads or Engineering Leads with aspirations to join the C-suite can eventually advance to Chief Technology Officer or Chief Information Officer positions.
WordPress, like any other CMS and, more recently, visual website builder, will reduce the necessity for custom web creation from scratch. It will also provide a lot of work and chances for WordPress developers.