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Category: career

managing retrospective

I was just updating my tech i know and tech i use pages. It strikes me how far I have come since I started those pages and a lot of the i don’t know… section now belongs in the i’m learning section.

Also, my interests in web development and web design have matured. Today, I want my focuses to be on the design side of development, still very much the front-end, creating design systems, pattern libraries, and component libraries as well as supporting user interfaces for the web. This is a huge rabbit hole of technology that bleeds into everything from performance, accessibility, web components, libraries, frameworks, and so much more.

With all of this in my focus, where do I stand today?

best of both worlds

I’ve worn a lot of hats in the last decade of my career, most recently the hat of an engineering manager. There’s a point where you go from being a senior developer, who’s been in the throw of code and development for much of his or her career, and decide on how to move forward either with more contributor roles or with management roles. In fact, engineering management is a parallel track to engineering or development, it’s helpful to lead by example, when there’s time and availability.

As a manager, my strengths are in the collaboration and partnerships that are needed and required to move forward. I bring a lot of passion into the positions I take on various projects or ideas. In fact, I can be so eager to move an idea forward and the controlled chaos that ensues. As a product strategist, there’s so much potential to look for optimizations and efficiencies to get things done. In my last year of management work alone, I’ve come a long way to move the needle in the right direction, looking for compromise and yet pushing for effective outcomes.

I find it satisfying to put in any time I can on both coding and managing where it makes sense, where my abilities best serve the team. As a manager, I make a conscious effort to not to move the needle for a project. It’s my number one job to enable and support the lead developer/engineer to make these moves.

we are all designers

One of the main takeaways from the various projects I was involved with the last few years of my career is that the software development life cycle (SDLC) that we all know is pretty out of date. In so many companies, There’s still this mentality of waterfall models, hand offs, where all the concerns and ownerships are still so isolated from each other.

What I never really understood, but I feel is crystal clear today, is we’re all involved in the design phase of the SDLC. Our primary concern, regardless of content, components, code, copy, creations (how many Cs can you think of? :) is the design of everything. In the spirit of my interests at the beginning of this writing, we should all be talking to each other from the very beginning. Content people are writing primarily for what they know, but if they could talk about the user journeys from a design and development perspective, in addition to content management or SEO, it might unlock new potentials for what the most effective content is.

As a designer, we should also have the ownership to create in the medium we publish. This means relieving ourselves from leaning on a lot of abstract tools. What if we were all able to start and finish a project inside of the same, exact tool? Just as our desktops should get out of our ways to create, so should our tools get out of our ways to produce.

Each stakeholder, each expert in their domain, should have the autonomy to do their job. We all need a sense of ownership and agency in the work we produce. At this point, however, we shouldn’t be isolated or siloed in how we move together. You work with a team, move as a team, and succeed as a team.

the ideal

If there was anything that could feel the most relevant to my career, it would be to improve the SDLC to focus everything around the design experience, to congregate teams to use the same product from end-to-end of the cycle, and to heavily focus on systems. Web teams should put as much energy and focus into design systems as possible, encircling this idea with all the libraries and guides needed to move a product cycle forward.

The most efficient path is the one where all the stakeholders are included in the same suite of software and products to deliver results efficiently and effectively. We shouldn’t be waiting on each group to completely finish their work; how many times have I waited first on content managers, THEN on designers, THEN on project managers, etc, etc., before being able to move on code. So much wasted time and lots of problems delivered to the developers! Hand offs were kind of effective in the years past, but today’s agile environment needs more collaboration and teamwork.

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programming journey

2019 opened with a lot of chatter to the state of web design and development.

I’m a front-end developer. This is the label I’ve allowed myself to be since the mid-2010s but it was a struggle to get that far. I previously referred to myself as a front-end coder, front-end designer, web designer, and webmaster. I still consider myself a web designer in the sense that I design code that produces websites. But this label doesn’t apply to me in 2019.

