Skip to main content

Back-End and Front-End Development in Sitecore XM Cloud

 

Understanding the Roles

In Sitecore XM Cloud, back-end developers primarily manage content models, custom APIs, and data within the Sitecore CMS backend. On the other hand, front-end developers focus on building the user interface and interactions using a JavaScript framework like React, consuming content from the backend via GraphQL endpoints. The headless CMS architecture of Sitecore XM Cloud allows the front-end to be largely decoupled from the back-end, providing flexibility in technology choices and development workflows.


Back-End Developer Responsibilities

Back-end developers in Sitecore XM Cloud are responsible for:

  • Deployment of all custom components to XM Cloud.

  • Synchronizing components, code, and content between Prod and Non-Prod environments.

  • Answering questions from content authors regarding component usage, troubleshooting site load, caching, and component versions.

  • Troubleshooting Edge CDN issues related to content updates.

  • Designing and managing content structures, templates, and fields within Sitecore.

  • Creating custom GraphQL endpoints for front-end consumption.

  • Handling integrations, validation, and transformations.

  • Setting up content approval workflows.

  • Managing user permissions and access controls.

  • Implementing custom business logic within Sitecore.


Front-End Developer Responsibilities

Front-end developers in Sitecore XM Cloud focus on:

  • Building the user interface using React, Next.js, or other modern JavaScript frameworks.

  • Developing reusable UI components that fetch data from the GraphQL API.

  • Writing GraphQL queries to retrieve content from the Sitecore backend.

  • Implementing techniques to ensure fast page loading times.

  • Handling user interactions and application state management.

  • Connecting external APIs for features like analytics or social sharing.


The Evolution of Sitecore Development

Sitecore’s transition to a headless CMS model in XM Cloud has significantly changed the way front-end and back-end developers work. Unlike previous Sitecore versions, where front-end developers needed to install Sitecore locally on Windows machines, XM Cloud enables them to work on Macs using Docker containers. This has enhanced the independence of front-end and back-end teams, reducing setup time and increasing efficiency.

With over 10 years of experience in Sitecore development, I’ve worked on both back-end and front-end tasks. While full-stack development is increasingly emphasized, I’ve observed that most developers tend to be stronger in either back-end or front-end technologies. Effective teams recognize these strengths and appoint dedicated leads for back-end and front-end development to ensure smooth collaboration and decision-making.


Building a Balanced Team

If I were structuring a Sitecore XM Cloud team, I would ensure that:

  • A strong back-end developer leads all Sitecore-specific tasks, including content modeling, API development, and backend logic.

  • A strong front-end developer leads UI development, GraphQL integration, and performance optimization.

  • Additional hires would depend on project needs—if more React components are required, front-end developers would take priority. If the team chooses to develop components in .NET Core, more back-end developers would be necessary.


Conclusion

The industry increasingly expects developers to be proficient in both back-end and front-end technologies. However, recognizing individual strengths remains key to a well-functioning team. What are your thoughts on this? Drop a note or reach out to me directly—I’d love to hear your perspective!

By

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sitecore: Get list of logged in users

By
I had a deployment today and wanted to find a list of users who were logged into the Sitecore admin site. This was mainly so that I can contact them and let them know that a deployment was going to happen. I found the following link very useful as it gave me exactly what I was looking for. A list of users that were logged in and I contacted them. It also has the ability to Kick off users! http://{YourWebsite}/sitecore/client/Applications/LicenseOptions/KickUser Note: You can only see other users in this list if you have the right administrator permission. Logging in with a lower access level user only gave me the logged in user and no one else on the list.
Post a Comment
Read more

Updating Sitecore Image alt text

By
One of the most important conditions of making a site accessible is to make sure that all images on the site have the alt field with some value that describes the image. The simplest update we can make to Sitecore is to have the alt field automatically get the image file name. That way even if content authors forget to fill the alt field, it is pre-filled with the file name. To do this just add $name to the alt field in the standard value of an image [/sitecore/templates/System/Media/Unversioned/Image/__Standard Values] This is all good for an future images that gets uploaded to Sitecore. But what about all the existing images. For that we can write a PowerShell script (see below) to get all images in the Sitecore image folder that have empty alt tags. Export that to a csv file. $pathOfImages = "master:/sitecore/media library/MyImages" $images = Get-ChildItem -Path $pathOfImages -Language * -Recurse | Where-Object { ($_.Fields["Alt"] -ne $null) -and ($_.Fields...
Post a Comment
Read more

Using Okta Authentication for a Sitecore client site

By
I recently had a project where we had to add a new Sitecore site to an already multi site Sitecore 8.2 Update 7 instance. This new site had to integrate with Okta to manage user authentication. I found many articles online that integrated Okta and Sitecore's admin interface but I could not find one that just integrated Okta with a client Sitecore site. My first step was to use Okta's available ASP.NET MVC projects on their Dev site and test them out. This worked very well with the first Authenticated method I tried which was WS-Fed. But when I tried to use the same authentication method with a site in Sitecore I got errors in my logs like the following: Sitecore.Security.Principal.SitecoreIdentity does not contain a definition for Claims Claims are available in HttpContext.User.Identity but not in Sitecore.Security.Principal.SitecoreIdentity, and since we are using a Sitecore site we could not read the claims. I tried to make claims work in Sitecore using various online a...
1 comment
Read more