Yes and no. The front-end (as far as web goes) is still HTML and Javascript, just better frameworks. And the base patterns of good design still apply regardless of the front-end technology.
The back-end in the last five years or so has definitely had a lot of change in data stores, emphasis on RESTful API exposure to front-end and other back-end services, web server choice and style (WSGI, PSGI, FCGI, etc).
The biggest difference is that a front-end developer has to worry about the performance of a single client using a single state machine. The back-end guy has to deal with making a site fast and reliable while supporting 100s or 1000s of those clients concurrently.
Crash the browser every 100K views and someone reloads. Crash the back-end every 100K views and someone gets fired.
I'd say that the new API-centric model works very well here. The old codger has complete control on what's coming and going from the core application, without worrying about a whippersnapper messing with the DAOs and adding a bobby tables vulnerability.
In the Dark Past, this last line of defense was in stored procedures, but we -- 30-something greybeards :) -- know what a mess that was. There are plenty of companies who are still tied to an ancient DBMS due to that 10kLOC stored procedure that looked like a good idea at the time.
The back-end in the last five years or so has definitely had a lot of change in data stores, emphasis on RESTful API exposure to front-end and other back-end services, web server choice and style (WSGI, PSGI, FCGI, etc).
The biggest difference is that a front-end developer has to worry about the performance of a single client using a single state machine. The back-end guy has to deal with making a site fast and reliable while supporting 100s or 1000s of those clients concurrently.
Crash the browser every 100K views and someone reloads. Crash the back-end every 100K views and someone gets fired.