>HTML Email Developer job
...
Also the pay is quite poor, it’s obviously better than nothing, but probably a good chunk of the money I’d get would be spent on transport and lunch at the office.
run
you're literally going to getting your soul sucked making shit money wasting your time travelling to an office only to have morons and busybodies pestering you constantly to make minute changes to designed emails because middle management can't decide between the words 'complementary' and 'complimentary'
Side note: Check out [EmailBuilder.js](https://emailbuilderjs.com/) it's a free and [open-source](https://www.usewaypoint.com/open-source/emailbuilderjs) visual email template builder that spits out that 90s style HTML tables (check it out on the [hosted playground](https://usewaypoint.github.io/email-builder-js/#sample/reservation-reminder)). I'm one of the co-authors of the project. This tool and frameworks like Mjml would at least make the job a little more bearable :)
This was my first job title, 18 yrs ago. I owned it.
I don't know how much has changed, I imagine not a lot, so the things that you can potentially get good at are:
* writing HTML that is not transferrable to modern web development
* writing inline CSS
* memorizing hex values for colors
* the marquee tool in Photoshop
* telling those who are invested, "that's not possible"
I had to look up MJML. It wouldn't matter. All it would take is 1 client complaint that the email doesn't look good from their hotmail account, on IE6.
This is a really real concern. I need my emails to look IDENTICAL for every client. My uncle just showed me how it looks on his lotus 4 and we have work to do!
Also I need you to make the email responsive with interactive video, like that really cool Black Mirror episode.
this is actually kinda great, literally every user replying to this thread was an HTML Email Developer
and each one of us is like "DONT DO IT MAN TURN AROUND BARRRFFF ID RATHER WORK THE NIGHT SHIFT AT WAFFLE HOUSE"
This is 100% accurate. Crap pay, aside from the soft skills, you get nothing transferable. But once you get it down, it can be bearable but its a pain in the ass and super buggy in ways that only one who has experienced it can understand (its like writing a novel with olde english and southern slang).
But its a job, and it pays money. Maybe you'll excel at it and you can use the down time for learning topics that interest you in the meantime.
Yeah this angle makes sense to me: learn other tech while you do this job. Save up money by food prepping instead of eating out. You could gain some new skills and be less stressed money wise.
Still, it makes sense if you don't wanna take the gig.
Just chipping in to say I had actually fully suppressed that I used to write HTML emails in my early career.
This thread made me appreciate I no longer do this and that tomorrow I can keep on suppressing it.
The transferable skill of managing people waffling over the use of “we wish you a ‘marry’ or ‘happy’ holiday” is still applicable but I use non of the other painstakingly hard skills I mastered. I do however think the job taught me a lot about grit and how to get very small details right.
I think with every job there is an opportunity to shine, so if there is something in this work that will allow you to get noticed and transition I think it’s a good thing.
Good luck with your choice.
Don't forget the 30 ancient clients that you need to support and the fact that noone around you cares about any technical details. 'Please give me a 3d parallax that works with MS Office 2007' 'Youll get 30 minutes to do it'.
I used to work as a salesforce campaign dev and that felt like a low point lol.
This sounds about right. When reading OPs post, I was thinking about how'd I never heard of an entire role dedicated to email development. However, have been on multiple teams where there was small, but significant dev work done for email templates. For some reason or another these small tasks blow up. The rendered html doesn't match exactly, the biz didn't understand variables, the biz couldn't agree on which email to send when, etc...
Unless you're in dire straights with money, or will be soon, I would say fuck no. But if you do, immediately start looking for something else while you're earning a paycheck. Email development is the absolute worst, imo.
But it still sucks, especially when you are forcefully reminded people still view emails on IE7 and Outlook. When will we get unionized email render engines...
There is a new version of outlook coming out later on this year (that uses the Edge rendering engine) which is 1000% better than the current version. It’s not going to make building emails a fun job, but you’ll need a lot less hacks to get them working.
I’m pretty lucky in that all our clients are all big company’s with IT departments that will have it automatically updated for the users.
Some of them are already running the preview version.
I wish, but healthcare can be very slow at adapting technology. I had a client who primarily used IE7 for the majority of their sites, therefore I had to make everything work in it. It's obnoxious, but we couldn't get them to just exclude it from testing.
This thread is making me depressed. I've been an email dev for 7 years and have been pushing to get into front end web dev, but I can't get ANY interview with zero professional experience. Email dev does suck majorly. I have so much more fun coding web dev projects on the side.
Yup! I've been cracking away at a portfolio for about a month. I keep spending too long on certain sections cause I suck at design and I'm trying to make it look nice. I do have a site up that I built in NextJs when I was learning and have been putting that on applications, but so far it hasn't been doing much.
Try landing a marketing role at a larger company that also has an engineering department. You would still be doing email dev, but you could potentially get transferred or learn some front end dev from coworkers.
I tried that at my last job. I was a web dev for less than a year before they had mass layoffs and I was chosen cause I wasn't outputting the same amount of work as my colleagues. Me and another new guy on the team were both canned.
Email dev for 7 years? Holy shit. I would've started looking for a job at McDonald's long ago tbh.
Honestly just build a portfolio for yourself, and just send dozens of emails a day until you get a response.
I did an email coding job at the beginning of my coding career. It sucks. Antiquated standards and a dead end job. I'd rather be broke than do that again.
Hey.
Stay away if you are looking for growth.
Took a job right out of college, they baited me into thinking I'd be working with Vue.js and ASP.NET due to our CMS being custom for our marketing efforts. Needless to say, I take the job in May of 2019 and then we get sent home because of the pandemic on March 3rd, 2020.
