I am a front-end developer. That is my main thing. JavaScript, TypeScript, component frameworks, state management, the DOM and all its quirks. I have spent years in this world and it is where I am most comfortable. If you need someone to build a reactive UI or argue about whether signals are better than virtual DOM diffing, I am your guy.
I am also a PHP developer. Have been for a long time. Back-end work, WordPress, Laravel, the lot. That is another core part of my toolkit that has served me well for years.
Almost two years ago I deactivated my LinkedIn. Not paused. Not lurking. Gone. I have not missed it for a single day.
I have never received a real opportunity through LinkedIn. The good work in my career has come through people who know me: former clients, colleagues, friends of friends. Conversations, coffee, shipping things together. In Australia especially, our circles are smaller than you think. Reputation travels faster than an algorithmic feed ever will.
I caught myself doing something embarrassing the other day. I hit a bug, sat there for all of about ten seconds, then alt-tabbed straight to Claude. Not because I was stuck. Because asking was easier than thinking. And the second I noticed it, I felt a bit ill.
ChatGPT and Claude are genuinely brilliant. They debug, they rubber-duck, they talk me out of bad ideas at 11pm. I’m not here to tell you to throw them in the bin. I use them every day and I’m not stopping.