Balancing Front-End and Back-End Workload
Sometimes, a team finds themselves with requirements that require a lot of back-end development and a small amount of front-end work. If the team has specialist front-end and back-end developers, then it may be tricky to balance the workload.
Initial Approach: Stub Back-End Functionality
One approach I have seen work is to initially stub the back-end functionality before doing the detailed development work. Here are the steps the team takes:
- The back-end developer defines an API that the front-end will use for the feature.
- The back-end developer builds a very simple stub that allows the front-end developer to make API calls and get back reasonable results (e.g., they make the call
getUser()and always get back the same user details). - The back-end developer continues developing and, when ready, swaps out the stub and replaces it with the real code.
- The front-end developer is no longer blocked and can get feedback on their work.
It is worth noting that this approach often helps with testing as well.
Long-Term Solution: Cross-Skilling Developers
However, although this approach is effective, it is not the best solution to the problem. The best long-term solution is to cross-skill the developers so that they can do both front-end and back-end development. This gives the team a lot more flexibility in how they do their work.