There was some disturbance in my company the last few days, making me worry about my job. Luckily, it was a false alarm, but I spent a whole day exploring the options.
Usually, I find jobs via freelancing platforms or the job finds me, but this time I wanted to try my luck and find it myself.
My requirements are simple:
- I want to work primarily with CSS,
- I want to work remotely, and
- I want a full-time position.
As a first step, I tweeted that I was searching for a job. Some considerate people retweeted it, and I got some initial contacts, which made me happy. Yet, I wonder if I would have gotten more contacts if I had more followers. Probably yes, but we will never know because I have had around 980 followers for the past few years. Thanks, Twitter algorithm.
If you think it will help, feel free to retweet my tweet.
I also tried to use Twitter search, but I didn't find anything useful.
Search engines
After Twitter, I wanted to try my luck on search engines like Google and DuckDuckGo. The first search term I tried was "css developer job remote." The first two pages were full of job searching sites. Some of these sites, like Turing and Toptal, are freelancing platforms. You must undergo the screening process to be accepted to the network to apply for a job. Although I am a member of some of these platforms, which were a significant part of my career, I didn’t want to use them since I tried to cut the middleman.
👉 Fun fact: if you enter the “css developer” term in the search engine, you might find my Toptal article about CSS roles as a top result.
Other results included sites like We Work Remotely, Arc, Jooble, SimplyHired, etc. Job postings on almost all of these sites had one of the following problems if not all of them:
- not a CSS developer job,
- outdated job postings,
- not a remote position, or
- salary is too low.
When arriving at these sites, you're thinking: "Wow, there are a lot of CSS jobs." But when taking a closer look, you realize that most listings are not CSS jobs. Instead, most of them are React, Vue, or other forms of full-stack or front-end positions. Unfortunately, I don’t possess any JavaScript framework skills, and I think you don’t need React for building websites.
Some sites, like Arc, show job postings from a few months ago or last year. I mean, these sure cannot still be open now.
What I find most annoying are so-called "remote" positions. First, if I have to report to some office, this job is not remote. Also, if I search for a remote position, I mean a worldwide position, not a remote US position. Finally, it is frustrating to read the full job description and realize it is only for US citizens.
When I found a job posting that seemed like a good fit, the salary was too low. The other problem is that there is no salary info at all. I generally feel like CSS developer jobs are underpaid.
I have tried the other search terms, like "ui developer job remote" and "html developer job remote," but I had a similar experience.
In general, there are too many job postings. I am not sure how other people find a job via search engines, but to me, it seems impossible.
The following location in my quest was a LinkedIn job search. It is no different than the rest of the sites --- it had the same problems. The only difference is that I saw a lot of job postings from countries like Poland, Ireland, and Norway, which I liked.
Job boards
I remembered that I had bookmarked some job boards back in the day. Unfortunately, I discovered some are no longer working, like CSS-Tricks's job board, Codepen's job board, and Stack Overflow's job board. Others, like Smashing Magazine's job board, are pretty outdated.
I also searched the HackerNews "Who is hiring?" thread. It was full of exciting companies, but there were no CSS developer postings.
Companies
While looking for Stack Overflow's job board, I discovered the Companies section, but like the HackerNews thread, I didn't find a CSS developer job. I also discovered Arc's companies page and other great lists of outstanding companies, but I couldn't find CSS developer jobs.
I also searched other prominent companies, like Netlify, GitHub, Airbnb, etc., to see if they were hiring CSS developers. Unfortunately, I didn't find a single CSS developer position.
Conclusion
After spending the whole day trying to find a CSS developer job, I wonder if there is one. It might be that my searching skills are not good enough or that I was looking at the wrong places. On the other hand, it might be that these jobs are not something to be advertised. Maybe the job descriptions are incorrect. Maybe the list of skills required for the job is wrong. I don't know, but it made me quite frustrated.
Don't get me wrong, I think we developers are lucky, and I really appreciate my job, and this is not a rant, but there is still room for improvement. Recently I wrote about roles in the front-end development department, which might be a good read for all employers. I urge everyone to list only the absolute most necessary skills for the job. Let's start writing better job ads.
Generally, one could easily get lost in a sea of job posting sites and job postings. That is why I decided to write this post. The main goal of this article is to find me a perfect employer. So, feel free to contact me.
P.S. Here's my portfolio and my CV, and here's the list of things I don't know how to do.
Top comments (3)
Take perfect HTML and CSS skills, add some React, Typescript and other pieces you might need to build a website or an application and.... you will still not find a job unless you know some 😬"backend stuff".
🤷♂️ Sad story, but small companies are still looking for a full stack generalists capable to handle any job, seting up printer included, even if not in the best way.
Bigger companies might look for specialists, but quite often then have no idea how to find them and which question to ask. So thank you for making this beautiful UI, we checked your code and haven't found anything interesting we can talk about. What about sorting btree on a whiteboard instead?
I think this would be a rare find. Good paying jobs generally have rather complex web apps which usually result in using SOME type of framework. Also a manger would rather spend 100k on someone that can do CSS, HTML, JS and knows how to use a framework, versus lets say 60k for a css developer and 60k for a javascript developer.
Additionally in larger apps, CSS is not the most important thing. Business Value is. Business Value comes from functionality and helping the business achieve it's goal faster so it generates money sooner. I've worked on many high paying projects, and most of them would rather the team focus on a working product than focusing on CSS. When I first started out I worked on an app that generated millions of dollars. I was excited, and worked hard to implement features that were requested. I also tried to really make sure the app looked amazing. My manager eventually pulled me aside and said I had to stop focusing so much on the looks and focus on the business value. I was spending 20 hours of my 40 hours a week in css just making buttons look good, and things spaced out nicely. The problem here was that those 20 hours could've been used to add more functionality to the app and ship the app sooner. Every hour spent on non valuable css work was costing thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
Now obviously there is valuable css, but theres also a lot of css that doesn't really add anything to the app and is just 'Eye Candy'.
Your best bet might be freelancing or trying to find work at a design agency where their primary focus is good looking websites
I would think that a CSS only job is a rare thing. Even if you are working on a component framework for (let's say.. ) a bank so that other Devs can use them in their apps for a consistent UX you would need a significant understanding of HTML and JS.
As for globally remote and salary, there is no way you can complete with some of the very smart and hard grafting ethos of programmers from India, Nigeria and Poland where the cost of living is 20% of that in 'developed' economies