I’ve always struggled with wanting to be a good web designer, essentially a graphic designer for the web. I never solely followed that path, with countless attempts producing designs that were amateurish. It’s always been easier for me to iterate off other people’s work rather than come up with my own ideas, even as a musician or audio engineer. Remixing and updating someone else’s code, music, or recording feels more natural for me because it’s the creative realm with immediate feedback. But my beginnings into a web career started more technically.

In my freshman year of college, I enrolled in and quickly dropped Computer Science 101. It was not interesting to me. I struggled to enjoy it, found the homework to be tedious, and couldn’t care less to give it much effort. Computer science was too technical and not visual enough. The internet’s maturity, however, has brought me back full circle to the necessity for the basics of computer science via Javascript.

Web development has gone through a paradigm shift. In the 2010s, Node.js introduced Javascript to the server and it replaced aged languages like Perl, Java, and PHP. Javascript is now more than just basic interaction of DOM manipulation or API calls.

What is front-end developement today?

As long as JS continues being a fundamental role for web development, I believe an understanding of Computer Science basics is mandatory. Staying stuck in the middle between the creative and the technical limits me in job prospects, so much so that I don’t qualify for many available, and many of which are senior level, front-end developer jobs. And all of this has left me drifting professionally, in between a noticeable distance from my creative desire to my technical knowledge.

Code is a commodity

jQuery is the most important library to boost Javascript’s role in the history of the internet. Using jQuery, I cheated; it was a way for me to ignore the inevitable reality of a web development career focused around JS. The abundance of jQuery everywhere let me ignore thinking about JS outside of basic DOM manipulation. Most of the time, I outsourced coding problems to jQuery plugins, tutorials and tips I browsed to find.

Just as jQuery plugins delayed my need to level up, WordPress plugins furthered my procrastination. WordPress’ theme architecture, at a basic level, mirrors static HTML, sprinkled with PHP in minimal template files. The real work in a WordPress theme is scaffolding a layout with HTML and styling it using CSS, using pre-built WordPress plugins (mostly mixed with jQuery) for most interactivity. Along with a mature WordPress community came a rich ecosystem of turnkey themes and opinionated plugins; I only had to moderately create or modify the front-end or PHP.

For too many businesses, CSS is Bootstrap. Bootstrap, like jQuery, takes work out of truly learning basics of CSS. I’ve worked for many companies that quickly needed to iterate and develop what’s known as an minimal viable product (MVP) and they forced these types of frameworks into the product or cycle. To a degree, Bootstrap, and to a larger degree an increasing amount of other front-end libraries and frameworks can be considered to have immutable CSS, where most CSS is abstracted into individual classes for iterations of most rules and values. Among other things, this relieves the developer from having to think about a global namespace issue that CSS provides by default. CSS becomes like most other languages where you treat given CSS classes as methods to extend the markup without much thought into the cascade. I think this is a mistake.

At the same time at the growth of WordPress, jQuery, and Bootstrap (among many others like them), Node Package Manager (NPM), a package manager for Node.js, also grew exponentially. In 2013, NPM was used by over a million developers. In 2019, NPM was used by over 11 million users. Why is this significant? NPM gives developers a way to efficiently import JS libraries and frameworks into projects more easily than going to a bunch of project sites to download each package individually. This process makes efficient the ability to add plugins and packages to projects and it’s all circled around a project’s ability to use Javascript.

My front-end knowledge for putting together puzzles out of HTML, CSS and JS pieces was commoditized to these various systems, libraries and frameworks. This was problematic for me at a slow but increasing pace. That said, my affection for web design on a creative level trumped the need to become more proficient with learning programming fundamentals. But this shifting paradigm quickly moved me out of contention for more jobs as time went on.

