Hey, everyone, and welcome to Developer Tea. My name is Jonathan Cottrell, and today is the second part of my interview with Cap Watkins. If you missed the first part, make sure you jump back and listen to it before you listen to the second part. As I mentioned on the first episode, Cap is the VP of Design at BuzzFeed, and we talk all about different things related to collaboration between designers and developers. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed interviewing Cap. As always, all of the relevant links will be in the show notes, which you can find at spec.fm. I hope you enjoy the second part of my interview with Cap Watkins. There is something to be said for, like, how do we talk to each other, right? Like, we have to have some kind of shared vocabulary and allow people to be experts in what they're experts at, but how do we, you know, how can we get to the place where we're doing all of those things? How can we do those things with relatively small teams? I think that's the big problem, right, is the size of the team. Because when you have a marketing channel for, you know, a massive company has people who are dedicated to figuring out how to get conversion rates based on advertising, and they have it down to a science, you know? And that may be true for even teams of BuzzFeed's size. There are a lot of teams, like the team I'm on, we don't, we just don't have, we have a guy who is doing some marketing work. And marketing research and, you know, compiling analytics and trying to gain insights from it. But, you know, teams of that size, we all have to be aware of the things that marketing is aware of. Yeah, totally. And I actually feel bad that we lose that as we get bigger. I think that's sad. I mean, I don't know that there's an, I don't think there's an easy answer to that. But I think, like, as companies get bigger, what I... Yeah. What I've witnessed is, like, more specialization and more, again, like, it's not so much siloing. No one's trying to keep people out. It's just, it becomes impractical. Like, it becomes impractical to try to, like, communicate all of that stuff to everyone. I mean, when a company gets to a certain size, like, the entire company isn't moving together. It's actually not like that anymore. It's like, you know, we break it down. Individual teams. Right. And so now you have marketing broken down into smaller teams alongside product broken down into smaller teams, design, engineering, whatever. And maybe those things can stay in sync. I guess that's what I am trying to push on, like, with the product designers and, like, also coding and, like, trying to broaden instead of narrow. Because I get a lot of comments about, like, well, when are you just going to have visual designers? And when are you just going to have UX designers? And I'm like, hopefully never. You know, I really hope that, like, we can become more general, you know, and, like, just push this generalist thing even as we get bigger. But we'll stay tuned on how that works out for us. Yeah. And I think people demonize the word general a little bit too much. Oh, sure. Because that word assumes that you aren't becoming an expert at something, right? Like, it assumes that to be general, you can't be a specialist at the same time. Yeah. And I just, I don't think that's true. Yeah. I mean, I feel like the people that say that are the specialists. I mean, I really do. The ones who decided not to be generalists. I think so. I mean, the people that I talk to, they're like, well, you know. A designer who's a generalist isn't as good a visual designer as a visual designer. And I'm like, well, that's actually not my experience. You know, actually, the best designers, visual and otherwise, that I've met are, like, general product designers. And, like, everybody has different things they're really great at and things they're not as great at, right? I mean, like, I feel like I'm a pretty strong, like, front-end person and, like, pretty strong UX person. Visual design, I'm okay. Like, I'm okay. Not great. And that's okay, right? Like, the nice thing about generalists is, like, they fit together in similar ways to if you did hire a bunch of specialists. So, like, I am best paired with someone who is a very strong visual designer and, you know, also strong at one of the other things, too, right? Like, we, like, it's still extremely possible to be extremely good at things. I think you have more opportunity to be good, extremely good at more things if you're doing more things. So, you know, we'll see. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of a broad net kind of thing. And I think. I think the people who argue against the journalist concept is, or they're thinking, or maybe they're, part of their theory is that, you know, these things don't overlap, right? Or they don't feed each other. Like, to be a good developer, you know, to be the best developer, I need some kind of sense of design. I need some kind of sense of visual design, right? I need some kind of sense of user experience. And I don't think I can be a specialist developer without those things. Yeah. I mean, I've even seen. I was a UX. I was technically considered a UX designer. And we had a visual design team, which was separate from us. And, I mean, we sat together, but it was a different thing. And I would actually get kind of pushed back on if I delivered anything that remotely resembled something polished. Like, why? What's this to do? Well, that was just. This was the way it was. Whatever. Right? So, whatever. This is the way they've chosen to build their organization. I was, you know, I had no control over that. So, I let it go. Sure. Sure. Yeah. But the hard part was when. I would hand over my wireframes. Like, with a lot of UX stuff in it. With a lot of flows in it. With a lot of, like, very specific. I mean, even, like, touch target sizes. I was pretty. I needed to be pretty explicit. You wind up seeing these visual designs that, like, just, like, had nothing. Like, would just drop things like touch target sizing. And just drop out things like type size. Like, legible type size. And you're just going, like, what happened? You know? And it's not that they're bad visual designers. Right? It's actually not. True. What's true is, like, they have no idea. Because they weren't a part of the UX process. And they didn't come up with the UX alongside us. That, like, they have no idea why we made the decisions we made. Or what decisions are important. And when you are, like, throwing stuff over a wall. Or handing it off to someone else to take the next specialist step with it. Like, there's always. You're always going to lose stuff in that translation. Always. And it's going to be super painful. And you're going to spend a lot of time trying to explain it. And you may never get there. And you're going to wind up with something that's, like, not as good as it could be. Because neither of you. And you don't understand why they're making the decisions they're making either. Right? That's