Writing for hiring

Cassie joined Clearleft as a junior front-end developer last year. It’s really wonderful having her around. It’s a win-win situation: she’s enthusiastic and eager to learn; I’m keen to help her skill up in any way I can. And it’s working out great for the company—she has already demonstrated that she can produce quality HTML and CSS.

I’m very happy about Cassie’s success, not just on a personal level, but also from a business perspective. Hiring people into junior roles—when you’ve got the time and ability to train them—is an excellent policy. Hiring Charlotte back in 2014 was Clearleft’s first foray into hiring for a junior front-end dev position and it was a huge success. Cassie is demonstrating that it wasn’t just a fluke.

Alas, we can’t only hire junior developers. We’ve got a lot of work in the pipeline right now and we’re going to need a full-time seasoned developer who can hit the ground running. That’s why Clearleft is recruiting for a senior front-end developer.

As lead developer, Danielle will make the hiring decision, but because she’s so busy on project work right now—hence the need to hire more people—I’m trying to help her out any way I can. I offered to write the job description.

Seeing as I couldn’t just write “A clone of Danielle, please”, I had to think about what makes for a great front-end developer who uses their experience wisely. But I didn’t want to create a list of requirements, and I certainly didn’t want to create a list of specific technologies.

My first instinct was to look at other job ads and take my cue from them. But, let’s face it, most job ads are badly written, and prone to turning into laundry lists. So I decided to just write like I normally would. You know, like a human.

Here’s what I wrote. I hope it’s okay. I don’t really have much to compare it to, other than what I don’t want it to be.

Have a read of it and see what you think. And if you’re an experienced front-end developer who’d like to work by the seaside, you should apply for the role.

Midweight Design Engineer | Clearleft

Want to work with me? If so, come and be a design engineer at Clearleft!

What’s a design engineer? A front-end developer at the front of the front end who values accessibility, performance, and progressive enhancement.

We’re looking for a design-friendly front-end developer with demonstrable skills in pattern-based prototyping and production to join our friendly and supportive team in the heart of Brighton.

Even if this isn’t for you, please spread the word …especially to potential candidates who aren’t mediocre middle-aged white dudes (I’ve already got that demographic covered).

I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering • Robin Rendle

A good ol’ rant from Robin.

HTML and CSS and JavaScript have always been looked down upon by many engineers for their quirks. When they see a confusing and haphazardly implemented API across browsers (HTML/CSS/JS), I see a swarming, writhing, and constantly improving interface that means we can read stuff that was written fifteen years ago and our browsers can still parse it.

Before jumping to conclusions, read the whole thing. Robin isn’t having a go at people who consider themselves full-stack developers; he’s having a go at the people who are only hiring back-end developers and expecting them to automatically be “full stack.”

The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development - The Frontside

This is relevant to my interests because I think I’m supposed to be a senior developer. Or maybe a technical director. I’m really not sure (job titles suck).

Anyway, I very much appreciate the idea that a technical leadership position isn’t just about technical skills, but also communication and connectedness.

When we boiled down what we’re looking for, we came away with 12 traits that divide pretty cleanly along those three areas of responsibility: technical capability, leadership, and community.

For someone like me with fairly mediocre technical capability, this is reassuring.

Now if I only I weren’t also mediocre in those other areas too…

Design Engineer / Front-end Developer | Clearleft

Are you a web dev that’s into progressive enhancement, accessibility, design systems, and all that good stuff?

You should come and work with me at Clearleft.