The moving paradigm

The early 2010s showed glimpses into a JS-everything future. Job ads needed significant jQuery programming from scratch, even moderate Javascript skills. Along with that saw the rise of the frameworks like Backbone.js and Angular.js. For most of 2013, I was on a temp job for a large enterprise company that chose a Javascript framework called Angular.js, which at the time seemed intriguing. But I also had no idea how this framework abandoned the tradition of a light client-side scripting on top of server-side scripting as well as progressive enhancement.

It really started hitting me in 2014 when job ads increasingly wanted devs familiar with principles from the MVC world for more rich web apps. It was baffling and stressful to watch the “I’m qualified” pool of jobs decrease. Despite that, I was still determined not to learn back-end programming. My mind circles around HTML and CSS plus some JS, visual layouts and User Interfaces, small animations and transitions that are now the role of CSS. Reliance on JS for everything was growing out of control.

The next few years, I accepted roles allowing some static templating or moderate scripting, each new role requiring more JS than the previous but still within my capability. And that leads me to today.

JS is the future

2019 web development starts with a framework or a library, primarily React.js. The modern web ecosystem is Javascript built on top of Javascript, or in other words, full-stack Javascript. We’re surrounded by opinionated frameworks and libraries that promise the world. This ecosystem requires knowledge of both Object Oriented Programming and Functional Programming, two philosophies to which I’ve only had minimal exposure. For me, this goes beyond learning just the language and syntax of JS.

Back-end development of the 2000s is now front-end development within the modern JS stacks. Yesterday’s back-end developer using Perl, PHP and Java are today’s front-end developer using JS across the full-stack. Today’s younger front-end developer increasingly comes from a JS bootcamp or transitioning from a back-end heavy education into the front-end. Staying in the web industry also means moving into new spaces like Machine Learning, AI, and big data. For those of us comfortable primarily with HTML and CSS, these jobs, if these jobs aren’t outsourced by CSS frameworks they are going to agencies or designer roles. Front-end jobs are often centered around back-end Javascript on the front-end.

Perl and Java slowly phased out starting over a decade ago. WordPress’ PHP back-end likely faces a similar fate. WordPress is slowly replacing chunks of its system with modern JS like React. WordPress is a slow moving ship but there will be noticeable pain in the forced transition continuing this year into the next decade considering that WordPress drives about one third of all websites. I wouldn’t be surprised to see other similar software environments like Drupal have to pivot to more JS everywhere.

And I’m playing catch up to get into this reality, struggling to learn what I avoided for so long. I move further from creativity and more into technical everything. This is where the front-end developer jobs are, this is how to stay employed as a developer. If I want to re-enter a freelance career where I can build and support my own product, I have to embrace a full-stack skill set based around JS. Or partner up with someone who already has this. This is a slow moving process that I’m not sure where I’ll end up.

The rest of this year will be spent with services like scrimba.com, FreeCodeCamp, Wes Bos courses, and other resources to consume and practice.

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the new web development

Quoted The New Web Development | Matt Wilcox, Web Developer & Tinkerer by Matt Wilcox (Matt Wilcox, Web Developer & Tinkerer)

The modern web developer is more a software engineer than what I would call a web developer. The app-ification of the web isn’t a case of writing some HTML, authoring a CSS file, and using a new jQuery-like library to get that sweet interaction.

You are going to need to know how to program; like a real programmer. You are going to need to know some very different approaches to how you build, deploy, and maintain things. You’re going to need to question the value of some of your strongest held best practices.

And you’re going to need to get to grips with tooling. So much tooling. Because the new web development has matured enough to be dangerous to ignore, but not enough to be simple and entirely stable.

Matt’s summary of his transition closely aligns what I’ve been going through. Even though I saw the writing on the wall with Javascript, I couldn’t motivate myself to travel down this path because it was a repeat of what I left behind in Computer Science 101 in college. I just wasn’t interested at the time and this felt like more of the same.

It’s clear now that a programmer path for the web requires skills that I don’t have and must continue to learn. I have to cross the line to the left brain from the safety of the right brain.