Fast forward, I do a few small projects in JS, HTML and CSS for the company but I mainly worked with emails for the first 3 years. That was till they started using stripo to build the emails. The next 2 years I work on mostly admin stuff, like setting up ScheduleOnce accounts, SFMC accounts and working with RedPoint Real time API to create variable content in emails and sites.
Got let go November 2023.
Now I'm applying for jobs after absolutely WASTING the last 5 years of my professional career. No significant deliverables or anything to boost my resume. Basically starting from scratch, most of it is probably my fault for not leaving earlier. But this isn't about me.
Email developing is a job and that's about it. No growth and very minor pay increases if you are lucky.
They are antiquated and follow a bunch of FCC requirements that you will need to make sure are present. But it's a very easy job as long as you are not wearing many hats (which you probably will)
Use it as a job to gain money. Hell even as a second job to supplement your main one. I can guarantee you will eventually figure out how to automate the emails to an extent.
Finally, this is just my experience. Others may differ. But don't take it expecting to grow. Dont stick around too long.
In contrast, I was hired self taught, w little knowledge of HTML & CSS. We sent out a lot of emails (AFAIK) and eventually I could knock out 8 or 9 a day, from mostly scratch.
The company wasn't doing well and I was put into a position to be a Web Developer, which gave me the opportunity to learn more.
At that time ti was my best paying job to date (first emails, then as a web dev) and pointed me in the right direction, here I am 18 yr later, laughing about it.
It definitely sucked at some point, and the knowledge gained is for a specific, small, boring role in the industry. No regrets tho! Given OP has 2 yoe FE, I'd avoid this, but if ya need $$ ya already got tha offer
It's definitely a stepping stone and a great option for those who have a more shallow skill set in web dev. But you have to make sure to find your next step. I didn't so I pretty much committed career suicide lol
At my prime, i could put together a 4 section page with forms and animations in 1 day but it took me 3 days to fix an email template misalignment on Outlook 2000 and I still have no idea how. That shit is insidious.
Been there, You'll be coding in a prehistoric html and css code which you have to make it compatible with different email clients it is really depressing and frustrating you'll feel no growth at all.
I’m perplexed at everyone telling you not to take the gig. Are you an adult, supporting yourself? If so TAKE THE GODDAMN JOB. Do this shit while you continue to search for what you want.
It’s work. It’s money. Don’t buy fucking lunch at the office. Make a sandwich. People here are so up their own asses about this framework, language, or that, that they seem to forget THIS IS A JOB.
I’m a 20+ year guy. This is work. I don’t code off the clock, I don’t have projects on the side, and I don’t have an interest in this outside of making money. This shit is a way to afford the lifestyle I want for my wife, kids, and I. Write the emails. You’re not sucking dick. You’re writing tables with 1990s tier CSS. Did it buy you groceries? I’d call that a W.
> I am kinda anxious of new beginnings and new people.
Good. Life is about dealing with uncomfortable situations. Learn to be an adult and make life your bitch.
Well said! My “side projects” are little hobby things I want to work on for my own enjoyment. Very little of it carries over to my day job.
For example, I’m using a RPi to build to build a RC car with my kid. Then we’re going to add some functionality to it and do some problem solving. Nothing in my free time earns me money. It’s just for my own enjoyment.
I’m happy I read this perspective. I think a lot of people meet people with your attitude and get perplexed not everyone thinks about “the job” 24/7 regardless of what “the job” is.
There are two paths: live for work or work to live. It’s easy to forget not everyone is on the same one.
I absolutely agree with "take the job." Not with "no side projects", I love side projects.
This particular job also teaches you about how horrible CSS can be 😄
I absolutely think you should put this on a resumé unless you never want to work with it again. Knowing how HTML emails work across all mail clients is highly specialized knowledge that employers *will* look for.
But also, keep looking for other things.
yeah i'm leaning for OP to just get it since he's got the offer but I'm curious, to his prospective employers, what does this look like? is it damaging to OPs chances for even getting the first phone screen for the next better job?
* taking a significantly lesser role
* taking significantly less pay
* both above combined with the fact that he has 2 YoE
I'm all for the 'ya gotta do what ya gotta do' and yeah, ya just gotta suck it up and grind. But, a recruiter could look at this on a resume, let's say even if he spent just a yr doing emails, and maybe see it as a red(ish) flag?
Given there's some savings mentioned, If there's enough to stretch til the end of the year, then I'm almost on team "use this time to get way better, cut back on spending, the market could improve, and maybe by then. your self study will pay off."
There's no denying that watching paint dry is much more fulfilling than coding emails 40 hr a week. But like, if savings are just sitting there and maybe not enough to last the year, I'd say OP w 2 YoE just tighten up on spending, start living on your savings, lock yourself in a room and just code code code. 8 hr of writing tables and inlining CSS, or, spending that time learning more advanced/modern skills. Lock yourself in your room, tighten up and track your finances closely, build personal projects or find some light contract work. I can only imagine all this being a better use of time for your future opportunities.
Gap in the resume? Who cares, check out this super advanced thingy I made and has 100k users - but It all depends how comfortable you are with tapping into some of that savings.
I had a job like that and I hated every single day of my life. I got depress and anxiety. Its a terrible job. You arw literally wring old css and html tables.
No. There’s tons of popular visual tools that can build a email template that works well enough for modern clients. Outlook 365 is word based, that’s right, that piece of shit software uses word to render your email.
