diconium’s Frontend Competence Center: Frontend Enthusiast’s Digitally Cozy Home
Introduction
There are two ways of seeing a developer while not being a developer yourself: either it’s someone who is busy hacking the mainframe of your local organic store or it’s someone blissfully wiping off tears of joy after spending hours on setting up a button element.
While the Frontend Developer does remain a mystery that shall not be uncovered, mostly since we are, in fact, stuck doing something on the aforementioned spectrum, there are some very unique shared experiences we all go through. Breaking a sweat over endless bugs, understanding the puzzle pieces that go together in the grand scheme of the project, debating which upcoming framework to delve into next — everything is highly relatable, which is why you will often find us giggling at obscure coding jokes about centering a div.
What is the FCC?
It is, however, without a doubt that frontend nowadays seeps into every aspect of our post-pandemic lives. Now, more than ever, we’re finding ourselves more and more reliant on conducting what was previously done in real life on the internet.
Digitization owes a vast majority to the world of web development, through which we grow more and more eager to find our favorite binge-worthy series, order some pizza, or have a late-night-early-morning shopping spree that we regret on the morning after.
But who are the architects, the engineers, and leaders behind those digital portals and where do they secretly gather?
The Frontend Competence Center (or the FCC, if you’re cool like us) is diconium’s virtual home to the above-mentioned industry insiders, that has been ever-expanding since its birth. Or, rather, it’s a “self-organized organism,” as Isa, one of FCC’s long-standing senior software engineers and technical leader, likes to refer to it.
“An umbrella under which frontend developers and others involved exchange knowledge.”
And, indeed, you will find no shortage of frontend knowledge in this home. With over 15 initiatives, a dedicated Tech Talk Meetup, Town Hall meeting, and a multitude of communication channels, FCC offers answers for everyone, regardless of their specialization or project setup.
As long as you carry three key ingredients with you wherever you go:
Care — being mindful about all users
Creativity — being courageous in frontend ventures
Collaboration — being impactful in sharing your knowledge
Plus, of course, general excitement for problem solving and the latest developments in the frontend universe.
FCC Initiatives
So, what content shines the brightest among the other? It’s hard to tell and, if you were to ask participants, you wouldn’t find one answer. “I would rather not single out individual initiatives,” says Chris, one of the frontend directors and resident mathematician, —“but the overall energy that is currently put into giving FCC substance and empowerment through setting up working models, facing challenges to be solved, and gaining knowledge and skill, is really impressive”.
“All of them [initiatives] are valuable,” — contemplates Silke, an expert frontend engineer, technical lead, strong proponent of making the web 100% accessible, and an avid fan of FCC’s — FEN mascot.
Long story short, it really depends.
For the frontend freshman, initiatives such as Lisbon’s new Juniors’ Academy may stand out the most or, for the bookworm, the Onboarding Modules. The latter consists of meticulously maintained documentation that gently welcomes newcomers with a variety of topics, ranging from HTML to Performance.
Venturing further down the FCC encyclopedia, one can find more advanced material in the Knowledge Exchange modules, containing much more extensive information on a myriad of topics.
This local Alexandrian library is, of course, not built by some miracle (although the effort put into it is nothing short of miraculous), but by the endless exchanges during FCC activity. This includes bi-weekly developer exchanges, guilds, our workshops and bootcamps, and our very own content creation machine — the Frontend Excellence Network or FEN (again, if cool).
Whether you’ve guessed it or not, this very text you’re reading is a product of our FEN blogging squad. While a certain myth about developers being hesitant to present exists, we are by no means lacking in our writing capabilities. Just take a look at:
or
Actually, since you’ve read this far, you’re probably a seasoned bookworm, so we’d also recommend:
- “A beginner’s guide to unit testing with Jest”
- and the “Getting friendly with” series on TypeScript
(*cough* make sure you follow our publication REWRITE-TECH *cough*)
Where is the FCC located?
Where is the point of convergence, you might ask, for all this frontend activity? Where is the FCC located? Well, it’s omnipresent. It’s online. It’s wherever the average FCCian feels most comfortable.
We do, however, gather in one place. And scheme, and plot. Twice every year during the FCC Town Hall and once every quarter, during the FCC Tech Talk Meetup. At this point in time, you might find yourself hovering over the “Join Meeting” button that opens the gates to a virtual meet-up full of dynamic and interactive content as well as a bunch of fresh updates on the latest technical and organizational developments in the local frontend community. Coupled with fun intermissions and quizzes on your favorite CSS selector, the two and a half hours pass by at lightning speed, leaving everyone with a bittersweet feeling, because the meeting is over, yet with eager anticipation of the next one that is probably already in the making.
Can I participate in the FCC?
Who are the participants, you might ask (and might we say, dear reader, your relentless curiosity is inspiring)? Well, let’s take a quick generic quiz to see if the FCC should be on your radar:
Question 1
Are you interested in frontend and/or are curious about what developers are up to when nobody’s looking?
If your answer is “yes”, then the FCC is definitely something to keep an eye on and, perhaps, one day join through diconium. Once the latter becomes your home, you will be more than welcome to our digital family!
Want to join our digital family? Take a look at our open jobs! 💜🚀 Jobs (Software Development) / All vacancies
Make no mistake: even though we’re a family, we’re by no means a homogeneous bunch. At the moment, the FCC is home to a diverse crowd of frontend developers, IT consultants, directors, experts, and external guests who come in to share snippets of their own personal journeys in the frontend world.
Since the FCC Tech Talk Meetup is kind of like our cookbook (see our key three ingredients above), we pride ourselves on the freshness of our ingredients and always makes sure that our recipes are up-to-date and cater to people of all tastes.
Looking back
Let’s temporarily step into a time machine and take some steps back to the birth of the FCC organism.
“We thought about building a community across all units, where we could teach frontend competencies, streamline people development, and have a common sense of what is necessary in regards to technology,” — Michael reminisces, FCC’s founding senior director.
“Back then we started with roundabout 24 to 25 developers and today we are over 150”.
And less than a decade later, the FCC has already become one of the most energetic centers that serves not only as an attractive virtual establishment, but also as an actual support system for those (and not limited to) terrified of deploying on a Friday afternoon.
No matter which project the frontend developer is part of, the sense of belonging is never lost, because the FCC community stands strong and solid in the middle.
“The idea was exactly that: <…> to bring locations together, to bind them, to have one large team and not just diconium Stuttgart, diconium Berlin, diconium Hamburg and so on,” — Falk, or “Fox”, our resident lawyer, passionately explains.
What’s next for the FCC?
To truly immerse yourself in FCC’s vision of the future, we highly recommend you checkout our video:
To say that the FCC has achieved its initial goal is to be redundant, but what is the outlook? What does the crystal ball tell us other than all the future seasons of shows you like right now are only going to get worse? How should the FCC look like in a few years?
“We are not only known internally, but also to the world, because of our conference speaker slots and blog posts!” enthusiastically envisions Flo, director and professional festival and camper van merger. “The FCC is visible as an individual institution outside of diconium, famous for its quality, flexibility and reliability,” — seconds Manuel, senior frontend engineer, TL, movie connoisseur and wrestling historian.
Agile, adaptive, yet supportive and digitally cozy, — FCC is a bright and energetic space to exchange knowledge with your peers and a place to call digital home and, as we know, there’s no place like digital home.
With that being said, we ask, nay, we encourage you to always keep (at least) one eye peeled for our latest developments, because you will never feel bored, while in the meantime, we, the developers, will return to centering our divs.
Want to join our digital family? Take a look at our open jobs! 💜🚀 Jobs (Software Development) / All vacancies
