Career Spotlight: Principal Frontend Engineer
Gary Meehan joined Distilled SCH in 2016 as a Junior Frontend Developer for DoneDeal and has since progressed to Principal Frontend Engineer. We chatted to Gary about life, career, and the advice he would give people starting out on the same career path as him.
Tell us about your career before Distilled!
When I finished school I was not 100% sure what I wanted to do so decided not to go straight to college. At some point, I purchased a laptop and discovered Adobe Photoshop. I loved it, in particular the photo retouching side of things. I decided then to go to college and work towards becoming a photo retoucher. It was at college as part of my course I was exposed to coding and was instantly hooked.
After college I was looking to get a role in the South East. I found it difficult so to not be out of work I started working as a photo lab technician. I had just invested in all the equipment needed to set up a photo studio when I landed my first role as a web developer. This was for a company called Emagine in Waterford. I had an amazing time there and gained so much experience. The team around me taught me a lot. I have brought that knowledge forward with me to Distilled and still leverage it today.
Why did you choose Distilled at the time you joined?
DoneDeal was founded in Wexford so it was always a goal of mine to work there. Being an Irish company was a big plus. You also had the opportunity to be part of Adverts & Daft under Distilled SCH and this was also a massive draw.
Towards the end of my final year in college my team won a 24hr charity Hackathon. Distilled SCH were the main sponsors of that and one of the DoneDeal managers was a judge. We kept in touch and this ultimately led to me getting my first role at Distilled.
What was your first role in Distilled? How have you progressed since first joining the company?
My first role was as a Junior Frontend Engineer, from there I progressed through to a Mid-Level Frontend Engineer, Senior Frontend Engineer and most recently I was promoted to Principal Frontend Engineer.
I also had the opportunity and pleasure of being Frontend Technical Lead on the migration of Daft.ie to a new modern React Next.js site. This was a ground-up rewrite of the entire site. I would say you don’t get that opportunity too often in your career but we have now started the same process on DoneDeal which is exciting! To be able to work with cutting edge technology every day and have a great team around you is brilliant.
Within Distilled SCH we also have a Frontend Chapter of which I am the lead. The Chapter is where all frontend engineers from across the company meet once a week to discuss all things Frontend. Some of the recent meetings have included presentations from team members on: different methods of React animation, CLS web vital and how it actually works, an architectural view of our application and how one of our pages actually work.
Distilled SCH has given me every opportunity to grow and continues to do so today.
What would be your advice to graduates just starting out their career in this field?
Don’t forget the fundamentals. For Frontend, don’t dismiss the power of HTML and CSS. And although React is amazing and very powerful, don’t forget Javascript. These will stand the test of time and will last your career.
Once we are able to again, I think attending meet-ups are priceless. As a graduate or student you get to meet people in the industry and can talk to them directly. You can ask for advice. Ask what they are looking for in an engineer right now. You could land your first internship or job. And why not present something you are working on! Oh and you usually get free beer and pizza.
Don’t be afraid to fail, don’t be afraid to ask, don’t worry about it.
What is the best piece of advice that you’ve received that has helped you get to where you are today?
I have two things.
The first has guided me throughout college and my entire career. You will also always hear me talking about it.
KISS! This is an acronym for keep it simple, stupid. Anytime I have strayed from this principle I can safely say it could have gone better.
The second is don’t be afraid to fail. I have learnt more from failing than I ever have from succeeding.