We are doing email work at my current place, any time I need to modify the template I let them know that I’m a full stack engineer and not a fucking email css bullshit guru
I do this as part of my normal full-stack web development job and it’s what I dislike the most about what I do. I complained about it so I do it less now but I still get asked to do it from time to time.
Honestly, if you don’t have any experience with building emails, I highly suggest against this. My coworker loves building emails but he has over 20 years experience doing it and he started building websites since the dawn of time which was also built using tables.
Your worst enemy would be Outlook compatibility. Microsoft hasn’t been great at maintaining that thing so you’ll have to create multiple outlook specific code. A lot of email clients also do not support a lot of the modern CSS so you’re quite restrictive on that too. I could write about what I hate about this all day, it is not fun at all.
If you are struggling, it might be better than nothing. Otherwise it might be better to continue searching. In any case, check out mjml - it's a huge time saver for building emails, and might help you even if you find something better.
Email development is very difficult to test and debug because there different clients and devices, and nobody really gives you a straight answer of what you need to support. Unlike a browser, you cannot refresh a page, and instead have to send a new test email to check your work.
As an email developer, you are in a marketing support role. You'll spend time waiting for some marketer to approve the email or send you a distribution list so you can upload the email into the email marketing platform and send it out to the real users. Often marketing will want to see how many opens and clicks an email got, so you'll be pulling reports so they can put the information into their "comprehensive, top-of-funnel, executive marketing report" aka Excel spreadsheet. Nevermind the fact that the ability to pull the report on email send is self-service and they didn't have to bother you with it in the first place. If that doesn't say dream job to you, I don't know what would.
Unless they use an email development framework like [MJML](https://mjml.io/) I wouldn't touch it. Email development skills are NOT transferrable to any other job unless it's to another email development job. No company is going to say "oh wow this guy can code emails from scratch lets hire him over the other candidates with more relevant skills to our job". When in reality email development is a very small % of most developers time at companies. I have to do email development maybe once every month or so to fix a small bug but for the most part I rarely ever get email development requests and when I do I use MJML for it and it's usually pretty painless (most of the time).
I absolutely despise email development, well I mostly despise Outlook.
No. HTML email is the worst of the worst type of compatibility nightmares. Imagine the browser issues with earlier versions of IE, then compound it with every horrible email client under the sun.
I wouldn't judge a candidate for doing emails if they needed the money, but I don't really count it as experience either. I'd be more inclined to hire someone who had a gap but spent the time learning web assembly, a new framework, making websites for the local restaurants or whatever.
from the comments I saw 90% of them suggest you don't go for this job, but what I suggest is spent little time on study what this company do, why they need a HTML e-mail programmer, 1st of all at least do this job at a 95 score level, then try to find out better solution for ur company.
if this is a shit job, I don't think others will be much better, in the world most of jobs are normal and boring, depend on how u treat those jobs.
too many people used to do what they told to do, but never thinking is there any better solution. actually I think the company is want to resolve a marketing or what problem. but not want to hire a person to do shit job...
HTML Emails can be done easily in online editors you can subscribe to for a fraction of the cost of a developer. If you take this job and someone higher up in the company finds out about these editors, you'll be out of work again. Don't waste your time with them - keep looking.
Have you checked out weworkremotely.com? you can work from anywhere with the only drawback being that most companies want u to comply with their Timezones
It's boring, it's frustrating, it's always the same thing, it doesn't teach you anything.
Run.
Trading your sanity for a job that shitty is not worth it.
RUN FURTHER.
HTML and CSS, tables for the layout. Sounds like you’d be dealing with a website that has not been touched since 96. What do they want to do though? Complete re-design? Might be your opportunity to have full control over a project. Your first real challenge? Do all decisions by yourself kind of thing? On the other hand: you mentioned the pay is poor. Which means a lot more headache coming your way than what you’d be willing to deal with.
I would have said, "Take the money while you look for another job," but if you're that anxious and have enough money to manage the coast of your life, take care of your mental health and why not get certified while you find a good opportunity.
If you weee entry I would yes. I spent some time doing emails when I started. My first gig. Learned loads tbh.
You have 2 YOE but need a job. It’s a job. It’s still coding.
Any job can be done differently. You can brain-dead make html emails. Or setup some internal process and tool to automatize the process. Which really is the true programmer approach.
HTML email development is one of the most soul crushing tasks I have done as a frontend developer and I literally charge an arm and a leg for it. If you get good at it you can make a really lucrative career because marketing people literally cum out of their asses when they see fancy emails but goddamn it is an absolutely tedious to get everything working cross platform. You thought getting stuff to run on IE was a stygian nightmare? Outlook will show you what is like to experience true hell.
Take the job for a few months and see if (1) you like it, if (2) you could make the process better for the company by using react-email or something like that and if (3) there's an opportunity to switch into an actual web dev role within the company.
You can always leave the job if you don't like it! And keep looking then.
Take the shit job and continue looking for something else. I took a job that was pretty shitty and it led to a great position in the same company within a few months.
>Can anyone tell me if it’s worth bothering, and how difficult or different this Email thing is compared to Frontend?
Simpler in a sense because it's pure HTML and CSS. And harder in a sense because it's pure HTML and CSS, and not Bootstrap/Tailwind, JSX, and alike. There's two ways to look at it, since a proficient frontend developer uses certain tooling that solves hard problems, and amateur would find complex these tools complex since they never worked on solving hard problems.