I think I’ll write a post about my journey and struggles.

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kap

Bookmarked Kap – Capture your screen (Kap)

An open-source screen recorder built with web technology

While looking for an open source alternative to the useful tool called Gifox, for creating screen recording animations on macOS, this Stackexchange comment led me to Kap. While it doesn’t display the last recorded gifs, I was sold on the fact that it go beyond just animated GIFs because it offers WebM, MP4, and APNG. What a great tool and highly recommended.

If I hadn’t found Kap, I probably would have hooked up this solution using Quicktime, various apps, and Automator for a dirty but effective free alternative.

the great divide

Read The Great Divide by Chris Coyier

Let’s say there is a divide happening in front-end development. I feel it, but it’s not just in my bones. Based on an awful lot of written developer sentiment, interviews Dave Rupert and I have done on ShopTalk, and in-person discussion, it’s, as they say… a thing. The divide is between people who self-identify as a (or have the job title of) front-end developer, yet have divergent skill sets.

The article shows two comparison lists, and in both lists I’m more on the right side than the left. In order to make advancements in my career as well as continue increasing my salary, I’m forcing myself into the left side little by little. But it’s been a huge struggle because both of those left sides were for the back-end developers and I was always more interested the technical aspects of the design more than the data flow and interactions.

The Twitter comments are a good reflection of this divide:

is it sad?

Is it sad that I haven’t left my house since last Sunday?

It’s funny really. Some days I go longer wearing no shirt than actually wearing one. I could easily blame my shirtlessness on the dry heat of the San Fernando Valley in the midst of a heatwave and years long drought. Working from home allows me the luxury of a relaxed dress code. But no, alas, the heat is only a moderate factor to my lack of attire.

More than two years have passed since the routine of a job. Spending all that time in front of a computer at work was draining. I remember a time when I wanted my freedom, to do what I felt like, to be in a selfish position laying out the foundation for my musical career. Two years on and I have taken only moderate strides in that direction.

Lately, my time is devoted to web design and Skype. Looking ahead to next month’s bills is my new free time and finding new monetary revenues is my job. Since losing the regularity from my part-time work earlier this year, I try daily to build a new avenue which shall become my routine. Working for yourself can be a chore for this reason.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m destined to become the mid-life crisis, the dupe who gets scammed, the alarmist who believes in wrong message, the mule who won’t back down. When I realize what positions I take, when I listen to myself talk sometimes, I almost can’t believe it. Stepping out of your own mind and listening to your own voice can be daunting.

I find myself in a curious position of not knowing what comes next. I just hope when I get there my shirt still fits.

Look, it’s Me!

Finally, after almost a month of absence, I have a website back up. I hope that this jump starts my redesign, but who knows what’ll happen because my schedule is crazy right now. But, it’s nice to be back up and running.

During the month of absence, I have started a new job in Santa Monica. It has been going well, but I’m still not happy about the hours which I sleep, which is usually anywhere between 4-7 depending on the night. I can’t function well on just 4-5. I never have. Thus, everyday that I’ve been to work I feel very tired. Not because work sucks or anything, but because my body is just fighting to stay awake half the time. Everyone tells me I’ll adjust . . . uh huh . . .

I think that my adjustment will only be physical, not mental. I’ve always been a night person. I function so well at night; I’m productive, I’m happier. Nighttime is my time. But not on the weeknights. Not anymore, or at least not while I’m working here. I need to fight my urge to stay up late and go to sleep at a decent time.

My commute.

It sucks.

I spent a few days adjusting and figuring out the best times to drive in the morning. Well, after spending no less than an hour in traffic every morning, I decided to start waking up at 5am so that I can leave at 5:20ish and get to the garage at about 6am. That’s right, I’m up at 5am everyday. I’d much rather drive here in decent time than spend most of it sitting in traffic. Why? Because I can be productive and go to the gym and workout in the morning.

Yes, you heard me! Your vision isn’t going bad.

