There's a pretty good article about job titles in the current ColdFusion Developer's Journal:

Are the Job Titles "Web Designer" and "Web Developer" Too General? - There are a lot of professions that have emerged from the web: designers, developers, strategists, search engine optimists, information architects, usability and accessibility consultants, the list goes on... Today, I'd like to talk about the first two. I wouldn't go so far to say that the titles should be considered harmful by any means, rather we have just outgrown our job titles!

My favorite part is where the author, at his most recent job, gave himself the title "Front End Engineer", because it seemed to fit what he was doing. As it happens, just yesterday Nat (Papovich, Lead Architect here) and I were having a discussion about how, with the recent evolution of rich applications in the Web development realm, it's time for a more-or-less official title of UI Developer. There's no doubt now that the proliferation of development tools/languages/frameworks/etc. that are solely focused on producing better UIs means that there's a whole lot more programming that happens just in the UI layer of an application. Just taking one tool as an example--Flex--requires proficiency in a range of skills, including OO development (ideally, but not required), CSS, Actionscript, MXML, and more.

In our development practice, we certainly see this playing out. We typically have several developers working solely on the UI layer, be it AJAX (in its million different forms), Flex, etc.

On a related note, I recently read about the new workflow integrations between Flex and design tools, which is a great thing. What I find interesting about the "UI Developer" role is that, on average, I think it entails developers learning better graphic design, usability, and other "designer" skills more so than it entails designers learning to program. But that's a side note to the whole store. The bottom line is, the fact that we have Front End Engineers, or even the possibility of them, is great for users, and it's another sign of the maturing of the Web as a platform for business computing.

If you haven't seen this video from Perceptive Pixel yet, then you just gotta take 5 minutes to watch it. It shows some of the most bleeding-edge UI development going on anywhere on the planet. Think iPhone, multiply by 10, and then add in a gi-normous display. I'm thinking that in, say, 3-5 years, everyday computer users will interact with files and data in this manner. I had a developer friend say to me the other day that he hated all the current emphasis on Web 2.0 UI gadgets/widgets. I told him to start lovin' it now! They say success is at the margins, and in my opinion the biggest successes in the coming years of Web development will be had in the area of leading-edge UI development. So start planning your Perceptive Pixel-style UI's now!

Perceptive Pixel User Interface Video

Update: Nat here pointed out an earlier video by the Perceptive Pixel founder, which features him talking about the UI, and giving his insights as he moves around the UI:

Jeff Han: Unveiling the genius of multi-touch interface design