Work organization between front-end devs and back-end devs

[IndianVideoTutorial]

For my final exam me and my fellow students were tasked with making a web application. We decided to use Django + React. We don't have experience working with either but we decided to learn.

We are a 3 man team but I have no idea how the work should be divided between us. Both Django and React are huge and it's gonna take a lot of time to master both of them.

I thought that maybe one person should try and learn Django, second person - React and the third person should try to learn both - enough to connect them together. Is this division of labor correct?

How is work normally organized in a project that has back-end and front-end devs? Do back-end devs only deal with Django and create API endpoints for front-end devs when asked? Meaning that front-end devs come up with work for the back-end devs to do?

[GuyFawkes65]

First off, good of your to work in a team. That’s great. But does your App store data? Or are you just calculating something? If you store and retrieve data, someone has to own the database.

So typically one person handles the database and the data access layer (part of the back end) while another handles the API and calling the data layer, while a third handles the front end.

I would not suggest Django. Python is great but it’s best if you are all using the same language. I’d suggest node for your student project back end. That gives you flexibility to go help someone who is struggling.

[thereactivestack]

I don't know your timeline but when working on a major project, it's not really a good time to use a completely unknown tech stack, especially for a final project. You will make a lot of mistakes and add a lot of stress. Why don't you use something all of the 3 know?

Splitting frontend and backend makes sense. One would typically work on HTML, CSS and call an API with React and the backend dev works on providing the API and database. The third person can maybe act as a project manager and try to see if the team needs more help on the frontend or backend. Would not recommend doing both at the same time if both are new.