same as "backend engineers", "database engineers" or "ai engineers" or "data scientists"

we are all just primates staring at blinking lights and poking things

Yep! I’m full stack and have no clue why some people want to say frontend engineering is “less than” backend. It’s all a means to an end. The product requires both sides equally in most cases, and neither side is trivial.

If anything, what I miss from doing "backend" is the ability to just pull in whatever library I want to solve a problem.

I need a web server to work by slapping together fifteen Java libraries from thirteen different code houses and writing an absolute Shoggoth of shim code to convert between their types and classes? Sure, whatever, datacenter storage is damn near free.

I need to put code on a client machine on the internet? You'd best pick one of these date libraries, because there's no way in hell we're justifying shipping moment and Joda down the wire.

Weirdest hill to die on

Somewhat ironically, the absolute worst engineers I’ve ever worked with are the ones that look down on frontend as a lesser discipline.

What context am I missing to interpret this comment?

You've had this account for over a decade and this, a childish display of junior capability, is the pinnacle of your contributions.

That is honestly hilarious, I took a look at their other comment (singular), and this person waited literally over ten years just to post this comment. Wow.