Frontend Developer with Over 8 Years of Experience. Meet Jędrzej

Jędrzej is a senior frontend developer who started his career before the frameworks era. Can you imagine that? 😉 What advice does he have for people who want to become frontend devs? Why did he decide to be a sauna master? Read the interview.

You are a frontend developer. Is the backend totally strange to you?

No. I used to work as a fullstack developer and I worked with servers as well. I have no problem going to “the other side” as long as I am familiar with the backend stack used in a project I work on.

How long do you work as a software developer? How do you recall the beginnings of your career?

I have over 8 years of commercial experience. My first job started as an internship. I was a part of the internal team which had an ambitious goal to build a to-do list application. I wrote the backend in PHP with Symfony which is a hardcore framework with a high entry threshold.

Eventually, I was offered a full-time job. I started to learn Angular which was something new back then. After that, I turned to React and have been working with this framework for the past 5 years.

What is your advice to people who want to become junior frontend developers?

It’s hard to say because as you know I started to work in this industry years ago. I guess my career began when there weren’t so many frameworks available. So I naturally focused on getting to know the language. That’s what I would recommend to future frontend developers. Focus on understanding the language, not only frameworks. Language is the basic tool you are going to work with, so don’t neglect it. Also, you should understand the basics of algorithms and software design patterns.

When you possess that knowledge, you can start to get familiar with popular frameworks like React or Vue. That's also a great moment to learn libraries, like styled components or Tailwind for styling and the role of tooling like Webpack in a project. You don’t need to know how to configure Webpack, but you should be aware what’s the purpose of it.

You have worked at Bright Inventions for over a year. How do you recall joining the company?

I had a couple of interviews scheduled with different companies including Bright Inventions. Why did I choose Bright? Actually, because of the very intriguing tech interview I had with Piotr and Bartek. It was a long, 2-hour interview. However, after finishing it I felt that these were the people I wanted to work with. I was happy that the feeling was mutual when I was offered a job.

We organize a webinar for frontend developers that you will conduct. Share some info about the webinar.

I will talk about managing React State. The webinar will be held in Polish. It’s free. Anyone can join. You can sign up here. We will look at React through the tools that this framework gives us. Webinar is suited for junior frontend developers who know the basics of React. However, I think that some mid-developers will find it useful as well because I will talk about the still new feature which is Concurrent Mode. If you want to know what problems Concurrent Mode can cause in your code, join my webinar.

You work remotely. How do you organize your work and create online relations with other colleagues?

I organize my day to work continually for 8 hours and don’t distract myself with other errands. Thanks to that at 4 pm my work is done and I can focus on my free time and family. It's helpful to keep a work-life balance. If I did some chores during the day, which is tempting when you work from home, I would have to spend my evenings working. I try to avoid that.

Building relations while working remotely is possible. Naturally, I have daily contact with people from my team. Apart from that, you just have to be active on Slack, do small talks, and share thoughts with others. I also attend our biweekly meetings gathering all front-end developers from Bright Inventions. We discuss hot tech topics and address tech challenges in our projects. Actually, at this meeting, I conducted a webinar about React State and now I will present it to developers outside my organization.

What’s more? I try to regularly attend team retreats that take place in Gdańsk. So I get to see people face to face.

You are a sauna master. How did that happen? 😄

It all started 5-6 years ago when therms with saunas were opened in my neighborhood. I started to attend sauna sessions regularly. It’s a cozy place, so I quickly got to know sauna masters there. I was impressed by their work. When there was a chance to join a training for sauna masters I simply signed up. I was intrigued by this idea and also wanted to possess a new skill. So I became a Sauna Master certificated by the Polish Sauna Association.

Although I must say that I don’t attend the sauna sessions as much as I used to. I hope it will change.

Have you conducted sauna ceremonies?

Yes, but only for my family and close friends. It’s not my extra job. However, it’s a skill that ChatGPT won’t be able to take over from me. 😉