Sometimes I feel frontend development is like ancient magic:

Backend Dev: Oh no, I can't align this DIV properly.
FE Dev: No worries!
* Casts Flexius Boxius on the DIV *
* Div aligns slightly better *
BE Dev: But it's not centered!
FE Dev: No worries!
* Casts Marginis Automaticus! *
* Rolls natural 1 *
* Everything collapses *
* Website is on fire *
* Product owner cries *
FE Dev: No worries!
* Casts Flexius Boxius level 5 on the parent div *
* Everything looks beautiful *
* People are in awe *
FE Dev: You are welcome!
* Adjusts his robe and leaves *

At a former job, the company decided to replatform to Salesforce. The entire dev team was laid off. But it would take an outside agency a year to build the Salesforce site. The company wanted the devs to stay for an additional year.

The only severance was something they called a stay bonus. It was 30% of our gross income but it was still contingent on performance. And if they decide to let you go earlier, it gets prorated if you still qualify for the bonus. Not a good deal.

Each month a dev left. By the time I secured a new job and left, all that remained of the dev team was a junior frontend dev and two team leads (one FE and one BE) with no team to lead. Well, there were contractors, but they were only brought on after the Salesforce replatform announcement. I’m pretty sure the company had to hire even more contractors. No idea how much that cost them.

For me, I think it was serendipitous that I gave notice during their busiest time of year. They actually tried asking me to extend my notice. Karma was coming back to bite them. Not just for the Salesforce thing. But also for their lack of support when I was blindly accused of being both insubordinate and incompetent.

Probably a FE dev...
Source - IG

I’ve been a solo frontend developer for a couple of weeks now with critical enormous features and some bugs to get out the door by the end of next week.

On top of that, I got a backend bug to fix which is fine since I know the stack. The SQL that’s causing a bug is an obvious fix but as a FE dev I have no damn idea about DB structure.

I decide to setup local DB to see it for myself. So as a reasonable developer I look for docs to set it up since it sounds like quite a process after confirming with colleagues.

ANNNND... SURPRISE, the docs ARE NON EXISTENT unless you wanna call an outdated diagram a sufficient doc. Just so you understand the pain, we have 9 micro services, a weird db structure and only 5% is documented.

I requested help from my colleagues, but their answers were similar to docs with a follow up of “maybe you can document it after you set this up”. Barely stopped myself from asking “do I look like I have time for this crap? Why don’t you document it SINCE YOUR SETUP IS READY TO GO?”

So I’ve been at it for a couple of hours and I gave up. Will go back to frontend development since still a ton of shit to do anyway. Tomorrow I will attempt this again.

I really hate sales people. My stakeholder wants to buy an address verification service but is hesitant to purchase now because the dev time needed would be substantial. Now the sales rep has planted seeds of doubt in my SH and SH thinks I grossly overestimated the labor I quoted.

Sales rep is all “major corporations have installed this in a weekend.” 🤬🤬🤬 Major corporations also have more than one developer and probably aren’t dealing with a website that has a dozen address forms that all work differently. Oh, and I DON’T WORK WEEKENDS MOFO.

My SH originally requested a labor estimate for installing the AVS on all address forms and that’s what I delivered. My audit revealed a dozen different forms. I’m working with a legacy code base that’s been bandaged together and maintained by an outside dev agency. The only thing the forms have in common is reusable address fields. They all work differently when it comes to validating and submitting data to the server and they all submit to different api endpoints. At least a quarter of those forms are broken and would need to be fixed (these are mostly admin-facing). I also had to provide an estimate on frontend implementation when I have no idea what they want the FE to look like.

My estimate was 5-8 weeks for implementation AND testing. I wrote up my findings and clearly explained the labor required, why it was needed, and the time needed. All was fine until the sales rep tried to get into SH’s head.

My SH is now asking for a new estimate and hoping for 1-2 weeks of labor, which is what will SH to buy the AVS. Then go to the outside dev agency you used to work with and ask for a second opinion. I’m sure they’d also tell you at least month if not more for testing, implementation, and deployment because you have a DOZEN FORMS you want to add this to. 1-2 weeks is only possible for a single form.

My manager doesn’t work in the same coding language I do, but he read my documentation and supports my original estimate.

