I enjoy thinking about and designing the database schema.
I enjoy writing the back-end code.
I enjoy thinking about the REST API.
I. Can. Not. Fucking. Stand. the front-end work. I don't know why; I just dread doing it for every project I’m assigned.
I can’t wait to hit that 1-year mark and start looking for more back-end oriented gigs.
In my experience, it's a simple matter of it never being done, and people always being unhappy with it. You can anticipate every possible need, streamline the steps needed for the most common and/or important tasks, and spend a gazillion hours making it look pretty-- not only will no one be impressed, but someone will always complain about something. There is never any 'right' way to do it. It's a black hole.
With back end stuff, it's like, does it work without making a mess and not overuse resources? Ok, good job! What are we building next?
IMO that's the exact problem - you can't anticipate every need. You need to do user testing, iterate over UI layouts, etc. etc... by comparison, backend work is straightforward.
I personally have no problem doing front-end work when I have to and I think the fact that I don't drag my feet or complain about CSS has allowed me to learn it to a degree that has made it reasonable and quick to do.
Also most of the shitty parts of front-end development have been abstracted away with things like CSS vendor auto-prefixing and tools like ClojureScript and reagent. One of my favorite parts of the stack now, actually (when I can use those tools).