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our-beginnings · 7 years ago

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Kristina Schneider, Front-end Developer & Designer

Hello! First thing’s first: tell us a bit about who you are, your background, and what you do now.

Hi! I’m Kristina, or Kriesse as most friends and the internet call me. I live in Berlin, Germany, where I work as a freelance designer who codes, or a frontend developer who designs, or sometimes both. When I’m not moving code or layouts around I’m teaching these things and organize a bunch of events, like CSSconf EU and upfront.ug.

What does your day-to-day look like?

I walk or bike to my office in Berlin Kreuzberg, where I work on an app called Cobot, a management software for coworking spaces and office hubs. I’m currently working on extending the design system and coordinating a large overhaul of the UI of the app – which means untangling 8+ year old CSS, and sitting down with my designer and frontend colleagues to discuss and identify patterns, and build out UI components.

Cobot is a bootstrapped business, which grew slowly and healthily and has developed a very open and supportive team culture. We make lots of room for learning and training, everyone is encouraged to pursue their goals. Just recently we went on a four day retreat dedicated to improving how we work as a team. The team only recently tripled in size, and the product team – developers and designers – are mostly women. That’s the opposite of all my previous jobs, and is simply fantastic. I love working with my coworkers.

The team only recently tripled in size, and the product team – developers and designers – are mostly women.

Is this what you expected to be doing when you were a kid?

Absolutely not! I wavered between graphic design and architecture. I didn’t have an understanding of either of these professions, but I always liked painting and drawing, and as a kid, I sketched these super-detailed, fantasy-cave-like homes with cool features like swings and slides instead of stairs. But I also liked math and history and art and reading, and had a lot of conflicting ideas of what I’d do towards the end of my time in school. I half-heartedly started to create a portfolio to apply for a design program, but eventually ended up studying something quite different.

What was that?

I had lost confidence in the design/architecture idea. Writing and reading had become more important to me. I enrolled for a major in Communication Science, with Art History and German Language and Literature as minors. I pretty much picked what sounded most fascinating and most relevant to my skills, without knowing where it would lead me. I fell in love with it.

That’s definitely not front-end development. If you think back, which single moment made you fall in love with tech?

I remember that quite clearly. Between my last year in school and starting university, I had a few idle weeks. I'd just gotten my first own computer, a heavy noisy notebook that came with an AOL CD, promising internet access. I figured out how to set up this internet thing and get unlimited access to forums and ICQ and Napster and the WWW.

Then, a friend came over one afternoon and proudly mentioned that he was building a website, which fascinated me. Until then, websites were pretty magical things built by... super-professional grownups, maybe? With special equipment, in large offices? Definitely not by people like my friend, or me. I didn't quite believe him, so he opened up a text editor on my computer, typed a few words, saved the document as index.html, and then opened it up in a browser. I couldn't believe that he just put something on the internet, just like that! We then started to mess around with the page, adding some markup, followed by colors.

Until then, websites were pretty magical things built by... super-professional grownups, maybe?

I was completely hooked. I always loved to create and write and style things, and this new super-fascinating outlet came with the prospect of feedback, communication— connection. But it didn’t occur to me yet that this “something with computers” I enjoyed was a career option, so I continued with my studies.

What path did your career take after that?

After graduation, I landed a trainee position as PR person for a large contemporary art exhibition. I loved working with artists and curators, but I found myself helping often with small print design tasks or website maintenance. I was working with the designers and the "IT Team" quite a lot.

Unfortunately, though, I also got to know the art world's long work hours, miserable salaries, rough competitiveness, and nepotism. A change was needed.

During my student years, I’d earned some money working as "webmaster" for my institute, building tiny websites for small businesses or designing flyers for local clubs. I missed the freedom and joy of just building and designing little projects and being my own boss. So I decided to give myself one year to build a freelance web design business.

My first large client job was in Berlin for an artist that one of my previous colleagues now was working for, Berlin was where I wanted to be anyway, so I moved there. And after a year, I wasn’t broke! I started working from coworking spaces – that just started being a thing in Berlin back then – where I met people who would refer me to new clients. One project followed the other, and soon I had gathered a solid client base, and was busy networking and learning and growing my tiny business in Berlin. I also started to do remote work for some clients on the US west coast, and one of them made me an offer to work full-time for them in San Francisco.

I was very hesitant to leave the life and work that I had just built in Berlin, but I agreed, because I was also super-curious to see what living and working in SF is actually like. I thought I’d only be there a few months, but I ended up staying almost four years.

That’s a huge step! How did you settle in?

The first few weeks were packed with paperwork, finding a place to stay, figuring out the commute, meeting new people, working long hours in the office – so I didn’t have much time to get homesick. What took me a while to be comfortable in were the little interactions and social rules: I had to get the hang of ordering a burrito without holding up the line forever. I had to accept that people start to eat before everyone’s order has arrived, and without saying “Guten Appetit”. I learned that double-dipping is a thing. Being comfortable in the language and not feeling awkward when ordering a coffee or buying a bus ticket took me while.

Living and working in the Bay Area taught me a lot about my work and the tech industry, and how it compares in the two cultures. The pace is so different: In Germany, I was used to working efficiently, spending as little time in the office as possible. Social life happens after work, not during. In San Francisco, I often arrived in the office when it was still dark outside and left late at night. I felt a much stronger (though subtle) pressure to make work your life, to socialize with colleagues and their families. Taking vacation other than a few extra days around the holidays was unusual. Even after big life events like becoming a parent or getting married people would be back at their desk the next day.