the thing. And it goes both ways. So, like, that person would make those decisions. And we would talk about them. And I would have no. I could not unpack, like, why those decisions got made. He was, like, this. He'd be, like, oh, well, it just looks really cool. And it's, like, great. Great. It's illegible. You know? It's, like, and we have this thing going back and forth. And, like, it would have been much easier if we'd been working on the exact same thing at the same time. And gone through the UX together. Gone through the visual design of it together. And, like, come out the other side. And even if one of us was stronger at one than the other. Like, maybe I take on, like, more of the heavy UX work. Because I'm better at that. But this person still contributes to the UX work. Right? So, at the end of the day, they're bought in, first of all. And they don't try to change it. And, like, then. You know what I mean? Because they've been a part of the process. And then, like, then I'm more satisfied with, like, I'll no matter what be more satisfied with the visual design. Because, like, this person will have taken into consideration everything that we've done so far. Because he's done it with us. And so, it's sort of collaboration stuff. And this same thing with development. And this is why we push transparency and collaboration. Designers and code. Developers and design. Because, like, at the end of the day, if everybody's bought in before you start building or designing a single thing. Everything is better. And everybody's much, much happier. And the product is, like, just, like, heads and tails better than it would have been. Yeah. I mean, people are not good at actually having good inputs into other processes. Right? So, like, what you said, I think, is right on point. That when you try to transfer that stuff over to something. To somebody else. There's going to be a lot that is missed. Right? Or maybe even totally ignored. Which is what you were saying about, like, the illegibility. It's not enough to do, you know, A through C. And then expect somebody to know where to pick up. And because basically what we have to do. This especially falls on developers a lot of the time. Because, you know, the typical process is, you know, in a lot of agencies. You know, we do, like, a discovery. We do a key thing where we figure out what it is that we're going to build. And then we design it. And then we execute the build. Right? And that's, there are, you can make that work. It's possible to make that work. The issues that arise happen when you go from discovery to design. And then from design to development. There's a lot of lossy, you know, like you're saying, translation between the two. Because it's like, well, you didn't think about the 404 page. Or you didn't think about this particular viewport size. Or, you know, whatever. And eventually you end up collaborating. Right? Either you end up collaborating. Or the developer does the designer's job. Or the designer does the discovery person's job. Whatever you want to call that person. Right. Content team. You know, that creates this situation where you have a little bit of animosity. Because it's like, you handed me something that I can't do. Right? Or you handed me something that isn't all the way thought out. And it doesn't become all the way. Thought out. Until launch. Right, right, right. And I think it's better for that to happen from the start. Right? Like, which is what you're saying. Is transparency from the beginning. Having people involved from the beginning. That is, you know, the thinking out process starts at the beginning. And you start answering those questions about legibility at the very beginning of the process. Yeah, I think it also helps. This is a really interesting thing. But I think it helps with retention. I think. If you're happy at the end of a thing you did. You know? If you believe. Right. Rather than resentful. Right. If you believe in the thing you just shipped. Or you just had to build. Or you just designed. You know? I mean, like, that's huge. Like, it's so huge. I think. I honestly think developers get the worst of this. Because it is like. They do get kind of thought of as like resources. And design is thrown over the wall at them. And that's like a huge bummer. I feel like. I just can't. I can't imagine what that's like. I mean, it sounds awful. I can tell you. It sounds really bad. I mean, I can't. I. You know. I've. I hope to have never done that so much. In my career. I'm sure I've done it at times. And I feel. I apologize if you're out there listening. That must be so. Crummy. You know? And then at the end. Even if you had. Even if you did push back as a developer. Even if you did like. Somehow get some of the changes that you thought were important. Like. You still don't feel good. You know? I mean. And neither did the person you just argued with. You know? Over the thing that they thought was complete. Right? And so. Like. I don't know. I just. The more that people. Again. We keep talking about this. Like. Smashing these things together. Like. Getting them closer. Like. Getting them earlier. Getting together earlier. Just feels like. It's. It's so easy to do. And it actually reduces the time it takes to do things. And. It leaves everybody. Like. Kind of pumped at the end. Which. Right. Which is never a bad thing. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And. And. There's nothing wrong with somebody having. You know. Like. Creative control for periods of that time. Right? Like. Sometimes. You know. Call it a cave or whatever. But you need to go into your space. And not be bothered for. Whatever. A couple hours. To iterate through something. You don't need somebody standing over your shoulder all the time. So I think there's a balance that has to be struck. Yeah. Yeah. But definitely. More collaboration. From where. The industry. At. In large. I guess. Currently is. Would be better. Absolutely. So. Switching gears entirely to this. This hiring conversation. Because there's so many people who listen to this show. And there's actually a lot of you. Who would. Be considered. A designer. At BuzzFeed. Right now. And Cap talks about this. On design details. And also. I think in a couple of blog posts. But. The designers. That Cap hires. Are. The typical unicorn. I hate. How much do you cringe. When you hear it. Cap. I'm not calling myself that. So I don't care what we call them. I'm just kidding. I. Now. Yeah. It doesn't. It doesn't bother me. I. I kind of. I think it's dumb. But it's not. Whatever. It's a designer. Who can. Who can do CSS. And. HTML. Right. Yeah. Totally. And also. Just for us. There are worse words. You could call somebody. Than a unicorn. I think. I mean. You know. It's true. You know. We can cringe all we want. But it's. It's kind of. It's kind of nice. Yeah. Yeah. I guess so. So. Well. We'll stick with it. Unicorn. Why not. Let's just be shameless. Unicorn. Roll low. As we would say at BuzzFeed. Hey. Why not. That. That is the