Titles like "Site builder" and "Themer" - roles or job titles?

By heather on 14 Nov 2013 at 08:52 UTC

Bear with me if you don't understand role playing games, but you can have "roles" which are different from "character classes".

Defender
Leader
Controller
Striker

You could have different character classes in each role; your striker might be a stabby-stabby rogue; or a magic blasting warlock.

Back to Drupal, we talk about "site builder" and "themer", but you rarely see these as job titles. I can't seem to find someone who's main job title is "themer", because they might be "senior developer" or "junior developer" or "front end developer". That individual might be required to do some site building and some module development.

What do you think?

Comments

I always refer to myself as a

waako commented 14 November 2013 at 10:01

I always refer to myself as a themer, but will/should use it with front-end developer more often. So the most accurate and universally understandable description would be:
Drupal Themer/Frontend Developer.
Interestingly in France they seem to use 'Integrator' instead of Themer, which makes sense where they are integrating the designs into the Drupal site.

Site Builder is rarely seen for job adverts this is true, but they are important in many projects. And I think many small companies and freelancers are more site builders than developers, as they rarely write any code but can build entire websites with modules, contrib themes and a bit of CSS customisation.

strategic code monkeying

That makes sense! A Themer

heather commented 14 November 2013 at 13:19

That makes sense! A Themer is a Front end developer with Drupal expertise. I think the status of that role needs to be raised up a bit.

I posted the blog post here!

heather commented 15 November 2013 at 17:35

I posted the blog post here! https://www.acquia.com/blog/5-steps-build-great-drupal-team-step-1-teams... :D

In this community I'm mainly

elv commented 14 November 2013 at 11:58

In this community I'm mainly known as a themer, but the name speaks only to people who are already in the Drupal universe. In other communities, they'd use the standard names, like "WordPress Web Developer/Designer" or "Wordpress front end developer". We love drupalisms.

Waako is right, we often see "integrator" or "html integrator" in France, but I think it's a relic from the past (we love relics from the past here) mainly used in big/old companies that is often actually a webmaster job. It sounds so Internet-bubble-y :) Nowadays websites are so complex it makes less sense to just do html/css and hand it over, so the job title you'll see most often is "front end developer".
I think theming is not really a thing. It's just front end dev with Drupal knowledge. You may specialize in Drupal like I did, but at the end of the day you're primarily a front end developer, with wide-ranging web dev knowledge. A Drupal developer is not a "moduler" or a "hooker", so why are we called "themers"?

Re/ site builders –another drupalism– I think it's a name that describes people who build not very complex, not deeply customized websites, for themselves or their company. I think it's typically done by freelancers like myself (primarily a designer, I can write code but I'm not a proper developer) ; or inside companies by webmasters. So that's what we find most often in job offers instead of "site builder".
Imho site building is going way of the dodo. For modest websites it makes much more sense to use products like Drupal Gardens, and Drupal has been moving away from site building for a long time already.

Thanks v much for your

heather commented 14 November 2013 at 13:17

Thanks v much for your insight.. also..

A Drupal developer is not a "hooker"

A VERY IMPORTANT DISTINCTION!

I think it is unfair to

waako commented 17 November 2013 at 12:36

I think it is unfair to necessarily dismiss Site Builders as just involved in small websites.
Quite the contrary, they can fit really well in a large complex team/site, as they are the binding agent between the developers, business analysts, clients training.
They don't write code but have a wide understanding of the different modules available, how they interact and how clients will be using them.

Developers often do a lot of Drupal site building, but if a developer is fairly new to Drupal, a site builder is the perfect person to take care of onboarding them and pointing them in the right direction to get up to speed with Drupal coding standards etc.

strategic code monkeying

I agree, and I didn't mean to

elv commented 18 November 2013 at 13:25

I agree, and I didn't mean to dismiss site builders (I used to be one of them). But what I see around me on big projects is that the wide understanding you describe is mainly in the hands of developers, and more seasoned devs help newcomers. A "binding agent" on these projects would be a project manager or a product owner, not someone whose primary job is to do "site building".
But hey, "site builder" is a fuzzy term.

Don't worry, I'd easily

waako commented 19 November 2013 at 14:40

Don't worry, I'd easily dismiss you too ;)

But what you say is completely true, the primary stakeholders don't know about, or understand what a site builder is.
Maybe should be renamed Drupal coordinator, or facilitator, which are buzzwordy enough to get management interested :)

strategic code monkeying