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Who builds a modern website — the skills and roles involved

When a website must meet security, performance, accessibility, privacy and SEO requirements at the same time, it is no longer a one-person job. Each layer needs its own expertise — and those areas of expertise must fit together.

When a web project starts, the question often comes up: "Do we just need a developer?" The answer depends on what the website has to do. If it only needs to exist — perhaps. If it must work, be secure, findable, accessible, fast and legally sound — no.

A modern website is a layered system. Each layer has its own specialist and its own area of responsibility. In a small team, one person carries several roles. In a larger team, those roles are separated. Either way, the skills must be present.

Product owner or project manager

Someone must know what the website needs to do — and why. The product owner keeps business goals in view, prioritises features, communicates with the client and makes sure technical work addresses real needs.

Without this role, teams often build a website that works technically but solves no actual problem. In projects without a dedicated product owner, the role falls to the client or the technical lead — which means someone is doing extra work that was not budgeted.

UX designer

The designer thinks about the user. Which pages are needed, in what order people move through them, where decision points are, where friction is.

Modern UX design is not only about visual appearance. It means:

  • mapping user flows;
  • prototyping before development begins;
  • considering accessibility at the design stage (colour contrast, focus visibility, text sizes);
  • applying a mobile-first approach;
  • planning content hierarchy for both users and search engines.

A designer who understands WCAG requirements and basic HTML semantics saves developers significant rework later.

Frontend developer

The frontend developer turns a design into a working website. That is more than writing CSS — it means:

  • writing semantic HTML (which affects accessibility and SEO);
  • optimising performance (images, fonts, CSS, JavaScript);
  • implementing accessibility technically (ARIA, focus management, keyboard navigation);
  • ensuring cross-browser compatibility;
  • keeping Core Web Vitals in the green.

A good frontend developer does not only ask "does this look right" but also "does this work with a keyboard, does it load quickly on mobile, can a screen reader make sense of it".

Backend developer / CMS developer

The backend developer builds the server-side logic: database structure, modules, API integrations, form handling, user account management and CMS configuration.

In Drupal projects, this means:

  • planning content types and fields;
  • writing custom modules;
  • integrations with external systems (CRM, payments, email, APIs);
  • migrating data from an older system;
  • security configuration — roles, permissions, input validation.

The backend developer must understand how their work affects frontend performance: an overly complex view generates too many queries, which slows the entire page.

DevOps / system administrator

This role is invisible in many projects until something breaks. DevOps is responsible for:

  • server setup and security;
  • configuring security headers (Content-Security-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security and others);
  • managing SSL certificates;
  • backups and recovery;
  • automated builds and deployment pipelines;
  • monitoring and logging.

In smaller projects, the backend developer often handles this work. That works — until the server goes down at two in the morning and it turns out the last backup is three months old.

Content creator and editor

A technically sound website without good content will not rank and will not convert. The content creator:

  • writes texts that answer users' actual questions;
  • incorporates SEO keywords in a natural way;
  • structures content so headings, lists and paragraphs are logical;
  • keeps content current after the website launches.

Content editing is often undervalued work. A website that nobody updates gradually loses both search visibility and trust.

SEO specialist

The technical SEO specialist looks at the website through the eyes of a search engine:

  • are canonical references correct;
  • is hreflang configured on multilingual sites;
  • does a sitemap exist and is it current;
  • is structured data (Schema.org) in use;
  • do page load speed and Core Web Vitals meet the requirements;
  • are internal pages competing against each other for the same keywords.

The SEO specialist and the frontend developer need to talk — many SEO issues are fundamentally HTML issues.

QA / tester

The tester ensures the website works as it should — before the user discovers that it does not. This means:

  • manual testing across different browsers and devices;
  • automated regression tests (for example with Playwright) that run on every change;
  • accessibility checks — keyboard navigation, screen reader, contrast analysis;
  • form validation and error message testing;
  • performance measurement.

In Drupal projects, automated tests can be set up so that every code push triggers the test suite automatically. That is cheaper than manual testing and more reliable.

How many people are actually needed

For a small web project — an informational site with ten to thirty pages, for example — two or three people with broad experience can cover all the roles. A realistic minimum team is:

  • a technical developer (backend, frontend and DevOps combined);
  • a designer (UX and visual design);
  • a client-side owner (product owner and content creator).

For a more complex system — an online store, a self-service portal, a data migration from an older platform — each role becomes a substantial separate workload.

What an external partner provides

When an organisation does not have all these roles in-house, a technical partner covers some of them. In WebPro's case that means Drupal development, server security configuration, automated tests and platform maintenance — the client leads content and business decisions.

The Drupal platform assessment quickly shows which technical layers are covered and where the gaps are. For a deeper review, the audit and testing service is the right step. For ongoing technical support, Drupal maintenance keeps the platform running.

Kaido Toomingas Kaido Toomingas WebPro Company OÜ

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