Leaving OpenWeb

tl;dr

After nearly 3 years at OpenWeb, I’m making the leap to join a fresh seed-stage startup as their Frontend Lead. New chapter, new challenges, and excited to build something from the ground up.

a lil’ backstory

Back in 2019, me thinking about what major to study, I only had one thing in mind: Computer Science. The hype around comp sci was really noticeable, and the fact that people were confined to their homes made many in my country realize it was the perfect time to pursue education. As a result, the number of people wanting to study Computer Science was enormous, which led to extremely competitive minimum qualifications.

Anyway, fast forward a bit—I got accepted to my university and began the journey. At first, I thought it was going to be difficult, but based on my high school experience, where I didn’t need to study much to get good grades, I figured that if I just put in some work at home besides attending lectures and recitations, I would be fine.

Oh boy, was I wrong! I ended up studying from morning till midnight, and my grades were still terrible. I even failed two courses in my first year. But I got back on my feet and refined my study approach, figuring out what worked for me and what didn’t, then just pushed forward. This was a major turning point for me, and I haven’t looked back since.

So, in my 3rd year, I got accepted to a student position (part-time) at a company I had never heard of - OpenWeb. I applied through LinkedIn, completed a home coding assignment, went through a technical on-site interview, manager’s interview, HR interview and bam! I got accepted! :) This was so thrilling because the dev job market had slowed down, and many of my friends were struggling to find positions. I was absolutely ecstatic.

We were a team of 5 students—3 frontend and 2 backend developers. I worked incredibly hard because I told myself that if only one student would continue to a full-time position at this company, it had to be me. I did everything I could to be that person. Eventually, 3 of us moved on to full-time positions: 2 frontend developers and 1 backend developer.

It has been approximately two years since that day, and this journey has been both extensive and rewarding. OpenWeb provided me with the opportunity to evolve rapidly as an engineer due to three crucial factors: an advanced tech stack, complex architecture, and significant scale. These elements were instrumental in allowing me to gain experience that many of my peers in the industry have not had access to. Many engineers at larger corporations are often assigned a narrow scope of responsibilities, which I believe can impede professional development and technical growth.

I had the privilege of working under a strong team lead who demonstrated significant confidence in my abilities. This leader entrusted me with tasks critical to the company’s operations, including establishing the frontend workflow and release process, developing a new internal platform to unify our entire suite of internal tools, evaluating and selecting new technologies, and undertaking responsibilities typically reserved for senior-level engineers. This level of trust enabled me to contribute meaningfully beyond my experience level.

For all these opportunities, I am deeply grateful. This experience has positioned me to advance to a new role as a core-team frontend engineer at a promising startup that recently completed its seed funding round. I am genuinely excited about this next chapter in my career and intend to write about in the near future. This week marks my departure from OpenWeb, but the company will always hold a significant place in my professional journey and personal development.

LFG.