For a long time, "Frontend" meant becoming a master of CSS, accessibility, and React hooks. While those remain foundational, the ground is shifting.
Building interfaces for AI products—like the research automation tools we build at DevDash—requires a different mental model. It’s no longer about fetching data and displaying it. It’s about managing probabilistic outcomes.
The Uncanny Valley of Latency
When you are streaming a response from an LLM, you aren't just waiting for an API call to finish. You are managing:
- Perceived Latency: How to make the app feel instant even when the model is "thinking."
- Streaming State: Handling partial JSON chunks without breaking the UI.
- Optimistic Updates: Guessing what the user wants before the agent confirms it.
This shift has turned me from a "Frontend Developer" into a "Product Engineer." I can no longer treat the backend as a black box. To build a great UI for Growth OS, I had to understand how LangChain chains were executed.
The engineers who will win in the next decade are the ones who can blur the line between the prompt and the pixel.