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Junior UX offer asks for front-end skills, is this common?

by Zack Muhamad·August 27, 2026

Just got an offer for a Junior UX Designer role at a small local company in PJ, but the hiring manager said they expect me to pick up some front-end dev (HTML/CSS/JS basics) within the first 6 months. The salary is RM4,200, which feels okay for a fresh grad with a UX bootcamp cert, especially since its my first proper job after internship. They said its a small team, only two other designers, and they often need someone to "help out" with implementing simple UI changes or prototyping that needs some code. My bootcamp focused purely on design, research, and prototyping in Figma, so I dont really have any coding background. My probation is 3 months.

  • Not sure if I should try to negotiate for more since its an expanded scope.
  • Wondering if this is normal for smaller companies, or if I'm signing up to be a full-stack unicorn for junior pay, and my career path will shift too much.

Should I take this offer and just grit my teeth and learn coding, or is it a red flag for a UX-focused career in Malaysia?

4 comments

Comments (4)

Hafiz Rahman

Wah, RM4.2k for fresh grad with extra dev skills is decent. I'd say just learn it, understanding dev constraints is super useful as a designer anyway.

Faisal Akram

Be careful though, this sounds like they want a junior full-stack developer at UX designer pay. It might really derail your design focus later on, especially at a small company.

Ravi Kumaran

Which company ah? Is it a product company or agency? Agency life is like that sometimes where everyone wears many hats.

Amirul Hakim

Same thing happened to me at a startup in Cyberjaya. Ended up doing more dev than design. Make sure you get a clear job scope in writing if you decide to take it.

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