kind of. You know. Designer. That. That BuzzFeed is. BuzzFeed is hiring. So. If you are a front end developer. And you're looking. For jobs. Don't close yourself off. To the possibility. Of being fit. For. A designer position. You may not see yourself that way. But that very well. Could be a great fit. For you. Without you even. Realizing it. Right. Totally. So. Tell me. What. What you. At. BuzzFeed. Are looking for. In that position. The young designer. The. The junior position. Sure. Maybe it's not young. But. Yeah. Just go ahead. Yeah. I'm. Yeah. That's a good question. I. So. I mentioned resilience earlier. I feel like it's a really big deal. Like a lot comes down to that. I think. Especially when you're. More. When you're like. Earlier in your career. I'll avoid the word younger as well. Like. Earlier in your career. Or. Been working alone for a long time. Like I did that for a long time. And I think. I thought. It's really funny. I. I worked at startups for. First five years of my career or so. And I really thought. That I was. Senior. Like after all that experience. I felt like I really. Got it. And. Sure. Then I went to Amazon. And realized. I was. So not. Started to work with other designers. For the first time. And you're just going like. Oh my God. These people are. So. So smart. And like. Have so much. Process that I'd never developed. Because I had been working alone. Yeah. So I think like for. You know. Folks that are. Kind of starting out in design. And stuff. What we're looking for is. Yeah. Resilience is really important. Being able to kind of like. You know. Push forward through things you don't know. Push. Push forward through things that. Aren't going so well. Because you don't know how to do them yet. Or because. You know. You do them poorly. That's. That has to be there. Curiosity is a huge deal. I was talking to a designer the other day. And I. I was asking. I was asking her like. You know. Well how do you. She works alone. I was like. Well how do you like. Get better at stuff. Like how do you. You know. What are you doing to like. Learn what you don't know. And she's like. I follow. She started like. Just listing all these. Like blogs she follows. And all these books she's read. That's awesome. Right. It's like. It's like this drive. And momentum that like. Even if she. Doesn't work at BuzzFeed. Or even if she. You know. Even if she doesn't work anywhere. With more designers. Like she's going to. Like she is pushing. Going to push herself. Into that place. Because she's curious. And she wants to know more. And she knows what she doesn't know. That feels really important. Well I wanted to ask you a question. About the. About the resilience. How do you actually. Like. As a. You know. Perspective designer. I guess. As a young designer. I keep on using the term. That's fine. As a beginner designer. How would I go about. You know. Expressing resilience. How do you. How can you. Evaluate that. I guess. Yeah. I mean. I ask a lot of questions. That are. That require examples. So. Like give an example. Of when you were resilient. Well I mean. I wouldn't ask you like that. Right. It would be. Give me an example. Of a time. That you disagreed. With your product manager. And like strongly disagreed. And then what happened. Right. Like. Yeah. And then they tell the story. Because everybody's got that story. Everyone. Right. And then you get to the end of it. And they're like. Yeah. And so. You know. We really disagreed. And I thought it should be this way. And they thought it should be this way. And we wound up doing this. This thing. And I was like. Well. Okay. Cool. So like. Talk more about. How you got there. Right. Like what happened. Like was the. What was the conversation like. Like. You know what I mean. Like how many times you go back and forth. Like did you feel okay. Did you feel good about the result. If so. Great. If not. Why not. And so it's just like. It's like peeling the onion a little bit. On people. Yeah. The other thing we do is. When we do bring people. People in. For an interview. And in the office. We do. As part of. That. Some white. Some like. Design whiteboarding. And. Typically what I try to do. Is you know. You give that. You give people something. You know. Vague enough. So they can kind of like. Start to play around with it. And then. Begin to add constraints. Or more things to do. Like as. It's happening. So. To see how people are able to pivot. And think. You know. So it's like. All right. So we've done this now. What would happen. If we learned. Like what would you do. If we like. Did this. Or did some research. And we learned. This. This thing. Right. That like. Sure. Like it. It has to work on. A screen reader. Sure. Right. Right. Or like it contradicts. Or what we've learned. Has contradicted what you've done here. Right. So like what. What would happen. Right. Or you know. Hey we just got a call from. The. You know. People that we're doing this with. And they actually said that they messed up. And that these are the new constraints. Right. Like. No one really ever like. Crumbles at this point. Right. But the ability to kind of like. Really easily pivot on that. And just be like. Okay. Great. Like you know what I mean. Okay fine. Yeah. Like it's just another iteration. At that point. Right. Because you know. You're looking in the. In that first question. And even in the. Whiteboarding thing. Like we're looking for folks. Who can like. Because they're going to be. Disagreements. Right. They're going to be hard conversations. With your team. With your team. And other teams. I want folks on. The team that can manage. And navigate. Those conversations. More than I think. I want folks who are like. Extremely polished designers. Yeah. I mean I think. I mean I think like. I could teach. Someone HTML and CSS. Right. Like if we paired somebody. With a really strong UX designer. They can learn UX design. And if they have. Some taste. Like which is. Usually pretty apparent. From the portfolio at all. Like they're going to get. Better visual design. Like those things are all like. Either teachable. Or pretty apparent. I think the hardest thing. In hiring. Is really finding folks. Even junior people. Who are able to like. Easily navigate conversations. Know what they don't know. Admit what they don't know. And then like. In the face of adversity. You know. Continue. Just to like. Yeah. Like what happens. Under the stress. Yeah. Because it is stressful. It's like. It can be really stressful. Sometimes. Those two things. That I ask those people. Are the same. Are the true for every level. Yeah. Hire for. And that was going to be. My next question. Is like. Once somebody is a junior designer. Because there's plenty of those. Listening to the show too. How can they. Feasibly. You know. Develop the skills. Necessary. To go from junior. To say. A managing designer. Yeah. I mean. It's. I mean. A lot of it's experience. Obviously. Years. The number of years. It's. Well. It's not number. It's. It's more like. What