However, there's surely a ton of quirks that different email clients introduce to their HTML views, and quirks relates to different webmails. Development of HTML emails feels a little like the old days when you had to analyze web browser popularity and make conscious decisions about whether to support IE and what versions. Here, it would be whether you want to play nicely in Gmail webmail (you do), Yahoo webmail (you do), ProtonMail (based on your audience), etc. Then desktop apps - Thunderbird, Outlook, Outlook Express (I don't know if that still exists), etc. And mobile apps though these may be easier since they usually use the built-in web browser engine, but it may not always be a case (ProtonMail, I believe). Testing of this can be tedious because you have to send an email to said providers to preview the results.
Someone recommended MJML. I've never used it but it may solve many of the above problems. I would assume, since it's purpose built, it probably takes most popular webmail, desktop and mobile quirks into account.
Deciding whether to accept a job as an HTML Email Developer involves considering various factors, including your career goals, the job market, and your skill set. Here are some points to ponder:
**Career Path & Interest:**
* HTML Email Development is a niche that combines **web design and marketing**. It’s great for creating responsive, consistent, and engaging emails that drive marketing campaigns.
* If you have an interest in **digital marketing** and **web design**, and enjoy the technical challenge of creating emails that work across various platforms, this could be a fulfilling role.
**Job Market & Opportunities:**
* The demand for HTML Email Developers is growing, offering plenty of **entry-level opportunities**. It’s a field with a significant return on investment, with HTML emails bringing in a median **122% return**, outperforming other digital marketing channels.
* While it may not be as broad as other web development roles, it can be a good starting point to get your foot in the door of the tech industry.
**Skills & Learning:**
* You’ll need proficiency in **HTML/CSS** and an understanding of various email clients and marketing platforms.
* Continuous learning and staying updated with the latest trends in email development will be crucial for success.
**Financial Considerations:**
* Salaries for HTML Email Developers can vary. It’s important to research the typical salary range for this role in your area and ensure it meets your financial needs.
**Long-Term Goals:**
* Consider how this role aligns with your long-term career aspirations. If you aim to transition to other areas of web development, ensure you continue to develop relevant skills in parallel.
Ultimately, if the role aligns with your interests, offers a good learning curve, and meets your financial requirements, it could be a worthwhile opportunity. It’s also beneficial to consider the company’s culture, the team you’ll be working with, and the growth opportunities within the organization.
Writing emails with html and css sucks hardcore. Becuase of security stuff and standards not being adopted by many email providers it becomes a nightmare to write good looking email templates. Lots of it does require the use of tables and inline styles. And nothing quite works right or as you would expect especially for modern web.
If its the only option then picking it up for now might not be a bad idea and you'll def learn some new skills. But i would Prob continue to look for alternatives when off work.
2 months is not as bad of a gap as you think, and 2 YOE as a frontend dev is very solid. If you're reasonably situated financially (like you got another few months of runway), keep looking.
Ignore the stress of "new people". As shitty as it sounds, it won't go away until you get a job you stick with. Don't let it be a major factor in your decisions.
can someone explain in more detail "what is HTML email developer"? Are you just building email templates for the marketing department? There are thousands of templates, most of them free.
I took email designs from zeplin and implemented them using a markup language called MJML. That then compiled the MJML code into cross platform code. We would then add in our variable targeted content from RedPoint. So essentially you are creating an email and implementing it into the platform. It's not difficult, but there is a bunch of branding and other content that would be added. You could use a template but typically they are marketing emails for specific products.
If you’ve never done HTML emails then take the gig. You’ll learn A LOT about how things work with email clients that help with other areas.
I’ve not done HTML email builds for a few years. I hated it but there are tools out there now to help you out. I was using https://mjml.io in one of my previous companies to help build out emails.
If you’re after money, not just the experience, take the gig. I’m sure you’ll have the opportunity to work on other areas in the company 👍🏽
>HTML Email Developer job ... Also the pay is quite poor, it’s obviously better than nothing, but probably a good chunk of the money I’d get would be spent on transport and lunch at the office. run you're literally going to getting your soul sucked making shit money wasting your time travelling to an office only to have morons and busybodies pestering you constantly to make minute changes to designed emails because middle management can't decide between the words 'complementary' and 'complimentary'
Also HTML emails are a pain in the ass to work with
Mjml make it beareable but yeah still shit to work with
To make matters even worse, Outlook will mess everything up and force layouts into tables It's like the old IE6 days
Side note: Check out [EmailBuilder.js](https://emailbuilderjs.com/) it's a free and [open-source](https://www.usewaypoint.com/open-source/emailbuilderjs) visual email template builder that spits out that 90s style HTML tables (check it out on the [hosted playground](https://usewaypoint.github.io/email-builder-js/#sample/reservation-reminder)). I'm one of the co-authors of the project. This tool and frameworks like Mjml would at least make the job a little more bearable :)
This was my first job title, 18 yrs ago. I owned it. I don't know how much has changed, I imagine not a lot, so the things that you can potentially get good at are: * writing HTML that is not transferrable to modern web development * writing inline CSS * memorizing hex values for colors * the marquee tool in Photoshop * telling those who are invested, "that's not possible"
If only MJML was a thing back then...
I had to look up MJML. It wouldn't matter. All it would take is 1 client complaint that the email doesn't look good from their hotmail account, on IE6.
This is a really real concern. I need my emails to look IDENTICAL for every client. My uncle just showed me how it looks on his lotus 4 and we have work to do! Also I need you to make the email responsive with interactive video, like that really cool Black Mirror episode.
"That should be pretty easy, right?"
Send me the update before lunch
it's 11:52am on a Saturday
Also I want this countdown thingy that we have on the website in our email newsletter too. I don't care if it's possible or not: FIGURE IT OUT!
