Tell us about the profession of a layout designer (in the office)?

Question

Layout

About me

Последний год помимо основной работы подрабатывал фрилансом на верстке сайтов. Сверстал в общей сложности сайтов 10, в основном многостраничники, а так же несколько лендингов. Сейчас обстоятельства вынуждают уйти с работы, на которой проработал почти всю карьеру. По верстке знаю/использую html, css, bootstrap, флексы, gulp, sass, pug, jquery, основы js, имел опыт работы с битрикс. Сейчас подумываю пойти работать в офис верстальщиком.

Therefore, I have a few questions for people who are in the subject
1. What is the current salary of layout designers in the regions (I live in Kaliningrad)? On job sites, I see offers of 30, 25, and even 20 thousand (although they come across at 80-100,000, but they require very serious skills.) How much does this correspond to real wages?
2. Do I understand correctly that a layout designer's working day is 8 hours of layout with a lunch break? How high is the workload? At my previous job, for example, I had to work directly 40 percent of the time.
3. How realistic is it, working in the office, and being overwhelmed with layout tasks, along the way to develop in web development and learn PL, such as PHP and JS?
4. Is there career growth directly in the profession? What is the salary cap for layout without programming? (connection of plug-ins and simple things on jquery do not count)
5. Is it worth it to start the path in web development with a coder, taking into account my knowledge, or does it make sense to learn some language and get a job as a junior programmer?

Answer 1

1 - The amounts vary greatly, from 20 to 60, + rarely around 80,000 (Krasnodar). I don’t know how a person should type for 80, but it’s probably very cool)
2 - Formally, yes. But this happens only in web studios. And even there you can easily find time to study JS / PHP, read Habr, ... . In large non-IT companies, you will spend as much time on business as before. The workload can be high at first, but when you get your hands on it, decide on the tools and approach - it will not take so much time.
3 - Real. So much so that everyone does it)
4 - The career growth of a layout designer leads to Frontend, that is, to the world of JS, all sorts of Angular / React / Vue and other things.
5 - Yes, it's worth starting anyway, I think. You can make a second resume now - "Junior Frontend" and learn JS in parallel with the job search. At least at the level of jQuery and basic principles.
A layout designer is, as a rule, the beginning of a career path; you should not stay on it for a very long time. You will have 100% growth opportunities, even with a tight schedule.

Answer 2

Here I see 2 ways of growth:
1) Designer - layout designer
2) Front-end developer (bias in JS, layout is not needed)
Just layout designers are not needed.

Answer 3

Clean layout designer - career dead end

Answer 4

1. Approximately the same as what you wrote, you just won’t earn much as a layout designer.
2. Depends on where you work. But in my experience, no one works 8 hours a day, even in an office. I prefer numbers 4-6.
3. It will not always be possible to learn something at work, if only because there is background noise around, as well as colleagues with whom you need to contact or a hot fix will suddenly arrive.
4. Growth will be (and significant) when you move from layout designers to fronts.
5. Upgrade what you already know how to do, over time you yourself will understand what you need to study and where to move.

Answer 5

1. Go to interviews and find out.
2. Any full-time spherical working day is 8 hours of work with a lunch break.
Places where you have to work 40 % of the time are vanishingly few.
3. Sorry for the tautology, but you come to work in the office to work and get paid for it.
If instead of completing the tasks for which you are paid, you engage in self-education, you will fly out of work in a week. You need to educate yourself either on your own in your personal time, or if it is clearly encouraged by the employer (but I have not heard of such offers for the fronts)
4. My old holistic answer The way to bydlocoders or how to become a programmer from 0?
There is potential growth, but it is in JS and not in layout.
5. Clean layout is a dead end career path.

Answer 6

Go to the frontend, learn Angular.js and others, usually such specialists are required now. Although you may be able to find a small office where you need a clean layout designer, I don’t know the situation in Russia.

Answer 7

1. Only studios need layout designers
2. It strongly depends on the studio
3. In a normal studio, you will simply be loaded with work up to your neck, if it comes to layout, develop only in your own time. When it comes to programming (PHP or JS), then while you are working, you are learning. The best method of development is, of course, your own projects, in which you will deal with new technologies.
4. The studio will pay you the most for layout, I think the ceiling for a pure layout designer is 35,000-40,000 rubles.
5. If you are not a designer, then you should not go deep. Learned the HTML/CSS base - move on to JS/PHP
The world of the web is no longer built solely on visual components. If you want to be in demand: learn to read English-language technical documentation, study libraries and frameworks.

Answer 8

At first, work as a layout designer, then you will already understand much more soul lies! .. Until you start working and you will not understand. I myself started with a layout designer and "server" cms)) Then I went to study further and further ... Python, Ruby and beyond. And he began to offer in the company precisely complex work and layout layouts, and programming ...

Answer 9

With layout, the situation is very ambiguous.
On the one hand, layout is usually considered not the most prestigious, not the most intellectual and one of the lowest paid specializations in web development.
But at the same time, there are only a few really cool typesetters on the market. Probably 90 percent are herak-herak-to-production coders who think that knowledge of html tags, bootstrap, preprocessor and a couple of other similar words makes them coders. When I see their works, I want to cry, because through the entire monitor I see a huge bolt that lies across the efforts of the designer. Well, what? Approximately it looks like it. (Among designers, there are also a lot of amateur hand-assists, but this is a separate conversation).
It is difficult to say what is the cause and what is the effect. Probably mutual.
And it turns out that there is a shortage of good typesetters on the market. But at the same time, if you are a good coder, you still need to find a place where you will be appreciated and offered appropriate tasks. In most "ordinary" places, they would rather think something like - well, yes, I see that the dude is good, but we don’t see the point in paying so much, because a student will also suit us for 30-50% of that amount :)
Is it possible to escape from this vicious circle? I think so, but it's not easy. Your best bet is to look for a serious grocery company. Most likely, this will not be easy to do in the province.

Answer 10

The profession of pure verstal will soon disappear. So start with HTML and JS to see if it's for you.
They will be useful to you in any case, even if you are not engaged in web development.

Answer 11

Working conditions are dictated by the employer. Accordingly, everything varies from company to company: daily routine, work process, workload, salary, etc. There are companies where layout designers get 10k. There is where 80k. But I'm not sure that there are such people in Kaliningrad.