are the experiences you've had. And how have you handled those experiences. I mean. At that point. If you're at BuzzFeed. We've had first hand knowledge of that. You know. I mean. The entire time. Start to like. Identify strengths and weaknesses. Starting. You know. To help people. You know. Maximize their strengths. And kind of like. Put them in positions. Where their weaknesses don't matter so much. You know. If you're not great at front end development. Like. You're gonna. Actually working at BuzzFeed. You're gonna get better. Right. I mean. It's just like. It's just how it's gonna be. Right. Because. There's no escaping. That we're going to be doing that. So. You know. As long as you come in ready to go. Like. And learn some stuff. We're gonna do it. You know. If you're like. Not strong at UX. Like. We're probably gonna throw some stuff at you. That's UX stuff. And we're gonna pair you with people. Who are good at that. And you're gonna learn some things. I mean. Like. Typically. My experience is like. No one stays in the junior role. More than like a year. Like a year and a half. Maybe. Because that. That role is actually mostly about hard skills. And. We can. I mean. If we're not teaching you that fast enough. That's a problem for us. Not for. Not for the person. So. It's a learning. Position. Based on. Like a. Second level. Internship. Almost. I mean. Yeah. Kind of. And then like. The product design level. Is like. Once we get into like. Kind of like. Mid-level thing. It's. It starts to become more about. You know. Like a really like. Articulated process. That you can repeat. And get good results out of. Right. And then like. From senior and up. You start to see more of like. Soft skills emerge. Where. Even for non-managers. Like. Becoming a leader on the team. And being able to mentor other designers. And make other people around you better. Just because you're there. You know. Yeah. Is extremely important. And some of those folks. Are so good at that. And they like it so much. They become managers. Right. And then other folks. Yeah. Like. Really don't want to have one-on-ones. And deal with. You know. Balance sheets. Personal issues. And. Or even just like. The. You know. Stupid stuff like. Budgets. And like. Like. Some people just don't care about that. But they. Really enjoy. Like. Helping designers. Do better work. And they really enjoy doing the work. And like. That's great. And we're going to provide that path. Yeah. I mean. That's kind of how it happens. It's. It moves from like. Hard skills. To kind of like. Some hard and soft stuff. Around like. Process articulation. And then. Basically more and more. Into soft skills. As you like. Become. Better what you're doing. And eventually. You aren't designing at all. If you're the VP. Yeah. If that sounds great. Then. Yeah. Let's. Let's do that. You know. Climb. Climb on up. Right. Exactly. That's great. By the way. I really enjoyed the. The lie. That you tell new hires. I'm not going to. I'm not going to ruin the surprise. For anyone who's listening. Because I think. Well. First of all. Time constraints. At this point. But. Go and read it. I'm going to put it in the show notes. It's really one of. One of the better. Kind of. Especially for managers. Who are listening to this. And. If you are cultivating a team. And you're trying to cultivate. You know. New practices. Especially on your team. That's a really good read. I thought that was. It was clever. And. Really good. Thanks. Good insight. Thanks. So. Another. Shift. Sure. In terms of. Topic here. How much of. The CSS. Architecture. Are you. Are you. Personally. Actually. Responsible for. You know. That actually gets shipped. To the front end. Of BuzzFeed. In March of this year. I started to kind of play around. With. Writing a CSS framework. For BuzzFeed. It didn't have one at all. Before that. Not comprehensive. Okay. There was like. There was a lot of old. Code on the site. There were a couple front end developers. Like. Trying to refactor. Every single page. It was. It's just like. There was no framework. To build. That on top of. Started to play around with it. On a train. One day. Pinged one of the other designers. A senior designer. At BuzzFeed. Who's actually like. One of the strongest front ends. We have. And she and I. Started to kind of like. Toss this code back and forth. In a GitHub repo. Started adding to it. You know. Starting to figure out. What we need. Would need. What we wouldn't need. Kind of the approach. We wanted to take. And. Started to pull in. More people. As we started to realize. This might be really useful. And powerful. And so. By a couple months in. We had. I want to say. Two or three more designers. Contributing to it. And we had a regular meeting. Every week about it. To check in on it. And like. Assign cards and stuff. And starting to like. Actually make it a project. And then a couple front end developers. That were helping kind of. They were kind of advising. On the project. Because they were. These were the people. That were like. Actually trying to like. Refactor. Every template. And so. They were kind. They were obviously. Extremely interested. In what we were doing. That was in March. At this point. We've. Like. Released 1.0. Internally. It's being used in a. Like. A ton of internal projects. Like. Almost every internal project. Now is like. On this framework. We're technically at 1.0. Five. Right now. And I'm. We're developing dot six. Nice. Yeah. It feels good. And like. This week. We're going into production. Production with it. Just the CSS. Like. To make it available. So people. Working on projects. On the web app. Can use it. Like. The entire web app. Won't be like. Converted over anything. But. It won't look. It won't look any different. From what you said. It's really light. Right. Like. It's. You said. It was 8k. Yeah. It's 8 kilobytes. Gzipped. So basically. What we've done. Is like. If you're familiar. With like. Brent Jackson. And base CSS. We took that. Almost that exact concept. Actually. Brent worked. I hired Brent at Etsy. Very nice. It's funny. Which is actually. How I know about this at all. But. We took. All those concepts. And kind of like. Did. Our version of that. And the idea is. It's like atomic CSS. So essentially. We wrote. Rewrote. All of CSS. As class names. So. Float left. You know. As a class name. And. Display block. As a class name. And so. What you wind up with is. Not a lot of CSS. But you can basically. In HTML. Build and style anything. Which is pretty rad. Yeah. We've been building that. For the last. What are we now. Like. Is that like. Five months. Four months. I have probably contributed. At this point. Fifty percent. Or so. Of the code. Wow. Code and code deletions. I looked at my stats. The other day. And I've deleted. Twice as much code. As I've added. I feel pretty good about that. That's. That's the mark. Of a great development. The best code you write. Is the negative lines. That you put into your GitHub. Yeah. So I like. And actually. I spent. The