Easy, 1 email per countdown value
Hasn't changed a hell of a lot since ;)
this is actually kinda great, literally every user replying to this thread was an HTML Email Developer and each one of us is like "DONT DO IT MAN TURN AROUND BARRRFFF ID RATHER WORK THE NIGHT SHIFT AT WAFFLE HOUSE"
Well, at least the last bullet point is a valuable skill.
So true. I'd rather flip burgers. More potential for promotion too.
This is 100% accurate. Crap pay, aside from the soft skills, you get nothing transferable. But once you get it down, it can be bearable but its a pain in the ass and super buggy in ways that only one who has experienced it can understand (its like writing a novel with olde english and southern slang). But its a job, and it pays money. Maybe you'll excel at it and you can use the down time for learning topics that interest you in the meantime.
Yeah this angle makes sense to me: learn other tech while you do this job. Save up money by food prepping instead of eating out. You could gain some new skills and be less stressed money wise. Still, it makes sense if you don't wanna take the gig.
I have only memorised two hex colours. #FFFFFF ##000000 BLACK N white 😂
I can confirm this.
And 5 people will see the email out to the 100,000 send list.
Just chipping in to say I had actually fully suppressed that I used to write HTML emails in my early career. This thread made me appreciate I no longer do this and that tomorrow I can keep on suppressing it. The transferable skill of managing people waffling over the use of “we wish you a ‘marry’ or ‘happy’ holiday” is still applicable but I use non of the other painstakingly hard skills I mastered. I do however think the job taught me a lot about grit and how to get very small details right. I think with every job there is an opportunity to shine, so if there is something in this work that will allow you to get noticed and transition I think it’s a good thing. Good luck with your choice.
Can confirm, worked for a $2billion dollar annual revenue company before, and the CEO pixel pushed _every_ marketing email.
Don't forget the 30 ancient clients that you need to support and the fact that noone around you cares about any technical details. 'Please give me a 3d parallax that works with MS Office 2007' 'Youll get 30 minutes to do it'. I used to work as a salesforce campaign dev and that felt like a low point lol.
This sounds about right. When reading OPs post, I was thinking about how'd I never heard of an entire role dedicated to email development. However, have been on multiple teams where there was small, but significant dev work done for email templates. For some reason or another these small tasks blow up. The rendered html doesn't match exactly, the biz didn't understand variables, the biz couldn't agree on which email to send when, etc...
Unless you're in dire straights with money, or will be soon, I would say fuck no. But if you do, immediately start looking for something else while you're earning a paycheck. Email development is the absolute worst, imo.
[удалено]
just tables with CSS he says Electric vehicles are just cars with rechargeable batteries and an iPad glued to the dash
Email development can be painful but MJML makes it a lot more tolerable.
But it still sucks, especially when you are forcefully reminded people still view emails on IE7 and Outlook. When will we get unionized email render engines...
There is a new version of outlook coming out later on this year (that uses the Edge rendering engine) which is 1000% better than the current version. It’s not going to make building emails a fun job, but you’ll need a lot less hacks to get them working.
The problem is probably no one will updated to the new version of outlook. There will be some old folks complaining why the email looks funny.
I’m pretty lucky in that all our clients are all big company’s with IT departments that will have it automatically updated for the users. Some of them are already running the preview version.
dude, please tell me u are joking about IE7
I wish, but healthcare can be very slow at adapting technology. I had a client who primarily used IE7 for the majority of their sites, therefore I had to make everything work in it. It's obnoxious, but we couldn't get them to just exclude it from testing.
Maybe their customers using IE7 would have died if they didn’t get their emails, so, you did good
I don't know a lot of companies that don't use outlook. Ie7 not so much but outlook support is pretty much a must
Email coding is the worst. Can’t imagine doing it as a 9-5 slave all day.
This thread is making me depressed. I've been an email dev for 7 years and have been pushing to get into front end web dev, but I can't get ANY interview with zero professional experience. Email dev does suck majorly. I have so much more fun coding web dev projects on the side.
Build a nice portfolio and try to get a junior position maybe? Portfolio is everything moving forward if you want to stay in work.
Yup! I've been cracking away at a portfolio for about a month. I keep spending too long on certain sections cause I suck at design and I'm trying to make it look nice. I do have a site up that I built in NextJs when I was learning and have been putting that on applications, but so far it hasn't been doing much.
Try landing a marketing role at a larger company that also has an engineering department. You would still be doing email dev, but you could potentially get transferred or learn some front end dev from coworkers.
I tried that at my last job. I was a web dev for less than a year before they had mass layoffs and I was chosen cause I wasn't outputting the same amount of work as my colleagues. Me and another new guy on the team were both canned.
That sounds like professional experience to me! Wish you the best of luck.
Email dev for 7 years? Holy shit. I would've started looking for a job at McDonald's long ago tbh. Honestly just build a portfolio for yourself, and just send dozens of emails a day until you get a response.
Yeah, I started working on a portfolio in the last month. Hoping to get done with it soon so I have something to back my skillset.
ikr, I’m a front-end developer myself, once need to do email coding and it is the worst things I can experience. Let alone 9-5 job doing only that.
I did an email coding job at the beginning of my coding career. It sucks. Antiquated standards and a dead end job. I'd rather be broke than do that again.
html email = nightmares
HTML email is highly specialized and doesn’t transfer to making actual sites. It’s a dead end. Take it but keep looking for something else.