I was used to working efficiently, spending as little time in the office as possible. Social life happens after work, not during. In San Francisco, I often arrived in the office when it was still dark outside and left late at night.

After four years, I decided to return to Berlin. I did fall in love with California, though, and haven’t been able to feel 100% at home again in Berlin since. Being abroad definitely built up my ability to get along anywhere; I’m still escaping regularly and trying to find jobs that allow for travel. San Francisco also taught me that Berlin is the city where I can make the most meaningful contribution, where my network and the local community are really cool and unique and I can make an impact by organising cool stuff, and balance them in a way that feels good.

You organise a number of events. How'd you get started doing that?

Before going abroad, I worked mostly with Ruby and PHP developers, who all had places where they hung out, exchanged ideas, made friends and found jobs and clients.

I really really wanted a place like that for myself, to meet other designer/frontend developers like me. But back then (ca. 2010) there was no meetup like that in Berlin. So I started upfront.ug, a monthly talk evening in Berlin for designers and frontend devs. It's now been running for seven years, and we’ve put it on more than 75 times.

I was also involved with Open Tech School and started volunteering with JSConf EU. The tech community in Berlin is very active and has a strong ethos of DIY, free education, and mutual support. I got involved left and right, learned a lot about volunteering, team work, how to find venues, sponsors … and loved it.

San Francisco put that on hold for a while, but also introduced me to Nicole Sullivan. She was one of the first women I saw giving a talk at a tech conference, and her writing and speaking about frontend development topics had motivated and encouraged me for years! She also came up with the first conference about nothing but CSS: CSSconf US. This was novel at the time; there’s many CSS-focused events now, but just a few years ago people were actually wondering how one could talk an entire day about CSS. We became friends, and over some drinks, she asked me if I wanted to bring CSSconf to Europe. Of course I did! And from all the years helping with JSconf EU and other events in Berlin, I had the network and support to make that happen.

This was novel at the time; there’s many CSS-focused events now, but just a few years ago people were actually wondering how one could talk an entire day about CSS.

The very first CSSconf EU was the hardest and scariest thing I’ve organized, but seeing all these people come together made it worthwhile. We’ve run it four times now, and it still feels new.

Do you ever feel pressure to be a mentor or a role model for the underrepresented in tech?

Any opportunity to directly mentor or sponsor someone is actually really rewarding, and doesn’t feel like work or something that I’m pressed to do. Ongoing volunteer work is different: organizing events, workshops, and conferences can get overwhelming. Over the past few years I’ve become very conscious knowing when I need to step back and take care of myself.

That isn’t always possible, though, and that’s where I feel pressure. I can’t easily drop out of organizing a conference once it’s rolling, or look away if an attendee or volunteer needs help. I can’t stop caring when something goes against my values and goals. If I want meetups that don’t feature white male speakers only, or a safe learning group, or get rid of offensive language at my workplace, I have to fix it myself.

People from underrepresented groups are expected to fix issues of diversity and inequality, and I think that’s unfair and is a problem.

Behind the scenes, it’s usually the people from underrepresented groups who speak up, build cases and fight for more inclusivity, and then put in the work to implement it. They educate and lobby, publicise, network, and suffer the abuse, but don’t get credit for that hard work.

People from underrepresented groups are expected to fix issues of diversity and inequality, and I think that’s unfair and is a problem. Our community needs to figure out ways to share that work more fairly, and recognize and reward the work that is done by people from marginalized groups.

If you could do everything all over again, do you think your journey would be the same? Would you want it to be? What would you change?

I hope it would be the same! I can’t say I regret anything. I'm grateful for the various fields and work situations and cultures I got to experience and think it’s exactly what makes me fit to do my current job and community work. The only thing I wish I had access to earlier is a mentor, someone to ask for help and advice when I need it. This is especially true when it came to negotiating and leaving unhealthy work relationships; I wish I’d had a more experienced mentor tell me to be tougher and less naive.

I'm grateful for the various fields and work situations and cultures I got to experience and think it’s exactly what makes me fit to do my current job and community work.

Is there anything about the internet or technology that you remember from your childhood/early years that makes you feel nostalgic?

Oh yeah– Napster. Before it, I used to wait in front of the radio, cassette ready, with the finger on the record button, waiting for a favorite song to come on. I saved my allowance to buy a record or CD, and would listen over and over to the thirteen or so songs on it. I learned the lyrics by heart, translated them word by word, and gathered every bit of information from MTV about my favorite artists.

Napster changed that, but was similarly fascinating, because you still had to wait half a day for one song to download. Obviously, the way I consume music has completely changed since and I definitely don’t want to go back to cassettes! But when I remember CDs and cassettes and loving music so much and investing many hours to craft precious little mixtapes for friends— I feel nostalgic about that.

How do you see the next five to ten years? What are you most excited about, or most afraid of?

I’m more and more interested in making people work together well in teams, and I'm trying to find projects where I can work on building and growing teams – but also stay involved in code and design and shaping the product.

I give workshops more often, and have been a guest lecturer at the University of Applied Science in Salzburg for a while now. They have a MBA programme for web development – one of the first in Europe, organized by Brigitte Jellinek. She approached me to teach a CSS deep-dive class, which is challenging but very rewarding. So that’s another direction I want to pursue. Managing teams and teaching students is fun and fascinating when it works, but not really within my comfort zone yet, which is sitting in front of the computer, happily coding along by myself.

I'm still learning a lot about dealing with responsibility for more than just myself, how to work with teams and stand in front of a class room. So I hope to be much better and more comfortable with that in five or ten years.

Thank you very much, Kriesse, for your time, perseverance, and thoughtful responses— and for inviting me to Upfront! :)

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