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In recent years the frontend has undergone a renaissance. Frontend developers\u2014individuals that have traditionally focused on writing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code, but increasingly work on everything touching the UI, which includes APIs, build tools, interaction, GraphQL, accessibility, design, and QA\u2014are seeing new frameworks, services, and tools revolutionize both the ways they work, and the apps they build. Today, the proliferation of JS frameworks offers developers a veritable cornucopia of options, while a wave of managed services caters to their need for backend infrastructure. Vercel\u2019s branding as \u201cthe Frontend Cloud\u201d acknowledges this subset of developers’ power as both consumers and industry movers. I have also written<\/a> about several BaaS companies targeting frontend devs. Illustratively, Paul Copplestone<\/a>, CEO of Supabase, does not skip a beat<\/a> when identifying the specific market he hopes to nail down:<\/p>\n Definitely JAMstack\u2026 Eventually we\u2019ll target more established full stack developers, even people who really enjoy Postgres already.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n All of this hype and attention has done wonders for the perception and identity of frontend practitioners. These developers are no longer ashamed of the title, or unilaterally hung up on questions of whether \u201cfrontend web developers have a bad reputation for having poor abilities?<\/a>.\u201d Although some stigma persists, frontend engineers are in ascendence and therefore increasingly disinclined to hide behind the label \u201cfull-stack.\u201d In 2024, it would seem that developers working at the top of the stack, and the vendors that serve them, are thriving.<\/p>\n In that spirit, I argue it is time we at RedMonk expand on Stephen O\u2019Grady\u2019s now canonical 2013 concept of The New Kingmakers<\/a> by formally acknowledging the role of frontend developers. Software engineers possess a tremendous amount of power and influence in organizations, but those working at the top of the stack are largely absent from O\u2019Grady\u2019s book. Recent trends in the platform and developer tooling space suggest that this segment of the developer population can no longer be ignored. Of course, the frontend-developer-as-Kingmaker is not, in fact, novel, as I will explain in a follow-up post, but the history of sidelining is real.<\/p>\n This blog-based coronation acknowledges the frontend developer\u2019s elevated status. Although the desktop isn\u2019t going anywhere fast, as IoT and mobile devices improve and evolve (this is Apple Vision Pro\u2019s release month, after all), the frontend will continue to be where innovation happens. Moreover, API-driven development enables top of the stack developers to leverage backend services easily and affordably. New solutions in the data management and compute space are addressing significant unresolved problems. Solutions and protocols like GraphQL, WebAssembly, and WebSockets all look to disrupt business-as-usual for data fetching, storage, and use.<\/p>\n The backend dev and the frontend dev pic.twitter.com\/yvsAa5BluL<\/a><\/p>\n — \ud835\udc03\ud835\udc1a\ud835\udc26\ud835\udc22 \u2728 (@damimoonbb) August 23, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n