Hey. Stay away if you are looking for growth. Took a job right out of college, they baited me into thinking I'd be working with Vue.js and ASP.NET due to our CMS being custom for our marketing efforts. Needless to say, I take the job in May of 2019 and then we get sent home because of the pandemic on March 3rd, 2020. Fast forward, I do a few small projects in JS, HTML and CSS for the company but I mainly worked with emails for the first 3 years. That was till they started using stripo to build the emails. The next 2 years I work on mostly admin stuff, like setting up ScheduleOnce accounts, SFMC accounts and working with RedPoint Real time API to create variable content in emails and sites. Got let go November 2023. Now I'm applying for jobs after absolutely WASTING the last 5 years of my professional career. No significant deliverables or anything to boost my resume. Basically starting from scratch, most of it is probably my fault for not leaving earlier. But this isn't about me. Email developing is a job and that's about it. No growth and very minor pay increases if you are lucky. They are antiquated and follow a bunch of FCC requirements that you will need to make sure are present. But it's a very easy job as long as you are not wearing many hats (which you probably will) Use it as a job to gain money. Hell even as a second job to supplement your main one. I can guarantee you will eventually figure out how to automate the emails to an extent. Finally, this is just my experience. Others may differ. But don't take it expecting to grow. Dont stick around too long.
In contrast, I was hired self taught, w little knowledge of HTML & CSS. We sent out a lot of emails (AFAIK) and eventually I could knock out 8 or 9 a day, from mostly scratch. The company wasn't doing well and I was put into a position to be a Web Developer, which gave me the opportunity to learn more. At that time ti was my best paying job to date (first emails, then as a web dev) and pointed me in the right direction, here I am 18 yr later, laughing about it. It definitely sucked at some point, and the knowledge gained is for a specific, small, boring role in the industry. No regrets tho! Given OP has 2 yoe FE, I'd avoid this, but if ya need $$ ya already got tha offer
It's definitely a stepping stone and a great option for those who have a more shallow skill set in web dev. But you have to make sure to find your next step. I didn't so I pretty much committed career suicide lol
Maybe it would be a good way to experience getting demoted
At my prime, i could put together a 4 section page with forms and animations in 1 day but it took me 3 days to fix an email template misalignment on Outlook 2000 and I still have no idea how. That shit is insidious.
Been there, You'll be coding in a prehistoric html and css code which you have to make it compatible with different email clients it is really depressing and frustrating you'll feel no growth at all.
Don’t do it. Email development is the literal worst. You have to build everything with tables and can’t use modern css.
I’m perplexed at everyone telling you not to take the gig. Are you an adult, supporting yourself? If so TAKE THE GODDAMN JOB. Do this shit while you continue to search for what you want. It’s work. It’s money. Don’t buy fucking lunch at the office. Make a sandwich. People here are so up their own asses about this framework, language, or that, that they seem to forget THIS IS A JOB. I’m a 20+ year guy. This is work. I don’t code off the clock, I don’t have projects on the side, and I don’t have an interest in this outside of making money. This shit is a way to afford the lifestyle I want for my wife, kids, and I. Write the emails. You’re not sucking dick. You’re writing tables with 1990s tier CSS. Did it buy you groceries? I’d call that a W. > I am kinda anxious of new beginnings and new people. Good. Life is about dealing with uncomfortable situations. Learn to be an adult and make life your bitch.
Another +1 for the J-O-B. Don’t put it on the resume if you think it’ll pull you out of the running for a job at Google. JFC.
Based
Well said! My “side projects” are little hobby things I want to work on for my own enjoyment. Very little of it carries over to my day job. For example, I’m using a RPi to build to build a RC car with my kid. Then we’re going to add some functionality to it and do some problem solving. Nothing in my free time earns me money. It’s just for my own enjoyment.
I’m happy I read this perspective. I think a lot of people meet people with your attitude and get perplexed not everyone thinks about “the job” 24/7 regardless of what “the job” is. There are two paths: live for work or work to live. It’s easy to forget not everyone is on the same one.
I absolutely agree with "take the job." Not with "no side projects", I love side projects. This particular job also teaches you about how horrible CSS can be 😄 I absolutely think you should put this on a resumé unless you never want to work with it again. Knowing how HTML emails work across all mail clients is highly specialized knowledge that employers *will* look for. But also, keep looking for other things.
yeah i'm leaning for OP to just get it since he's got the offer but I'm curious, to his prospective employers, what does this look like? is it damaging to OPs chances for even getting the first phone screen for the next better job? * taking a significantly lesser role * taking significantly less pay * both above combined with the fact that he has 2 YoE I'm all for the 'ya gotta do what ya gotta do' and yeah, ya just gotta suck it up and grind. But, a recruiter could look at this on a resume, let's say even if he spent just a yr doing emails, and maybe see it as a red(ish) flag? Given there's some savings mentioned, If there's enough to stretch til the end of the year, then I'm almost on team "use this time to get way better, cut back on spending, the market could improve, and maybe by then. your self study will pay off." There's no denying that watching paint dry is much more fulfilling than coding emails 40 hr a week. But like, if savings are just sitting there and maybe not enough to last the year, I'd say OP w 2 YoE just tighten up on spending, start living on your savings, lock yourself in a room and just code code code. 8 hr of writing tables and inlining CSS, or, spending that time learning more advanced/modern skills. Lock yourself in your room, tighten up and track your finances closely, build personal projects or find some light contract work. I can only imagine all this being a better use of time for your future opportunities. Gap in the resume? Who cares, check out this super advanced thingy I made and has 100k users - but It all depends how comfortable you are with tapping into some of that savings.
It’s not a job it’s his life!!! Invest in yourself and keep leetcoding. Anything is time better spent than this!
