Getting things done – The Front End Developer

In parting, Marcus provides an insight into our large IT world
Marcus has shaped the digital face of Spreadshirt in a crucial way. T-shirt designing has been aided by IT specialists for years, and Spreadshirt is now looking for a new Front End Developer to fill the position vacated by Marcus. Sara of our HR team sheds light on what it takes in a farewell interview with Marcus.

Hi Marcus! What does a Senior Front End Developer do at Spreadshirt?
I’m responsible for the create-your-own area as well as for the checkout area. Create-your-own is mostly all about our T-Shirt Designer. My colleague Tony and I then built the first version in HTML, and it has been further maintained and expanded since then. As far as the checkout is concerned, we have developed and conventionalized everything from the front end to the actual payment process.

The ‘new’ T-Shirt Designer has evolved from a personal project initiated by Tony and yourself. What’s the story behind it?
It actually all started with the circumstance that we have our own MVC Front End JavaScript framework in place, and we were looking for areas of application for it. Spreadshirt’s T-Shirt Designer was a predestined target as there was only a flash version in place at the time. We needed a solution for the iPad and iOS devices, and – seeing that we got more traffic from mobile devices which of course don’t support flash – we played around with our own framework and came up with a very basic version of the first Designer. The whole thing has then developed bit by bit ever since. The initial result was a port of a flash-operated T-Shirt Designer catered to HTML. Spreadshirt has seen the potential, turned it into a project, and in doing so developed the ‘new’ T-Shirt Designer three years ago. For us it was a perfect combination of hobby and job, so to speak.

How do you imagine this JavaScript MVC framework to work?
The framework is called rAppid.js. It’s an acronym that blends the terms ‘rapid’ (as it’s designed to develop quickly) and ‘app’ (for application). Back then I did some side projects and began to experiment with different frameworks. None of these were completely convincing, which is why I then casually developed something else. When Tony wanted to build an online store in 2012, I simply showed him what I had developed by then and he liked it. So we teamed up in 2012 and developed rAppid.js. Core of the framework is a component-based operation. It has several modules, which can be redesigned and reused again. From a pool of components, you just put together the elements you need for your application so you don’t always need to program the same stuff over again.

In which programming language do you feel most at home?
That’s quite an easy answer: JavaScript. It’s very flexible and you can quickly try out something new as it runs in the browser, meaning you don’t have to transform it into machine-readable code. It’s also quite clean and structured, which is a bonus for programming.

Your team – what makes it so special?
Our motto is: “Getting things done”. We focus on what really needs to get done in order to solve problems as efficiently as possible. Projects that we got off the ground together – such as the T-Shirt Designer, the new checkout or various internal tools – needed a rather pragmatic approach. There is a team meeting once a week in which we discuss what we did last week and what’s coming up in the week to come. And we always run several sprints parallel in which tasks are coordinated and we reconcile affairs. Basic planning happens in this weekly meeting. Otherwise, we rely on direct communication to solve problems and try to keep the number of meetings to a minimum so that anyone can focus on their tasks.

How many people does your team have?
Our team consists of two Front End Developers (Tony and myself), an API Developer (Nils), two QA girls (Adriana and Olga), our BA students (Jonas) and then of course a Product Owner (Ruzanna), who takes care of the Jira tickets to ensure that we all have something to do. She also communicates what comes from other departments so that we can concentrate on our tasks at hand.

If you could give your teammates nicknames, what would that be?
Ruzanna is the Gangsta Mama of the team with a slight tendency for strong language. Tony is the Omniscient Coding Machine. Nils can be aptly described as the Nice API Guy, Adriana we call The Operator and Olga is our Bug Spy. Oh yes, and Jonas (the apprentice) is our talented young Padawan.

You’ve been at Spreadshirt for almost 5 years. Why are you leaving, and what would like your successor to know?
The coffee was crap. *giggles* It’s just important for me now to accept a different challenge at a start-up company, thereby building a platform for their business and info-graphics. My successor? He or she can definitely look forward to work with interesting and easy-going people. At Spreadshirt, you can generally learn a lot and gain experience. The atmosphere at work is great, and you are afforded with an opportunity to develop in a way you think is good for you and the company.

Give us an exclusive insight into what’s looming for the new Front End Developer – anything exciting?
The team has big plans for the near future. The focus is increasingly put on the create-your-own sector (the T-Shirt Designer), so this needs redeveloping. The version that we currently have online was initially designed for tablet computers and then just adopted for other devices, also for desktop and mobile. So the T-Shirt Designer needs to be optimized for both desktop and mobile devices. New features like gadgets incl. text, fonts or more image filters will be installed in future. There’s definitely a lot of exciting developmental work in progress.

Your parting words to your fellow Spreadsters?
Keep up the special atmosphere! I love it here and am leaving with a tear in my eye…

Thank you for the interview, Marcus, and have a great new start!

Are you interested in the job? You’ll find more info in our job advert here.