last couple of weeks. We're starting to gear up. To like. Put the documentation online. And put the CSS online. For people. I'm not sure. If we're going to open source. Or not something. We've talked about. But there's a lot. Like of course. Like responsibility there. So we're trying to figure out. How we're going to handle that. If we're going to do it. But in lieu of like. The documentation going online. Like I was like. Okay. Well it's been cool internally. Because we all knew. What we meant. Yeah. Someone should rewrite this. And so. So I started to kind of. Go. I've gone through. Every single page. I've completely rewritten it. From scratch. Which is hilarious. Because I uncovered. A bunch of bugs. In the CSS. As a result. Of rewriting the documentation. In the process. Yeah exactly. Which is pretty magical. So go out and rewrite. Your documentation. You'll find a lot of stuff. So that's done. And now. We're just. Kind of doing some last minutes. I'm like doing some cleanup. On like our navigation system. For the documentation. And stuff. Do you guys use. Like a pre-processed. Pre-processed. Language. Yeah. So we're using Sass. Okay. Sass or SCSS. We're using SCSS files. But I think the. The syntax is Sass. I'm pretty sure. So is it. Well. So it's either the. Bracketed one. Or the one with the indents. Does. Does it. Does it look like regular CSS. Sort of. It can. I mean. We're writing like functions. And mixins. Obviously. And like. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Fewer and fewer people. Are writing. The Sass proper. In fact. There's a lot of people. That don't even use it at all. Or don't even know about it. It's. It's a totally different. Syntax. And it. It's not interoperable. With regular CSS. So you can't drop. You know. Right. Your CSS blocks. Into Sass. And expect it to work. Because. Because. White space. Is actually. Regarded. In Sass. Yeah. I've always been confused about that. Because like. Our front end developers. I've had this. Exact argument before. Or this discussion before. And like. And I go back. To BuzzFeed. And I'm like. You guys. We're like. We're using Sass. Right. And they're like. Yes. But we're actually. Those files still have CSS in them. And they're still SSS files. So I'm not really sure. What like. The distinction is. Because like. We're definitely using Sass syntax. Yeah. Well. And they have. Basically. It's the. The processor is the same. Right. So the output. Would be the same. It's just the input. Right. So like. The at syntax. And all those. Mix ins. And stuff that you use. That's the same stuff. As Sass proper. Or whatever. But you just add the brackets. So that white space. Is not the deal. You know. And you can also. You put back in. The semicolons. And colons. So you're. That's the way. You're separating your stuff. And in. In Sass. Like the. The white space. White space version. It's not that way. Right. Got it. It's kind of weird. I. I don't like Sass. Actually. Personally. The. The Sass proper. I. I loves SCSS now. I feel like that's the only way. To go. I don't really understand. How you would ever. Why you would ever. Do the other way. Yeah. I just feel like. That's a really great way. To learn something. That is not. A standard. Exactly. Yeah. You know what I mean. It's one of the things. That I respect about. Coffee script. By the way. I don't know if you're familiar. But you can write. That regular JavaScript. In a coffee script file. And it will work. So you can move. Like. One piece. At a time. Over. And change the syntax. To the more. Coffee script. Esk. Version. Of it. Right. And the same thing is true. For. For SCSS. Or you know. Whatever you want to call it. So yeah. Sass. Something. Yes. So yeah. We're using that. I mean like. We're using it. I feel like. Responsibly. I know people have mixed feelings. About this stuff. The way I. Think we've approached it. I don't know if anybody's ever. Articulated. This. They may all think I'm crazy. But like. The way I think we've approached it. Is more of like a. A way of just not repeating ourselves. We only. You know what I mean. We only would make. A function. Or a. Mixin. When we know. What the output is already. Because we've. Written it. And it's. And it's just like. Okay. Well this will be a pain. If we ever want to change it. Because we might. So let's like. Wrap this in a mixin. Because we know exactly. How much CSS it is. Because we've already written it. You know what I mean. It's like. We're not. We're not writing it blind. We're writing it like. Basically. After we. We write the vanilla CSS version. Most times. And then realize. That we can like. Kind of like. Wrap it up a little bit nicer. For ourselves. Make it look a little better. Yeah. And also just like. There have been so many. I mean. There have been a couple times. Actually. Where we've wanted to change. Like. A spacing variable. And wanted to. Change everywhere. Right. In the CSS. And so. Being able to change that. In one single place. Is like. So nice. And not trying to search. For the value. Because that value. Because we're all. It's all in rems. And so. Like that value. Could be on things. That are not spaces. You know. That are not spacing things. And so. So you have to look at. Every single one. Right. As opposed to being like. Oh. This space variable. Which we know. We haven't used on anything. That's not a spacing thing. Like. Is we could just change it. And it'll be fine. And then there are times. Where we don't use any variables. To declare the exact same value. Because the value. Is not the thing. That's important. Right. The value. Isn't the important thing. It's actually like. The context it's in. And so. We're using it that way. And I feel like. That's been actually. Really successful for us. And like. Again. Like hasn't led to a ton of code. But or anything. Which I feel pretty good about. Yeah. Definitely. So anyway. Yeah. So like. It's. I read about 50%. I think like. We've had. Five designers. Contributed to it. And. I mean. The vast. I mean. Like 98%. Of it's been written by designers. At this point. Which is pretty rad. Yeah. That's amazing. It's really cool. I don't think anybody. Saw that coming. So go in. And give all of your designers. A little. Badge. And find like a sticker. Or something. That says. Congratulations. You're now a front end developer. Yeah. It's been pretty interesting. Actually. One of the. So there was that one designer. Like I said. Who was like pretty proficient. Already. And then. There was another designer. Who. I might be wrong. But I don't think she. I don't think she had ever written. A line of CSS. Like maybe she'd done a little bit. But she had never like. Like done it in production. Never like. Done it to prototype. Nothing. She. She basically was coming from. Like. Essentially zero. And she. Has like. Turned into the biggest contributor. To this thing. Like she is such like. She's so deep in it. She knows how to write CSS. Really well now. She's like teaching other people. Like how to do this