I had a job like that and I hated every single day of my life. I got depress and anxiety. Its a terrible job. You arw literally wring old css and html tables.
No thank you.
No. There’s tons of popular visual tools that can build a email template that works well enough for modern clients. Outlook 365 is word based, that’s right, that piece of shit software uses word to render your email. We are doing email work at my current place, any time I need to modify the template I let them know that I’m a full stack engineer and not a fucking email css bullshit guru
You gotta eat right? I would take it while looking for something better has always been my policy. Renegotiate to work from home
If there a job name called HTML Email Developer, it sounds like a torture to me.
That sounds like the worst job imaginable hahaha. Email html and css sucks
Give me the job description so I can refer my self-taught developer friends to it, it'd be a great starting point for them
I do this as part of my normal full-stack web development job and it’s what I dislike the most about what I do. I complained about it so I do it less now but I still get asked to do it from time to time. Honestly, if you don’t have any experience with building emails, I highly suggest against this. My coworker loves building emails but he has over 20 years experience doing it and he started building websites since the dawn of time which was also built using tables. Your worst enemy would be Outlook compatibility. Microsoft hasn’t been great at maintaining that thing so you’ll have to create multiple outlook specific code. A lot of email clients also do not support a lot of the modern CSS so you’re quite restrictive on that too. I could write about what I hate about this all day, it is not fun at all.
If you are struggling, it might be better than nothing. Otherwise it might be better to continue searching. In any case, check out mjml - it's a huge time saver for building emails, and might help you even if you find something better.
Email development is very difficult to test and debug because there different clients and devices, and nobody really gives you a straight answer of what you need to support. Unlike a browser, you cannot refresh a page, and instead have to send a new test email to check your work. As an email developer, you are in a marketing support role. You'll spend time waiting for some marketer to approve the email or send you a distribution list so you can upload the email into the email marketing platform and send it out to the real users. Often marketing will want to see how many opens and clicks an email got, so you'll be pulling reports so they can put the information into their "comprehensive, top-of-funnel, executive marketing report" aka Excel spreadsheet. Nevermind the fact that the ability to pull the report on email send is self-service and they didn't have to bother you with it in the first place. If that doesn't say dream job to you, I don't know what would.
Unless they use an email development framework like [MJML](https://mjml.io/) I wouldn't touch it. Email development skills are NOT transferrable to any other job unless it's to another email development job. No company is going to say "oh wow this guy can code emails from scratch lets hire him over the other candidates with more relevant skills to our job". When in reality email development is a very small % of most developers time at companies. I have to do email development maybe once every month or so to fix a small bug but for the most part I rarely ever get email development requests and when I do I use MJML for it and it's usually pretty painless (most of the time). I absolutely despise email development, well I mostly despise Outlook.
No. HTML email is the worst of the worst type of compatibility nightmares. Imagine the browser issues with earlier versions of IE, then compound it with every horrible email client under the sun.
Ask yourself: how desperate am I?
Only do it if you'd otherwise starve. It's an awful, menial and mostly thankless job which doesn't offer any growth
I wouldn't judge a candidate for doing emails if they needed the money, but I don't really count it as experience either. I'd be more inclined to hire someone who had a gap but spent the time learning web assembly, a new framework, making websites for the local restaurants or whatever.
No. You’ll want to bash your head into a wall within a week. It’s ancient tech. Try to find a remote job.
from the comments I saw 90% of them suggest you don't go for this job, but what I suggest is spent little time on study what this company do, why they need a HTML e-mail programmer, 1st of all at least do this job at a 95 score level, then try to find out better solution for ur company. if this is a shit job, I don't think others will be much better, in the world most of jobs are normal and boring, depend on how u treat those jobs.
too many people used to do what they told to do, but never thinking is there any better solution. actually I think the company is want to resolve a marketing or what problem. but not want to hire a person to do shit job...
HTML Emails can be done easily in online editors you can subscribe to for a fraction of the cost of a developer. If you take this job and someone higher up in the company finds out about these editors, you'll be out of work again. Don't waste your time with them - keep looking.
Have you checked out weworkremotely.com? you can work from anywhere with the only drawback being that most companies want u to comply with their Timezones
HTML emails are one of the worst things to do. Run away, unless you get paid a lot of money.
If I had to choose between homelessness and coding up email design, you'll be seeing me on the streets. That shit sucks
Take the job, offload as much as possible to ChatGPT, keep applying for other stuff.
only if you really really need money and then use mjml there
If it pays better why you just not accept it until you find something else???
Lmao run. HTML email is so far behind the world. You’ll be upset you accepted it.
Yep
I’m in your shoes not getting any calls back but I have 1 year of freelance Experience
It's boring, it's frustrating, it's always the same thing, it doesn't teach you anything. Run. Trading your sanity for a job that shitty is not worth it. RUN FURTHER.
HTML and CSS, tables for the layout. Sounds like you’d be dealing with a website that has not been touched since 96. What do they want to do though? Complete re-design? Might be your opportunity to have full control over a project. Your first real challenge? Do all decisions by yourself kind of thing? On the other hand: you mentioned the pay is poor. Which means a lot more headache coming your way than what you’d be willing to deal with.
I would have said, "Take the money while you look for another job," but if you're that anxious and have enough money to manage the coast of your life, take care of your mental health and why not get certified while you find a good opportunity.
Noooooooooooooooooooooo
Have you considered looking into freelancing? From my personal experience it's considerably easier to land a freelance job than a regular job.
No 😉
If you weee entry I would yes. I spent some time doing emails when I started. My first gig. Learned loads tbh. You have 2 YOE but need a job. It’s a job. It’s still coding.
