Job Title:
Co-founder
Place of Work:
CodePen
Industry or specialization:
I’m a web developer and designer who likes to build stuff that helps other web developers and designers be better at those things.
What got you into Web Design/Development/working on the web?
It’s fun! Looking back, I think it was the combination of whatever weird enjoyment I get out of computer nerdery and my desire to make things. In college, I started out toward a degree called “Management Computer Systems” and nearly completed it before I was like this is boring and switched to art. Art was not boring and felt much more fulfilling. Then after college I guess it felt like making websites was a satisfying combination of art and computer nerdery. No regrets.
What does a typical day or week look like for you? What sort of things do you do?
I’m fascinated by other people’s answers to this question. Like do people with bigger fancier jobs do bigger fancier things? Or does everyone do the same typical junk? I guess at some point someone else orders lunch.
I check and answer my emails. I try to make sure everyone on Team CodePen is doing well, knows what’s going on, and knows what’s next. I write code and do related tasks to make sure we’re pushing our CodePen projects forward. I write, sometimes public content like for our CodePen Spark newsletter or documentation, and sometimes internal documents. I help work on our social media presence. I’m in meetings or pair programming. I’m checking in on our finances or dealing with the mail. I’m wrangling sponsors. I’m helping on support. Small companies mean wearing a lot of hats. I’ve been wearing a lot of hats for a long time.
What types of web technologies do you work with most often (languages, frameworks, CMSs, however you want to answer this)?
I’m decently full stack these days, but I do still think of myself as at least front-end leaning. So plenty of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. But in our current code base, that expresses itself in various ways like Next.js, TypeScript templates and CSS modules with SCSS. Our main API is GraphQL with a Go backend and there is always a lot of work there. I’m also in and out of WordPress quite a bit as we’ve got tangential CodePen stuff in that, as well as my podcast ShopTalk Show and personal site.
What is your favorite thing about your job?
I like the freedom. I’m still accountable to my co-founder and employees, but I’ve got plenty of say in what we do and what I’m doing day to day. Plus I’m just into building websites. I think it’s cool and good. Shipping code and getting to write and talk about it is my favorite thing.
What do you wish you could change about your job?
Like most small companies, I wish us growth. I’d like to be a medium-sized company someday. I’ve done day to day coding for a long time and I know there are smarter and quicker coders out there, like everyone I work with for example. I think a path toward management and strategy would be nice, once we’re big enough that my fingers aren’t really that useful in day to day coding anymore.
Where do you see your section of the web development/design/etc industry going?
The web is the best platform. The web is a combination of languages and technologies that congeal into experiences for people. It’s not controlled by any one company. It’s not implemented in any one exact way. It’s available to everyone and every company that wants to use it. It’s by everyone for everyone. I really hope it preserves. There is always this danger that the companies that make operating systems cripple the web on purpose to push their own proprietary systems. I really hope that doesn’t happen and that governments protect it.
What technology and/or skill do you wish you learned before you entered the industry?
There is something very satisfying about full-stack development. Like if you actually trust yourself to do both the back-end and front-end of a project well, it really unlocks you doing big work. Part of me wishes I took back-end development more seriously early on. As far as before entering the industry, no big regrets there.
What are you looking to learn or what skill are you looking to build next?
Evolving a product toward success is a skill. I want to learn how to make the best choices I can make. I want to learn to be the best collaborator I can be. As far as tech, as I mentioned I’d really like to keep evolving my back-end skills or at least understandings.
What question should I have asked that I didn’t?
What’s that? What’s the best decision you can make as a front-end developer? Having a CodePen PRO account and keeping all your explorations, prototypes, demos, and ideas easily accessible for your entire career, duh.
What would you tell someone to do who’s looking to get into the industry? How should they best prepare themselves?
You know what: I don’t really know anymore. I think you’d have to talk to someone who does a lot more hiring than I do. I want to tell you that you should focus on the fundamentals and be a T-shaped developer and have solid soft skills and all that. But I don’t actually know if that works anymore, or ever did really. I suspect the answer is probably much more sad (to me). Like you need to learn how to play games with resume keywords, be hyper-focused on certain tech, and basically know React and Tailwind, not HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Anything else you’d like to tell future designers, developers and web people?
There are some constants in this world. People need to connect with each other. They need help getting to where they are going. They need help deciding things. They need to know how to do something they didn’t before. They need help remembering things. They want to be impressed or turned on. They want to feel good about themselves. The things we build as designers and developers can always focus on those things and find homes.
Is there a way people can get in contact with you to ask questions etc?
I keep a personal website at chriscoyier.net which is a good place to hear from me and get to other sites to connect with me that might work better for you. I’m on Mastodon and Bluesky and stuff and the links are there on my personal site.
Last Question: If you had to be a zombie and you had to eat someone’s brains, whose would it be and why?
I’d make tacos de sesos from some political pundits.