stuff. She's having opinions. On how to write. Like. You know. On code. Like pull requests. And stuff. It's been really magical. To see. That happen with folks. Who have worked on this project. Like who. Maybe didn't have that background. And then like. Through the project. Basically learned. How to do it. And became huge advocates for it. And now she's like. There are times. She's completely skipping. Even going into Sketch. Or Photoshop. Or Photoshop. So she can like. Because she's going to prototype. With this framework. That she helped build. Sure. You know. And it's like. It's really. I walked over to her desk. The other day. And I was like. Wait. What is this? What are you doing? And she's like. Oh. I'm. You know. I'm just writing the. You know. I'm writing this prototype. Whatever. And I was like. Oh my god. Because like. It's like. Never happened before. You know. It's like. It's so. So cool. It's really interesting. Because that stuff. Can translate. You can hand that off. To a developer. Especially with the framework. Right? Because what's really cool. Is like. If we prototype it. Even not in the actual code base. Although sometimes we're doing that. Like. Because this framework. Is class based. Like. And because the framework. Is already in the web app. All that has to happen. Essentially. Is the developer. Like. We give them the front end. The HTML. And they can like. Literally copy and paste it. And it will. And it will just look correct. And they don't have to deal with any CSS. There's no garbage. Like. At all. And so. It's actually pretty. Powerful. The developers. I've talked to. Who've used it so far. Are so grateful. To not have to do. That part anymore. They're like. I've been told that. A couple of times. They're like. I really am so glad. I get to do the fun part of my job. Which is like. Wire this thing up. Like. Make it work. To an API. And do the models. Yeah. They get to do all the fun stuff. That they like to do. And they're like. You know. I really always dreaded the CSS. Like. I didn't want to. It's not that I wasn't good at it. I just didn't want to do it. I didn't. Right. Yeah. I totally. Implementation details. Super get that. Right. I don't want to be responsible for writing. You know. Back in architecture. So. You know. We're even. We're square. Like. You know what I mean. And so. It's been pretty. Pretty. Pretty cool. To see that happen. Well. It's. That's interesting. You bring up. The back in architecture thing. Because I was going to say. We actually have. Experimented with this. At the company. That I work for. And. We have. We have designers. That will jump in. You know. Build out a WordPress project. Or something. And. Every once in a while. We realize. Oh. Wait a second. Like. We've thrown too much. At this particular person. That's good. Like. They. They can go up to a certain point. And then it's like. Full on stop. You know. And. And there's. There's no progress. After that point. Because. You know. That's totally out of their wheelhouse. They were never. You know. We didn't never. We didn't never even. Intend for them. To have to do those things. But. The. The project requirements. Had shifted enough. And we didn't. You know. We didn't plan. For the development. To be holding on to that project. At the time. It's a. Very interesting problem. To try to solve. I'd rather. But I'd rather be solving that. You know what I mean. Like. It's like. I'd rather solve those kinds of problems. Like. I'd rather. I'd rather. Hit a full stop. Because we tried too much. You know. Because like. We let people. Extend beyond themselves. And try things they've never tried before. You know what I mean. This just feels like. Such a much better problem. Than like. Oh. Well. This person's frustrated. Because they can't try things. You know what I mean. It's like. Yeah. Yeah. Sending 20 emails back and forth. Trying to figure out who's right. Yeah. I mean. Like. Actually. So. The residency thing. We have a. Someone on our product support team. Who wants to do residency with the ops team. And. I heard that today. And I was like. I don't even know what that means. Like. What does that mean? And. Like. They talked to the ops team. And. The folks on the team were like. Yeah. No. Totally. We'll like. We'll. Each of us will peel out. Peel off this much time. Each day. And like. We'll help this person. Do whatever they're going to do. It's kind of crazy. Kind of awesome. Like. That. Like. Where does that happen? Who does that? Sure. You know what I mean? I like. People. People again. Who feel safe in failing. Right. Well. And then you have like. It's not just that. Like. If. If we just put this person on that team. With zero support. Like. You could say that. You could say like. Yeah. Sure. Totally. You can do this team for six weeks. And then like. If the team didn't. Wasn't like. Generous. Right. With their time. And their expertise. Like. It would be a huge failure. And that person would probably still be really frustrated. Like. Who are going to be doing that properly. Yeah. Like. How can you just like. Increase the generosity of your team? Yeah. You know. It's a really hard problem. It's. It's very like. It's a very person to person thing. Yeah. Like. Do you ask that question up front. And be like. Hey. So. Are you a generous. That's a tough one. And it's. It's more cultural. I think. Than anything else. Like. It's like. Even if. You come from a place. Where. It wasn't like that. It is extremely possible to. You know. To create a culture. Where it is. It's just an infectious thing. You're right. That's like. It's just like. Oh. Wow. That happened. It happened. You're watching it happen to other people. And if we all celebrate that. Publicly. That it's happening. And how amazing. You'll do it too. You know what I mean? You'll be like. Wow. That is really cool. Right. Like. I mean. Like. Unless you have zero heart whatsoever. It's really cool. Like. Well. We. We tend to follow the things that our friends do. Right. Like. There was a stat that came out recently. That said. If. You. You have a much higher. It's some crazy number percentage chance. Of being obese. If your best friends are obese. Right. Like. And. And the flip flop is true. If. If your best friends are fit. Then you have a much higher chance of being. You know. Fit. And. That's a weird. Like. Reality. For the workplace. Is. If you act in certain ways. At the. At work. Especially if you're in a. Position of leadership. Right. Like. If I am. Being generous with my. Teammates. And. We. Show appreciation. To. The people who are. Who are. Who are leading. Or. Who are managing. Or whatever. Then they will. In turn. Show appreciation. To those around them. Very often. Yeah. I also think. I always feel bad. When we talk about that. As like a leadership thing. I think. Because like. I think what happens. With people think. It's a tactic. Or something. I know. I think like. It's. I think it can be discouraging. To folks who are not. In a management position. I think