What do you do at Wieni?
I manage the frontend team at Wieni. I discuss planning and issues on a daily basis with the team. I try to be up to date with everything that is going on. Together with Ilse I make the planning for all frontend related work. Every Friday there is a short team discussion about planning and the forthcoming week. We also talk about new technologies and tools there.
For new projects or features I am the point of contact for frontend related matters.
Next to that I maintain the tools we use at Wieni. Tools that allow the team to write more straightforward code.
To sum it up in one sentence: I try to make the life of others easier and try to help them when needed. Often by analysing problems or investigating challenges together at the start.
What did you do before?
Before Wieni I worked in Ghent for a little while. At the company where I did my internship when studying. That is where I caught the Drupal-community virus. I visited a lot of meetups and conferences (such as Frontend United Valencia, DrupalCon Amsterdam, DrupalCon Dublin and even DrupalCon Los Angeles).
But the Drupal-virus disappeared in the meantime. Now my focus is mainly on React.
How did you improve Wieni?
My Drupal background allowed me to work on the branding of the admin of our backend. I also try to transfer my knowledge as much as possible to others.
Why is Javascript Developer a separate role within frontend?
There is a large variation of projects at Wieni. That variation implies a very specific skillset. Javascript is becoming more and more important on the web. Which is an explanation for the success of Node.js for example. The web keeps evolving, and Javascript plays a big part in this evolution. But because of this popularity, it is necessary to stay vigilant and critical. Fast changes demand you stay up to date and up to standard.
We work with React and the way we use it heavily depends on the size of the project.
Why do you like working at Wieni?
We don't do things halfway. The team has a fresh vision and does no one-size-fits-all. No plug-and-play but every time a new challenge. We don't choose the same solution by default, but take a close look at the problem at hand. A full CMS with Drupal and Twig, a serverless architecture with React, or everything in between.