Have you ever seen a cage fight? Where two MMA fighters go head-to-head until one of them concedes? — Have you ever seen a cage fight? Where two MMA fighters go head-to-head until one of them concedes? I think of it as the more gruesome older sibling of boxing. Every so often there is a fight where one of the fighters gets completely destroyed. Just imagine, you are an…

To understand what the Tech Lead role looks like at the FT I talked to Tech Leads across Customer Products to see if it would work for me! — “A Tech Lead is a software engineer responsible for leading a team and alignment of the technical direction” — Pat Kua [1]. While this is a useful high-level definition of the Tech Lead role, it’s not very specific to an actual business. You’ll find that technical leadership roles vary greatly…

The Intersection Observer API allows you to observe and react to changes when an element enters the viewport or a parent element. It’s… — The Intersection Observer API allows you to observe and react to changes when an element enters the viewport or a parent element. It’s very commonly used for lazy loading but can also be used for things like animations or changing the active state of links in a navigation bar as…

A little while ago I was given a cool design for an Instagram story styled bubble component where each bubble would smoothly slide into… — A little while ago I was given a cool design for an Instagram story styled bubble component where each bubble would smoothly slide into its new position when we got its new order from the API. While it can be straightforward to do a whole load of animations and transitions…

Evaluating your role and comparing it with others — I once got great advice while overhearing someone else’s conversation. My old tech lead was chatting with another engineer in my team and he said something along the lines of: “In any job I regularly think about whether I’m Learning, Earning and Advancing. I don’t stay anywhere if I’m not…

Over the years, my understanding of what it takes to grow as an engineer and climb my career ladder has changed dramatically. When I… — Over the years, my understanding of what it takes to grow as an engineer and climb my career ladder has changed dramatically. When I started out, I was confident all I needed to do was to become an amazing coder. I thought I just needed to know how to build…

I gave a talk called Junior.next() at a few different events. This is a written version of a section in that talk. Over the upcoming weeks… — I gave a talk called Junior.next() at a few different events. This is a written version of a section in that talk. Over the upcoming weeks I also plan to write about all the other parts too :) So, I don’t mean this to sound cringey, because it sounds cringey…

In my attempt to write more in 2020, I want to start by looking back and reflecting over 2019. In 2018 I enjoyed a busy year of travel… — In my attempt to write more in 2020, I want to start by looking back and reflecting over 2019. In 2018 I enjoyed a busy year of travel, speaking and breaking out of my comfort zone in my day to day work. …

I’ll be honest, I was a teeny bit disappointed when async and await became a real thing. Not because they aren’t great, but because I… — I’ll be honest, I was a teeny bit disappointed when async and await became a real thing in JavaScript. Not because they aren’t great, but because I literally just got my head around promises, and was excited to write them more 😂 Never mind. It is by no means wasted…