like. It's like. Oh. Well. I'm not in a management position. I'm on this team. In a company. That doesn't. Quite have that culture. I mean. There's people listening right now. Who are thinking this. Right. And they're like. Oh. And there's nothing I can do about it. Because like. They're saying. Like. Like. Of course. Like. Caps the VP of design. Like. Of course. He can like. Do whatever he wants. Right. Like. Of course. He can make that. However he wants it to be. Right. But like. The trick is. I think. Like. Leadership. It's not. It's not like. A role. There's no title. That says like. Sure. Leadership on it. Forget the whole. Culture of the whole organization. Forget that. Right. Like. If you're on a team. Of five people. It doesn't matter. If you're a junior designer. It doesn't matter. If you're. A middle of engineer. Or like. New. Or whatever. You can impact that change. Locally. You know. There's a. It can definitely happen. From a bottom up. In a bottom up way. Right. And I. I hate the term bottom up. It drives me crazy. But like. But like. Like. That's how these folks feel. Right. They feel like they're at the bottom. It can definitely happen. In a local level. There are some teams. That I've seen. Like. Companies I've worked at. Or whatever. They're just functioning better. You know. It's just like. Five people. That just together. Are just like. Crushing it. And doing so much good work. And everyone around them. Is just like. How the hell. Is that happening. The fact is. That like. The culture. In total. Obviously. Isn't that. Whatever that team is doing. Right. Because that's why. Everybody's asking themselves. Like. What the hell is this. But. Like. Because that happened locally. It's actually. Starting to impact. The teams around them. Because they're all asking themselves. Like. Any. Each other. Like. How is this possible. Like. What's. Like. They seem so happy. They seem to be pushing code so fast. Like. The work they're doing is so great. Like. What is happening. Is it a bunch of senior people? No. Right. Is it like. Like. What is happening in that team. That makes it so successful. Then. You will start to have emulation. Right. You'll start to have questions being asked. And like. These are good things. That can impact. It can wind up actually. Impacting the entire culture. Yeah. That's so true. I think it's hard. Because like. When you're in that position. You're like. Well. We. Like. I'm in this position. And I need to change the whole culture. And I can't do that. But like. You don't actually have to do that. Right. You can like. Really just focus on your relationships. Right. Like. How can you make. As a designer. How can you make the engineers feel really good. And like. Collaborative. And like. Broadened the process. As an engineer. How can you like. Teach the designer stuff. They don't know. About how the code works. Like. If you're a product person. How can you include everybody. In the product road mapping process. On your team. And then like. That's enough. Do you know. Like. That's enough. To really like. Yeah. Because it has. It has a cascading effect. Throughout the rest of. The people that they interact with. Well. And even if it doesn't. Like. At least you're on a team. That's awesome. You know. Like. Sure. You know. You wind up. Yeah. You wind up in a place. That like. Is better for you anyway. And like. And then. If coincidentally. Which I think it could. Like. Impact other people. Like. That's. Even more magical. Right. And that's really great. And so I don't like. I think people looking to like. Managers to like. Do this stuff. Are like. They're missing an opportunity. I think. And like. And if you wait. You're going to be waiting for a long time. Particularly in some cases. Right. Yeah. Screw that. Yeah. I mean. Our. Our brains don't respect. The. The boundaries. That are. Imposed by an organization. Necessarily. Like. We respond to. Personal interaction with people. And our brains. Perceive people as people. Right. Like. It doesn't matter. What your title is. Or where you sit. In an organizational structure. That thing was imposed. On. On you. So. When you're interacting with another person. You have just as much. Of. Of. Ability. To. I don't know. Impact that situation. As they do. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. It's. It's a powerful. Perspective. I think. And. And one that. Especially for those people. Who feel like they're stuck. In a really frustrating role. Or something like that. There are still things you can do. You're not powerless. Totally. By any means. In fact. Quite the opposite. Awesome. Well this is. This has been. Really good. I like. I do. I would like to ask. All of. The people who come on this show. A couple of questions. The first one is. If you could give. Every developer. 30 seconds worth. Of advice. What would you tell them. Geez. I know we haven't covered in two hours. What do you think. Just like. Forget ownership man. Like it's not. It's not worth it. You know. It's just like. The more you hold on. To. The thing that you think is yours. Like the. Like the worst. Like the worst. Thing you're going to make. You know. I think like. People. Like I think develop. Not just developers. But all of us. Like have a tendency. To really. Latch on. To the thing we're good at. And really try to protect it. Because we think that's the right thing to do. And it's a super reasonable thing to do. Like it makes a lot of sense. But. It's. Like. Counterintuitively. Not. The best thing to do. The more. Like. And we've talked a lot. This podcast. About like. You know. Designers advocating for design. With. Engineers. And with. Product folks. But. That. The same. Should be true. For engineers. Like. You're great at what you do. Like. Advocate for why it's great. And why other people should know more about it. You know. I mean. Like at Etsy. They did lunch and learns every week. About. Something. Sometimes design stuff. But most of the time. Very. Difficult engineering things. That they were working on. And designers. Went. It was like an open place. The email went out to everybody. Be an advocate for your. Expertise. And like. Share that with other people. That are not. Not in your expertise. I think it's like. It'll just give you more. Leeway. And appreciation. For. What you do. So. That's good. Yeah. I like to say. A lot of the time. That. You know. Most of the other. Practices. In. Our organization. Other than development. Is. At least. In a translucent. If not. A transparent box. Right. So like. I can sort of understand. What sales does. I can sort of understand. What. Designers are doing. You know. Development. Quite often. Seems. Like. They're in an opaque box. That's a little. A little black box. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And. And. There's some. Empowering aspects. Of that. There's a little bit of mystery. To it. You know. There's this perspective. That we're always. Hacking something. Or we're always. You know. Stealing people's passwords. Or. I don't know. