Hi, I'm Stefan, a full-stack web developer.

TL;DR - I'm a web developer with more than a decade of experience, I love to build projects, break them and learn from the process. I'll share on this blog some of the most important learnings.

I built the first website back in '98 but started to do it for a living in 2006.

I studied architecture, dabbled with 3d modeling, worked as a graphic designer, then as a web designer.

I can say I have a sharp eye for detail and I occasionally piss off my designer colleagues.

So, I'm a self-taught web developer with some design skills and no CS degree.

My web developer journey started when the web designer in me got kind of bored and wanted more control ...

2006

• built the first PHP site, using Smarty templates

2007

• proposed & developed a custom e-commerce system for my employer (a car parts distributor)
• built & launched a local students community on Joomla - my first side-project

2008

• the WordPress & jQuery era, some OSCommerce

2009

• got obsessed with learning MySQL and writing optimized queries

2010

• developed a few commercial WordPress themes
• learned MVC & OOP, started using CakePHP
• launched a local marketplace Crafty - my first SaaS
• left my full-time job

2011

• focused on frontend development, learned vanilla JS (I only knew jQuery), CSS preprocessors, started working with LESS
• launched Debugle - personal project

2011 - 2017

• worked as an independent full-stack dev contractor for web agencies, built various SaaS products or websites, some for Fortune 500 companies
• joined the project I currently work as Head of Development
• launched a bunch of side-projects, killed'em all

2018

• launched another side-project sift.email (Laravel)
• learned NodeJS & Serverless framework
• started to work with VueJS

2019 - now

• honed my NodeJS, AWS, Serverless skills
• caught up with tools & modern frontend development workflows
• DevOps, CI&CD
• launched a handful of side-projects such as DiffHub, Stratocart, POST2

I love to learn something new every day and I often get excited about the creative solutions I find on complex problems, but more often ashamed by the dumb solutions I find for the simplest things.

I started this blog to:

• share my most important learnings with you
• show that a senior dev still has things to learn and will check the docs for simplest things, and that's OK
• get decent at writing & improve my self-discipline (lack of consistency)

I'll publish a post on a dev-related topic every Tuesday until the end of 2021 (at least, hopefully).

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I have to admit I also have some no code problems, but won't blog about them.

I'm an outdoor freak (huh!), I enjoy hiking, cycling (sometimes I take myself too seriously), mushroom hunting, open-fire cooking, and DIY (mostly woodworking).