project_log: 033

Yo.

When I started my development job a few years ago, I felt like a bit of an outsider.

The team I was working with cared very detailedly about technical performance but lacked any thought into overall aesthetic, taste, and feel of the end result. We'd build ecommerce stores that were technically sound but felt a little repetitive and boring.

Sure, part of this came down to industry. Ecommerce is very focused on conversion. But I'd get annoyed at tasks working on visually unappealing builds because I simply thought they didn’t look good. I questioned whether development was right for me in the first few months. Not because I wasn't capable but it felt like I didn't quite fit in with the typical stigma of developers. My team was obsessed with code. I was obsessed with making things feel good. I'd find myself gravitating towards the designers in the team and had more conversations with them.

It wasn't until I eventually quit that job, that I realised this outsider feeling wasn't something to shy away from. It was something that positioned me differently to a lot of my pairs. I'm only now realising that being able to see things from both sides (development and design) is a super power. It's something to lean into, rather than shut down. It's also the part of this industry that excites me the most.

I bring this story up because of a brief conversation I had with a friend of mine who runs an agency. He shared that he'd spoken to another agency founder about hiring design engineers vs typical developers. The difference here was that the design engineer was able to elevate the vision of a project and build it vs just build it. It was so enticing that it made him reach out to every design engineer in Vancouver (all three of them) to get them on board.

When he told me this, I had a bit of a light bulb moment. The way he was describing what this role did felt very aligned with the work I currently do. I work closely with design teams to literally elevate the vision of the project through execution. That's my job today. And then he mentioned he could only find 3 of them in his area. This suggests a shortage of supply. Which makes the business side of my brain tick.

The conversation that changes everything

I always seem to have these sudden realisations after a single message. It's telling me that more of my time needs to be spent engaging with people like this because that's where ideas are born.

That conversation lasted maybe 10 minutes. But it completely shifted how I see my business. Instead of thinking of myself as "a developer who works with design teams," I now position myself as "a design engineer who bridges the gap between creative vision and technical execution."

Same skills. Same service. Completely different positioning.

These aren't formal meetings or structured interviews. They're just regular conversations with people doing interesting shit. But they're consistently the moments where I get the biggest insights about my business.

Why I want to talk to more people (and why you should too)

I'm convinced that having more conversations is the highest-leverage thing I can do for my business right now. Not posting more content, not building more features, not optimising my website for the 47th time.

Just talking to people.

Here's my plan: I want to have at least one conversation per week with someone who's building something interesting. Could be an agency owner, a product manager at a startup, a freelancer who's crushing it, or someone running a side project that's taken off. Just a few slack messages exchanged or digital coffee.

I'm not trying to sell them anything. I'm not trying to extract value. I just want to understand what they're working on, what's challenging them, and where they see opportunities.

Because apparently, these random conversations are where the gold is hidden.

I'm going all in on design engineering because it positions me exactly where I want to be: indispensable to creative teams who want to build exceptional experiences.

And I'm going to keep having more conversations because apparently that's where the next breakthrough is waiting.

If you're doing something interesting and want to chat, hit reply.

Talk soon. Will

P.S. This log was a day late. I was sick as a dog yesterday and couldn’t edit. Onwards friends.