I honestly want to ask my SH if this sales rep is giving a very good price for the AVS. If not, are there other companies in the mix? Because right now you have a sales rep that’s taking you for a ride and trying to pressure you all so he can get another notch in his belt for getting another “major corporation” as his account. I don’t think it’s a good idea to be locked in with a grimy sales rep.

Our agile scrum team has finally shattered into two parts.
On the one hand we have front-end guys.
On the other hand we have backend- /dev-ops guys.

The FE guys don't care about the BE guys business.
They don't join pairworking and only noticing things that went bad, when a Backend guy has caused it.
Goodbye fullstack dev-ops team...

I really dislike that arrogant basterds.

Frontend Hobo-Bitches...!

A client wanted his site to be finished earlier. The boss said ok if the client would pay more, and he did. However, a FE dev got sick (virus infection he said) and would have to rest for an extended period of time. The PM came in yesterday and said, "Alex (me), we are running out of time so you will have to take (FE dev's name)'s position because you said that you learned basic html/css when you were in high school." The PM left and close the door before I can turn my head away from the screen and say something (I was like WTF?). One of my BE colleague, who had been asked to do similar sh**t before when a FE guy got sick, pat on my shoulder and said, "Alex, you have won the lottery this time." Q.A.Q..I have just finished a navbar with 4 tabs using Uikit, it took me 90 min already.

!dev

I like trying the local pißwasser of choice when traveling around. Sometimes it's bad (Baltika, fe). Working out of Glasgow atm, so it's irnbrü, kind of tastes like bubblegum. What's everyones' local drink du jour (alcoholic or otherwise)?

Fuck FE development. Tweaking or adding some stuff is OK, but making the whole FE from zero is a pain for me. Vanilla JS is OK, but I need to use Angular, which I don't know how to use properly. Generally, right now I find FE as a big confusing mess... Why Angular? Because fuck React - it is even more confusing. I just can't keep all these things in my head... You want to add something? Fine, add a dependency, import, export it, import again, that shit does not work alone, so you import another shit... IDE says it's all good, look it's up and running! But you open the app and it's not even loading because of errors. Another module missed, ffs. IDE can't really save you here, sigh...

I am a BE dev, I am straight out bad at FE. I don't hate FE, but I hate that I am forced to do it and I need to do it fast, without having time for learning it.
Ughh... I feel somewhat better now :\ Now back to making there modules work...

So, the wanna be lead FE dev came in late this morning. I asked him if everything worked out with his home. Turned out he didn't have an appointment for his home.

He decided to see a friend for breakfast.
Now... This guy is is going through a tough time with a girl but still... wtf. At least tell your coworkers about something like this. Just made up an excuse "for personal reasons".

No he just stays away and nobody knows how what or why. Like... wtf?

Anyway, he's here now. Surfing tech sites as usual. Instead of working on the project in Jira.

And ofcourse project won't be done by the end of the day
*sight*

Here is why developers should be involved in project planning.

I had a meeting with a Product Manager and a backend dev about rolling out a new rewards program. My employer has a primary website and a lightweight app that’s can be used in an iframe. It has a hard deadline because the contract for current rewards vendor is expiring.

Me: So is this new rewards program also being rolled out in the LW app?

PM: Users earn rewards on the LW app?

Me: Yes.

We’re in a video call and I can’t see the PM’s face, but I know he’s thinking “fuck.”

Me: So are we going to bring in another front end dev to code the FE for the LW app since we have a hard deadline?

PM: [clearly sounding panicked] Another dev?!

Me: Well, I’m effectively coding the frontend twice. Sure both use React, but they use it in different ways. LW app uses React Redux. I can’t just code one and copy and paste it into the other.

To be fair, this PM wasn’t the point person for the LW app. But this is why devs need to brought in on planning.

Remote into a machine in order to remote into a machine to setup wordpress site on an IIS server using wamp behind nginx. That was my day, as the FE dev who never built the WP site and knows diddly squat all about setting up servers.

Any tips for getting into the freelance game?

I’m a FE dev (React / TS / Next) with a11y certs and 7+ yrs of experience, but am wondering how I can get my first clients freelancing?

I’ve got drafts for contracts and all the legal protection stuff sorted to prevent me getting fucked over in most cases, but am struggling when it comes to getting myself out there and actually grabbing clients.

What tips do you guys, gals and non-binary pals have for someone wanting to break from big-corpa and to go into this new direction?