I’ve actually started a little routine of going to the gym before work and jogging/power walking for 30 minutes with 5 minutes of warm down. Sitting here thinking about it, I feel like 30 minutes is nothing. But, at the time, at the end of my jog, I’m soooo ready to stop. It’s weird, but in a little way it’s very satisfying to know that I’ve exercised my body. Eventually I’m going to do some weight training as well so that I can give my body tone. I don’t believe that I’ll ever get huge. But, as long as I’m in shape and feel good about how I look, nothing else matters.

I think this morning routine is really good for me because it keeps me very accountable for my actions. I am responsible to myself to exercise. Most who know me know that I never work out, hate to plan things and love to be spontaneous. However, in a small way this routine, this plan that I’ve laid out for myself is good for me and I sorta enjoy it. Besides, I might as well take advantage of the opportunities this company gives me so that I come out on top physically and financially. And being responsible for my accountability is the first step.

Hmm… My shirt that I’m wearing has a very distinct aroma, that of what I typically smell from Indians (not Native Americans) which isn’t pleasing to me, nothing against those who do smell like this. Time to rewash this shirt!

So what exactly do I do at this new job? Well, I am working with the web team, and we have been implementing a new internal website since I got here. Because I started on the tail of this project, I have been given tasks that are more like busy work, such as data entry or modification of files. Not typically very fun, but it’s productive work to help further the company (at least I should continue to tell myself that). Also, I do not understand 95% of the material which we I have been modifying. There’s a lot of financial terminology and figures and facts and numbers. It’s all a puzzle to me, and not one that I truly care to solve. All I know is if the website looks good, other people can use it, I’m doing my job. Oh, the joy of being a web designer!

One of the perks of this job is the location. I drive along Ocean Avenue for a few minutes before I turn off, meaning I get to see the Santa Monica beach everyday of my commute. Although, this might change if I begin taking the bus soon, but from my desk, I can turn my head about 45 degrees to the left and see the Ocean. It’s really nice. And we’re also close to just about everything in this location. I’m new to the area, so most everything is my first time.

new job jitters

I have received lots of positive words from many people and I’m very thankful for everything that has been sent my way! I’m still just as excited and scared as I was, but am looking forward to what will happen. I realize that my evenings of consecutive late nights such as this one are quickly coming to an end. Oh how I’ll miss my evenings!

I’m excited because this next weekend I’m taking a short trip to San Francisco. I must take advantage of this free time while I have it, so it’s only natural that I cram this one last trip in before I start my job. It shall be much fun because I think I’m finally going to do all of the touristy stuff that I haven’t yet done in the city, and besides that I can also hopefully take a lot of time and get some more photos! It’s been way too long since I’ve had a photo shoot of any kind because I’ve just been way too insanely busy with so many things. Hopefully this’ll will be one of my eventual purchases with the new job’s salary.

I think one of the scariest things about taking this job is knowing that in the short run I might actually enjoy being there. I’ll never enjoy waking up early and fighting traffic all of the time, but hopefully I will enjoy going into this job each and every day so it won’t be as big of a deal. I am also happy living where I am (except for the intense heat of the summer!) and don’t really want to have to pick up and move again because I’m way too used to having to make that adjustment. But, I think that if I could find a really good deal like I have here, I’d probably have to really consider it. It’s just way too much of a drive to be making every day every week for most of the year.

Something that sorta scares me is knowing that I can’t skip a few days of work to join a friend who might be coming to town or to Vegas or SF or SD! That’s one of the best things about not having to work full-time that I enjoy doing, deciding at the last minute that I can take a trip to one of these relatively close cities and just have a ton of fun! Working this job just now means that I’ll have to fight traffic along with every other schmo who does the same thing, rather than taking the opportune times of traveling. And I’ll only have two whole days to cram most everything in, including driving or flying. But, I guess one really good thing is that if I REALLY don’t have enough time to drive, I could just hop on a plane at LAX and take off. I’ll actually be right by the airport now, be able to leave my car somewhere for free and not have to worry about too much except the cost of the plane ticket.

