Web development starts with a deep understanding of HTML, CSS, and Javascript.  At work we use Prototype and Scriptaculous to achieve the richer interfaces our customers are beginning to demand, so that means you also have to understand the DOM model.  This view layer of the site is actually in JSP, since we're a Java shop, running in a Tomcat servlet container on the J2EE stack: Struts, Spring, etc etc.  The web services are REST (via RestEasy / the Apache HTTPClient -- you'd better be expert at the HTTP protocol, by the way, or you're not getting very far here) and our older ones involve XML-RPC / SOAP.  Oh yeah, XML, that's handy to know, along with YAML and JSON.  Anyhow, the data which is actually being served up is stored in the database and accessed via SQL.  There are a few hundred kb of stored procedures running around -- you'll want to be able to write them in Oracle and Postgres, since customers use both.  Authentication is usually via LDAP except when it is via OpenID except when it is via OpenID backed by LDAP.<p>The system is built with Ant, Groovy, and Ruby, and deployed on RedHat Linux.  You'll be expected to know SH and BASH shell scripts and perform various sysadmin tasks as required, for example, configuring firewalls, Apache, and nightly batches via cron'ed up shell scripts.<p>In addition to doing Java, we also do migrations from Perl systems and much of our internal utilities are written in either PHP (yay, outsourcing) or Ruby.<p>One of the core tasks of our customers is creating "reports".  We have a software package (which you haven't heard about) which does this for us.  You need it to know it backwards and forwards.  Also, if it ever fails, knowing how to debug PDFs would be a real help.<p>I haven't gotten past "generic web developer" into the world of fun that is "IT needs specific to Japanese universities", such as dealing with the common Japanese bank interchange format to process tuition payments.  That is one requirement from one of the 37 subsystems on the project I'm on.<p>You tell me -- what have I said so far that sounds unrealistic or exaggerated?