Which do you consider better/worse and why? I do both, largely because we are understaffed almost everywhere I've worked and I have skills in both areas.
I'm torn on which I detest most, because I pretty much detest them both. At my previous job a few years ago, I preffered systems work to programming. Databases, web and application servers, etc. Could have just been an all you can eat style consulting firm where the answer to any customers question is "yes", so programming sucked something real bad. I didn't care for the after hours work and stress of doing system upgrades, migrations, implementations etc. either, but at the time that was the lesser of two evils. Projects were done quicker, less involvement with PM's, less change requests, and mostly within the capability of the software. There was still stress because you are dealing with enterprise systems and potential for data loss, but at least no endless dreamt up ideas for software.
In any case, where I work now the front end work is not as bad. What get's to me most is the endless change requests, basically all of the PM's I work with were admin assistants up until a year ago, so there is no real process no matter how much I try to steer it that way. Basically it's whatever these PM's dream up that day, I add in. There is no actual process because the entire organization is run by people who got in on the buddy system, not actual experience, education or capability. Nevertheless, it kills me to sit through this crap, building whatever random change someone wants that day, because they just think it would be "nice". No metrics on ROI, no requirements traceability matrix, etc.
The reason I ask is because my position is being split into two and I am offered a choice. Right now the back end role has some really heavy lifts coming up in the next 3 months. Plus there is no guarantee the position will exist in a year, as when we merge with another company in a year or so, that position will likely be redundant. But they will likely still need a front end developer to service everyones fantasies.
Once this job ends though I may end up someplace fierce development wise and am not looking forward to that. Nothing they want me to build is too crazy, just the people drive me nuts. At most places, it's the crazy and the people that drive me nuts, because of no process.
Not sure which to pick. If I pick dev, I can still use my lab at home to keep up on the systems stuff. In reality I'm really looking at making my next move a move into technical program management or something similar.