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever people think. That developers do. But. I think it's. I think that's an interesting. Improper perspective. And. It is a powerful thing. To bring things. Out of that box. Right. It helps. Especially developers. To communicate. More effectively. With other people. Who. Previously. Didn't really know. What they were doing. Absolutely. That's. That's great. I think. So. Lunch and learns. Do. Do. That's so good. Do lunch and learns. So good. So. And. And. The second question. And this is. This can be. You know. Even a personal. Response. But. What is. One topic. Or. You know. Maybe one question. That you wish. More people would. Ask you. So you could talk about it. Oh. Do I. Really want that. Let's see. I don't really feel. That strongly. About. People asking me. The right questions. Because I feel like. Whatever they're asking me. Is the right thing. Sure. Maybe. Maybe topic though. Right. Like. Yes. I've never. Like. It's not so much. I wish people would ask me questions. I wish. That someone would talk about. Something. That. That I don't. That. That I feel nervous about. That I wish someone else would. Write a blog about. Or something. Which is. This challenge. That I'm having now. Which is managing managers. It's really interesting. Actually. Because. You know. When you manage designers. It's. I. It's not. I don't want to say it's easy. It's not easy. But like. It's easier. Because. There's an artifact. I think. And there are clear. Moments of achievement. Where. Someone. You know. Reached beyond themselves. And did something. They hadn't done before. And you can watch it happen. And like. You're in the room. When they lead a meeting. About their design work. Right. And that you can see them. Their demeanor change over time. And they become more confident. Or whatever. Right. Or not be as dismissive of questions. Or like. Concerns. Right. You can kind of like. You can watch these things happen. And coach it. And watch the change. Right. Like. And then like. It makes it really easy. To see what's going on. When you're managing managers. Like. Talk about a black box. Like. It's really. Really. Really hard. To know what's happening. Because. The artifact of that. Is. People. First of all. So that's a hard thing to unpack. The second thing is like. Where it's happening. Are places I'm not. So. In a one-on-one. I'm not there. Obviously. Right. Like. Me. It'd be two-on-one. So it's a one-on-one. And like. I'm not there. To see how that's going. Right. And like. I'm not going to drop in. That's crazy. And it wouldn't be the same. Right. Like. It wouldn't be the same. Or. In a meeting with their team. Or. In a critique with their team. Right. Like. I am not in those places. But that is where the work's happening. That this person is doing. Right. And this is where like. Things are going well. They're not going well. And then you can get general sense. For how things are going. Right. You can like. Talk to the designers and stuff. But. It's still unclear to me. How to help managers. Like. I hope I'm doing a good job. I think I'm doing an okay job. That is a hard problem to solve. And probably one that not many people. Have experience with. Right. I mean. Like. There's. I feel like there's a lot of people. Who have experience. But I don't know. That anybody's like. Writing about it. You know. Like. Yeah. Like. Yeah. Like. I couldn't speak to that right now. You know. I have like. Maybe a very limited amount of experience with that. But on a. Extremely micro. Scale. You know. We could sit here. And talk in hypotheticals. And you know. Psychological maxims. Or whatever. But. Ultimately. The experience is what. Is what. Would drive a writing. Session. Well. What's interesting is like the. For sure. And I can speak to this from experience. Like a lot of the job. Is communication. Is like. Strong communication. Clear communication. Good communication. And like. When you have a designer. And. Communication is really important for design too. And when. You're just hanging around. And you hear a designer. Have a conversation. About their work. With someone else. Like you can kind of like. You can be there. And like hear it. And then like. Talk to them about it later. Or I'd be like. Hey. That seemed frustrating. How'd that go? But you just can't. There's no mechanism for that. With. Managers. And I don't like. I. I don't know. This is my plea to anybody out there. Who knows anything about this. I really. Maybe it's you. Maybe you need to start writing. Yeah. I'm going to start probably writing about it. In some form fashion. But it'll be more of my like. I don't know what's going on. Writing. I'm like. It'll be non-authoritative. It'll be more like. Well. I think that's how the internet was built. Wasn't it? That is probably true. That's how most blogs are at least. I'm saying that I know something about this. But really. I just experienced it for the first time. Right. This will be me. Just like. Putting the crying emoji. Over and over and over. And every manager of managers. Will probably be like. Yep. That's exactly how I feel. It's right on. This guy knows a lot. This guy knows a lot about how it feels. He's right. Spot on. That's right. Oh. That's good stuff. Well. I appreciate you coming on the show. Oh. Totally. It was great. I'm very certain that the developers who are listening. Also appreciate it. I put my email address online. But if anybody. You know. Out there has more questions. Or like. You know. Wants to talk or whatever. Let me know. It's just. CWatkins. At gmail.com. There you go. And then. Of course. We'll include. Cap's blog. And anything we mentioned. In this very long. Episode of developer T. In the show. You made it this far. Jonathan's going to send you a. Some stickers. I think. Yeah. Sure. Why not. Yeah. If you. In fact. If you contact me. I will use. Some shipping startup. To send you. A handful of stickers. You use the promo code. I made it this far. I made it this far. Yeah. Just send me the promo code. In an email. That's right. Cool man. Well. Thanks a lot. Thanks Cap. I appreciate it. Totally. Totally. Thanks so much. For listening. To today's episode. My interview. With Cap Watkins. Again. Of course. This was the second part. So if you didn't hear. The first part. Make sure you jump back. And listen to that. As well. If you have questions. Or comments. That you would like. For me to address. On the show. Or even if you just. Want to talk to me. Directly. You can always email me. At developer T. At gmail.com. There's also. A slack community. That spec. FM. Has started. We have over. A thousand designers. And developers. In there. So there's always. Good conversation. Going. You can join. That slack community. By going to spec. FM. Slash slack. Of course. That link. Along with all the other links. From this episode. Can be found. In the show notes. At spec. FM. Thanks so much. For listening. To today's episode. Of developer T. And until next time. Enjoy your tea.