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it’s time

Last night, I went to a very unexpected, last minute going away party for a dear friend of mine. She called me up yesterday morning and left a message.

“Hey Micah, guess what? I’m shipping out tomorrow! So you gotta come to the party I’m having tonight. I’m so excited!!”

It was really happening; she is leaving today for the Navy boot camp, something that originally wasn’t supposed to happen until November. But a last minute opening allowed her the option to leave immediately. The decision was a no-brainer for her.

I could tell there was a huge amount of excitement as much as there was some fear. It’s a huge change; nothing will be the same in a few weeks. I’m very excited for her but I will wonder how she’s coping to this change because it’s so much so quickly.

And so as of this very moment, I, too, know the feeling. This morning, just a little while ago, I called up the HR person for a company in Santa Monica and told them I would accept a job offer as a web designer. That’s right, people, I am about to experience a complete change in lifestyle.

I’m really excited for so many reasons, but really afraid for so many others. The corporate lifestyle is not one that I’ve wanted to embrace. I’m just not much of a 9-5 person. I have always enjoyed having my own hours for so many years, doing things as I please. I’ve been blessed enough to travel a lot in the past few years, including back home to Texas to visit with everyone. But, as life’s responsibilities have increasingly continued to nip me in the ass, I realize that this is probably the next best change for me.

I am excited to be working with the web team. They seem like great people, the projects we’ll be working on sound like they’ll be a just my kind of thing, and I’m sure I’ll meet a lot of great people. I’m getting a pretty nice starting salary as well as some great benefits (at least according to many other corporate jobs, this really sounds like it’s a winner). And best of all, the beach is right across the street! :o)

I believe the best is yet to come! I’ve had some fun rides in the past few years, I have been to many wonderful, really fun places around the US and world, but now is time to provide myself the means and opportunity to make the rest of my dreams come true. Don’t be a stranger, because I see a lot of really fun and interesting changes coming my way and you’ll wanna read all about them!

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new job!

My 2nd week on the job, and it’s going very well! I started a new job last Tuesday in Hollywood. I work for a company which sells gift baskets to the Hollywood/LA area and it’s such a great place to work! Although I hold no official title, I work on web design, programming for different medias and database entry and coding.

This is only a part time job, doesn’t offer the essential benefits I so sorely need, but it’s a great start. I will now have the means to begin to support myself as well as saving for the future. I can also continue to train myself for future web projects and prepare for more web design work. Once we make some changes to the website, I will probably plug the website on here. But until that time, I shall let it remain anonymous.

So what does this mean for me? That I’ve gotta take this seriously, work the hours that I need and start to figure out how to hold up for the future. I’m not giving up on the music, that’s why I moved out here. But at the moment, at this period of time, it’s just not viable for me to pursue anything else. I think it’s important to take advantage of opportunities presented to you, and this was definitely something I needed to pursue.

So why has the music thing not worked out? There are many reasons, some of which are my fault. I was not persistent enough, not contacting those in the industry to find some work as much as I should have. I did not follow up, try to network with other people enough. I spent most of my time doing other things that kept my interest. And I have not consistently been around the area, taking many trips to Texas, Colorado and Germany in the past few months. These reasons are all my accountability for my situation. And I have no regrets (especially Germany!). The main reasons, in my opinion, for my lack of jobs in the music industry is because of bad timing, not knowing the right people at the right time, and just not being in the right situation. Timing and networking are extremely important in the entertainment industry. Talent counts for like 5-10%. Looks are about 10-15%. And timing and networking are the rest. It’s sad, but true.

So now I look forward to this new time as I adjust, as I figure out my next moves. It’s not always the easiest way to live life but I’m used to it now. Hopefully things will change but if it stays this way a while, I won’t complain too much.