It’s never been in my nature to speak highly of myself. I’ve always been more comfortable with the “underpromise, overdeliver” philosophy. But I keep getting feedback from colleagues I respect and that I know to be sharp that I need to be more confident. Or at least project it. So, briefly, I will put on my sales hat for myself and state why I think you should hire me as a UX / frontend developer. Or more specifically to build scalable, reusable design system / front end components with a focus on responsive design, WCAG accessibility, and CSS. Components that focus on being simple, easy to understand, and have low CSS specificity ideally.

I’m good at detecting “smells” and asking probing questions to encourage discussion and further thought

Code smells, design smells, specifications smells – something that seems off or begs the questions “why are we doing this specifically” or “what problem are we really trying to solve”? As a colleague recently, kindly, pointed out I tend to use years of experience solving problems to ask probing questions. “How does this adapt when it’s on a smaller screen”, “what happens when we get an error on this part of the form”, “what fields are actually required and necessary here and what can we make optional to streamline progress”, “if this is so important, why is it behind additional steps”, “why are we using this pattern and not this other pattern”?

People tend to be afraid of friction and too much friction – or friction just for friction’s sake – isn’t healthy or good. But the right amount of friction, especially at the beginning can save a lot of time down the road. It can make sure we’re building solutions to real problems, not just a bunch of features. I can think of over a dozen – maybe several dozen – times where asking a few questions made people pause, rethink, and refine, saving the team a lot of time and churn. 

Experience isn’t everything, but it helps.

I’ve worked on various size teams over my career

I’ve built freelance brochure sites with designers I’ve partnered with for small businesses. Worked on startups wearing multiple hats on development teams single digit in size. I’ve been a senior developer on a design system team for a Fortune 100 company building a library used by dozens or perhaps hundreds of developers across the organization. Sites I’ve worked on have seen anywhere from a few dozen to millions of visitors a month.

All this has required me to think about problems and solutions in different ways, to understand audiences and risk tolerance, and to build to different types of needs. Each has their own tradeoffs, challenges, and rewards. So regardless of the size of your team, whether you’re an industry powerhouse or a small startup trying to disrupt in an interesting way or something in between I think I have something to offer.

I have very varied experience and an unexpected skill set

Working in all those types of places I’ve had to wear many hats as I said. I’ve deep dived, learned and advised on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). On accessibility, adaptive devices, and meeting WCAG guidelines. On UX and usability, understanding how users are using the site, working with usability teams and data, and designers doing competitive analysis to spec out and build new features. I’ve educated colleagues on how to use systems I’ve contributed to, as well as taught them on all of the above – UX, SEO, accessibility, etc – in refinement / grooming. A long time ago I designed flats and features in tools like Sketch and Photoshop. I greatly enjoy and have done a lot of writing in a variety of formats – technical, blog / article, and just for fun. And of course, coding and code review for peers which has been the main focus of my career.

All this allows me to approach problems from various angles with various needs in mind. Often sites or teams have conflicting stakeholders / interests they have to try to meet. Also most solutions involve tradeoffs – I’m fond of saying “everything is a tradeoff” honestly. All this varied experience has allowed me to be, I think, a valuable colleague.

Strong technical skill set

As I said previously it’s unexpected, but also I’ve been at this for a bit so I’ve touched a lot of languages, libraries and systems. From jQuery to React to vanilla JavaScript and a few in between. I’m extremely interested and educated on CSS, SASS and HTML with a lot of experience specifically in using Bootstrap. I have a fair amount of accessibility experience including building WCAG 2.1 AA compliant components for the last several years. I’ve also worked with Ruby on Rails and PHP to a fair degree. Finally, although I haven’t developed much on it in the last decade, when I did freelance I had extensive experience building with WordPress including developing custom themes and features with well over a dozen sites – including my own – built on the platform.

All that has given me enough experience and breadth of skills to quickly learn new frameworks or languages that I might not have used before – or in a while – as many overlap with something I’m already experienced with but may just use different syntax.

Ambitious but empathetic

I still have the drive to learn and grow my skill set in order to solve interesting problems and make people’s lives easier. But I also truly find great joy in building people up. Teaching them about things I know in order to level them up. Mentoring them on challenges and offering advice from my own experience. Always focusing on kindness.

I care deeply about recognizing people and promoting their wins so that their success is noted, often during retrospectives or stand ups. I think it’s important to use the great privilege I have to advocate for people and their ideas or to ask questions they may be uncomfortable to ask in order to get answers they need. I think inclusivity, empathy and kindness make teams stronger and more connected. We are leasing our time to a company in exchange for productivity, experience and skills. But we are also people and life is a great gift, so the time we have is precious and since we spend a fair amount of it at work it should be as pleasant as we can make it.

Growing up I really enjoyed Mr. Rogers and as I’ve grown older I’ve really grown to appreciate what a good person and role model he was. He has many quotes I’m fond of but one of my favorites is: 

“There are three ways to ultimate success: 

The first way is to be kind.

The second way is to be kind.

The third way is to be kind.”

Kindness matters.

I come highly recommended

As I said I really enjoy recognizing people and writing so one of my favorite things, especially when I’m having a hard day, is writing them a recommendation on LinkedIn. Spelling out what I think is special and unique about them, reminding them why they are or were a good colleague, and generally just putting a little joy out in the world. It’s something another set of role models for me – the Green brothers Hank and John – taught me. Don’t be afraid to show love, especially platonic love, to those you care about. This is one of the ways I do and am comfortable with.

Along the way I have also collected my share of recommendations. As of this writing I have 16 from former colleagues that share many similarities in what they point out about me. Passionate, skilled, dedicated, inclusive, caring. I think more than my own words those of people that have had to spend a lot of time with me matter, as humbling as they sometimes are.

I have very reasonable needs

I don’t need a fancy title or a huge salary. Fair benefits, market value pay for what’s required of me, decent work / life balance, trust, and the opportunity to help others and to solve interesting problems. I think honestly that’s what most of us want. I also tend to be steadfast. I’m looking for a place to spend my next 5 or 10 years if possible, not to flip it into my next job.

In conclusion

What I’m really asking is for a chance. I get it, hiring is expensive and no one wants to risk a bad one. Interviews and recruiting are imperfect – especially with ATS / AI involved which seems to be deeply imperfect and have a lot of gaps. The market is challenging right now especially for remote positions where there’s often a flood of real and AI generated responses.

So I’ve tried to lay out in basic, human terms what you’d be getting from me. If it sounds good, let’s have a conversation and start there. I’m a bit socially awkward and sometimes that comes across there, so if you’re still having doubts but feel there may be promise – give me a 90 day contract. It wouldn’t be the first, or likely the last, time I’ve had to prove myself.

I know I can provide value for the things I do well. I know I can help people and solve problems. I know I can be a good, kind and valuable colleague. I won’t tick off every box – no one does, again “everything is a tradeoff”. But based on what my past colleagues have told me I think I’ll be worth it.

All I’m asking for is a chance. Thanks.