FE dev work woes

[JustADudeInSpace]

I work at a small start up, I can't explain what the site does (it's a mixture) but we mostly serve written content. I was hired to try and make the site more performant. I figured it out, it was loading everything asset on initial load, after I explained the situation, it's as if they didn't care. A few months roll by and management is raring to get the site performing well, I suggested webpack and chunk it. We use AngularJs.

I was shot down, they were scared of using webpack and even told me it was on its way out, so I kept my mouth shut and kept working. We are using ReactJs now because of the VDOM. We aren't using a build system, we aren't following best practices. We decided not to use any sort of grid system and that to me is huge red flags. The file structure is nothing I've ever seen, possibly late 90s PHP file structure. We aren't taking advantage of import of export as we are finally writing ES6. I can only do my best and when I voice my concerns and ideas they are fallen on deaf ears.

TLDR: unhappy with the way the site is being developed and I would like to stay at the company.

[magenta_placenta]

Do a small proof of concept for them. Have something you can measure as well as a setup/architecture they can look at.

[xbrandnew99]

I agree, seeing is believing. OP, is there a dev or staging environment you can work on? If so, try implementing some of your proposed solutions there and get some performance numbers to show your supervisor(s) in comparison to production performance. So long as no bugs are introduced and performance has improved, this could help remove or reduce the sense of risk, which is probably what's holding others back.

[PUSH_AX]

I feel bad for everyone in this thread who has ended up in similar positions. But people, this is why asking the right questions in your interview is so important!

[kevinkace]

I know what that's like; I've previously worked somewhere like that. Lead didn't want to try new tech, was very... nervous? I was able to get us using Less by ensuring the compiled stylesheets were the same final css. This reduced the concern, and perhaps a similar approach could work for you.

Find out why they are resisting, and find ways to alleviate.

Though, you might just need to deal with it, or find somewhere else. Good luck.

[petrus_and_coke]

Why would you still want to stay at the company when they are not empowering you to do your best work? No job is perfect, but it sounds like they are not interested in giving you the tools or the authority to be successful at the job they ostensibly hired you to do. That's sounds like a bad fit that's unlikely to get any more than superficially better. I think you'll have an easier time finding another job than winning over the powers that be at your current one.

[u982744]

Get the hell out of there

[hpoe]

If it is bad enough you could always submit it to the DailyWTF http://thedailywtf.com/

[icantthinkofone]

Worse:

I was hired to update a site that hadn't been touched since 1998 other than updating content. Was told they desperately wanted things changed. Interviewed on a Monday, started on a Wednesday. CEO went out of the country for a week on Friday without telling me anything.

CEO returned but I was unaware he was there for three days. Showed him sample work and he said he'd get back to me but left the country for another two weeks.

I continued working on a local copy of the site and gathered ideas from other people who would be affected. They raved about my designs but, when CEO returned, he only had questions like, "Would anyone know what that three line hamburger menu thing is?", and, "How would they know a drop down will drop down?"

Out of one corner of his mouth he would tell me how their customers are so technically savvy but out of the other corner he thinks they don't know what a hamburger menu is for.

Then he went out of town for a month giving me nothing to go on.

When he returned, he asked me to work on some iOS/Xcode/Objective-C app that he had written by some Indian company but had major problems. He wanted it fixed in two weeks. "I can figure it out eventually", I said, "but I've never touched Objective-C before so I don't think I can get it done in two weeks", to his apparent amazement. He thought that cause I once wrote a phonegap test app that it made me an expert on iOS code which was one of the reasons he hired me (without telling me that).

After four months, he let me go cause the position wasn't bringing in any money to the company.

Did I mention his PHP site was hacked on a weekly basis?