What should I pursue, Computer Programmer or Web designer?

Both fields can be very challenging and rewarding, but in different ways.

If you like the challenge of building things and solving "how do I make this work" kind of puzzles, then computer programming may be a good choice. If you like the art of visual design and solving more ambiguous "how can I create intuitive experiences" kinds of puzzles, then web design may be a good choice.

If web design sounds fun but not demanding enough, then I would recommend also looking into product design, which goes beyond visual design and includes things like interaction design, user research, solution validation, and more.

Software development can be demanding, because it becomes very complex when you work with large applications. You often have to keep many parts of complex systems in your head while thinking through the details for a solution. Design can be very subjective, which means the right design for one person may not be the right design for another. The challenge there is to find the best design for your target audience and validate that it really does work as intended.

Also, if you know that you enjoy programming and design (or any other combination of topics) look for ways to specialize to get the best of both worlds. For example you could be a UI Engineer, or a Designer with a specialization in rapid prototyping (by mocking out designs and interactions with code).

Hope that helps and good luck!

(I am a software engineer and my wife is a product designer)

The long answers are great. But you won't know until you try both :)

Hi Antonio,

So my college degree is in Computer Science and I worked at IBM and now Twilio. So far for me, it's been pretty great. I'm happy with my Computer Science degree and it's versatile. I can, in theory, go to any company and pick up a programming gig. Now, with that being said I wish I knew more about UI / UX design. This will definitely make me a better developer, because then I focus on design first before building.

I would recommend for you to focus on Computer Programmer and sprinkle some learning on UI / UX along the way.

I think it depends on your personal preference and strengths. Regardless of what you choose, you will probably do a little bit of both in your career. The biggest difference is the starting point/question that you take to solve the problem you are working on. In Web Design, you usually start from the visual aspect, i.e. "How would my web site look like?", "What kind of experience do I want my users to have?". As a general Programmer, you will typically start with asking questions about the system you are building in general -- "How many users can I support simultaneously?", "What happens when my web server goes down?". The key here is good Web Designers and Computer Programmers usually know more than the system they are working on. In my opinion, this is the coolest thing about Computer Science -- you get to learn many different technologies and you can choose what you want to do next!

Being a general purpose "computer programmer", will give you a lot more choices in your career (everything from low-level drivers to UI and everything in between)...and is probably a lot more generally more valuable over the course of your career - its also more technically challenging (though this is arguable)

Being a "web-designer", is a lot more narrowly focused. It can be harder (relatively speaking) to move around and gain experience in other technical areas.

That being said, it also really depends on what you like doing. If you like solving puzzles, computer programmer. If you like the visual side of things, web-designer. Both are very creative.

Source: I have 20 years in the industry from very low-level firmware and compiler coding, to end-user applications. Both from the hired and hiring side.