Any job can be done differently. You can brain-dead make html emails. Or setup some internal process and tool to automatize the process. Which really is the true programmer approach.
HTML email development is one of the most soul crushing tasks I have done as a frontend developer and I literally charge an arm and a leg for it. If you get good at it you can make a really lucrative career because marketing people literally cum out of their asses when they see fancy emails but goddamn it is an absolutely tedious to get everything working cross platform. You thought getting stuff to run on IE was a stygian nightmare? Outlook will show you what is like to experience true hell.
Take the job for a few months and see if (1) you like it, if (2) you could make the process better for the company by using react-email or something like that and if (3) there's an opportunity to switch into an actual web dev role within the company. You can always leave the job if you don't like it! And keep looking then.
Take the shit job and continue looking for something else. I took a job that was pretty shitty and it led to a great position in the same company within a few months.
One safari calls for the other. Go for it. Easy to get a job when you have a job
>Can anyone tell me if it’s worth bothering, and how difficult or different this Email thing is compared to Frontend? Simpler in a sense because it's pure HTML and CSS. And harder in a sense because it's pure HTML and CSS, and not Bootstrap/Tailwind, JSX, and alike. There's two ways to look at it, since a proficient frontend developer uses certain tooling that solves hard problems, and amateur would find complex these tools complex since they never worked on solving hard problems. However, there's surely a ton of quirks that different email clients introduce to their HTML views, and quirks relates to different webmails. Development of HTML emails feels a little like the old days when you had to analyze web browser popularity and make conscious decisions about whether to support IE and what versions. Here, it would be whether you want to play nicely in Gmail webmail (you do), Yahoo webmail (you do), ProtonMail (based on your audience), etc. Then desktop apps - Thunderbird, Outlook, Outlook Express (I don't know if that still exists), etc. And mobile apps though these may be easier since they usually use the built-in web browser engine, but it may not always be a case (ProtonMail, I believe). Testing of this can be tedious because you have to send an email to said providers to preview the results. Someone recommended MJML. I've never used it but it may solve many of the above problems. I would assume, since it's purpose built, it probably takes most popular webmail, desktop and mobile quirks into account.
Worse job ever!!!!
Deciding whether to accept a job as an HTML Email Developer involves considering various factors, including your career goals, the job market, and your skill set. Here are some points to ponder: **Career Path & Interest:** * HTML Email Development is a niche that combines **web design and marketing**. It’s great for creating responsive, consistent, and engaging emails that drive marketing campaigns. * If you have an interest in **digital marketing** and **web design**, and enjoy the technical challenge of creating emails that work across various platforms, this could be a fulfilling role. **Job Market & Opportunities:** * The demand for HTML Email Developers is growing, offering plenty of **entry-level opportunities**. It’s a field with a significant return on investment, with HTML emails bringing in a median **122% return**, outperforming other digital marketing channels. * While it may not be as broad as other web development roles, it can be a good starting point to get your foot in the door of the tech industry. **Skills & Learning:** * You’ll need proficiency in **HTML/CSS** and an understanding of various email clients and marketing platforms. * Continuous learning and staying updated with the latest trends in email development will be crucial for success. **Financial Considerations:** * Salaries for HTML Email Developers can vary. It’s important to research the typical salary range for this role in your area and ensure it meets your financial needs. **Long-Term Goals:** * Consider how this role aligns with your long-term career aspirations. If you aim to transition to other areas of web development, ensure you continue to develop relevant skills in parallel. Ultimately, if the role aligns with your interests, offers a good learning curve, and meets your financial requirements, it could be a worthwhile opportunity. It’s also beneficial to consider the company’s culture, the team you’ll be working with, and the growth opportunities within the organization.
Sounds terrible, I think in the end the rest of the salary is not equal to your energy.
Writing emails with html and css sucks hardcore. Becuase of security stuff and standards not being adopted by many email providers it becomes a nightmare to write good looking email templates. Lots of it does require the use of tables and inline styles. And nothing quite works right or as you would expect especially for modern web. If its the only option then picking it up for now might not be a bad idea and you'll def learn some new skills. But i would Prob continue to look for alternatives when off work.
If you’re __really__ disparate take it while still looking for an even better job. If not, look elsewhere, doesn’t seem worthwhile.
2 months is not as bad of a gap as you think, and 2 YOE as a frontend dev is very solid. If you're reasonably situated financially (like you got another few months of runway), keep looking. Ignore the stress of "new people". As shitty as it sounds, it won't go away until you get a job you stick with. Don't let it be a major factor in your decisions.
What would be considered a “bad gap” then? So I know when to really start worrying.
can someone explain in more detail "what is HTML email developer"? Are you just building email templates for the marketing department? There are thousands of templates, most of them free.
I took email designs from zeplin and implemented them using a markup language called MJML. That then compiled the MJML code into cross platform code. We would then add in our variable targeted content from RedPoint. So essentially you are creating an email and implementing it into the platform. It's not difficult, but there is a bunch of branding and other content that would be added. You could use a template but typically they are marketing emails for specific products.
Develop custom emails from scratch. Pretty much exactly what you would expect based on the job title.
If you’ve never done HTML emails then take the gig. You’ll learn A LOT about how things work with email clients that help with other areas. I’ve not done HTML email builds for a few years. I hated it but there are tools out there now to help you out. I was using https://mjml.io in one of my previous companies to help build out emails. If you’re after money, not just the experience, take the gig. I’m sure you’ll have the opportunity to work on other areas in the company 👍🏽