What Do "Webmasters" Do?

Duties of people with the job title, "Webmaster"

[rtroxel]

People with the job title of "webmaster" often have a variety of duties, including web design and systems administration. They can also have management duties regarding budgets, presentation, purchasing, and human resources. Sometimes they have technical staffs and sometimes they work alone.

If you're going to a job interview for a "Webmaster", you should definitely have a complete job description beforehand.

I've talked with several webmasters over the past few weeks: One of them is a designer who daily posts his modifications to the company's web site and then checks the statistics. A second person at the company, however, is the systems administrator and he handles OS configuration, server hardware issues and backups.

On the other hand, another person I know does all of the things listed above! His job title should be CIO, but it's "Webmaster."

If you currently work on your company's Web site, I'd be interested in knowing what your job title is, or what other duties you have. (No, I'm not hiring, just trying to write an article.)

Thanks, in advance,

Roy

[Essex_boy]

drink as much beer as possible - Skiv as much as possible.

but dont say that in the interview.

[ritualcoffee]

I know one that only handles standards/guidelines - doesn't actually code anything or act as a sys admin. Basically acts like the web developers' police.

[ppg]

I would guess the duties you have to cover depend to some extent on the size of the company you work for. I work for a small (30 staff) company. My title is webmaster on the internal phone list, but everybody still calls me the 'web designer'. Funny really since I think that's my weakest point.

I cover:

Server build and maintenance (not very well)
back end coding and DB
design (rework it every 6 mnths or so)
PPC management
optimisation
all content
stats and reports
mailshots (sometimes)

and I'd do budget allocation too if I HAD a budget.

I'm constantly kicking myself for not doing a better job in all of the above areas. Sometimes its not easy to know how best to split the time to maximise lead generation (this is a B2B site).

The one advantage is that getting to do a bit of everything gives a good overview of whats required for when I finally go out on my own.

[choster]

At one group I work at, there is no "webmaster" per se; that e-mail address is a role account shared by several members of the development staff and the customer service department. There is a product manager for the website. Then there is a "web developer" who is more like an information architect, one "web designer" who is responsible for branding and images and is actually a member of the graphic design department, one team of application developers, and another of network administrators-- the Internet, after all, is just one method of accessing corporate data and applications.

[rtroxel]

According to a recent article in Computerworld [computerworld.com], offshore outsourcing of web design and development is an increasing trend, because:

outsourcing helps companies realize longer-term strategic goals to increase IT staffing flexibility and gain access to an expanding base of world-class IT skills, so they can quickly respond to business opportunities. On the financial side, companies want to purge their books of as many fixed IT costs as possible.

So here's the question: How do you think this trend will effect your duties as a Webmaster?

Roy