Hi Hiring Managers, Engineers, or People from Tailwind Labs!
I hope this pitch finds you well!
Introduction!
My name is Wyndham, a Software Engineer with 6 Years of Experience in Android Development, Backend, and lately for the web. And I'm going to try to pitch myself for the Design Engineer position at Tailwind Labs with this article.
To be very honest, I'm barely qualified for the position. But I'm going to try anyway and see whether my luck will guide me here or not.
Why You Need to Hire Me?
Passion? Deep Dive?
I'm incredibly passionate about learning new stuff, and making stuff from the things I just learn. This very blog where you read this pitch is an example of such.
I'm very proud of this very site that you read this pitch on, https://mwyndham.dev, for many reasons.
First, it's the first full project where I dove right into Frontend Dev and saw it to its "ends". Even more so because my day job does not involve Frontends, it's purely a passion project of mine.
I use many of the "first-time" techs here to reach the product that it is. You can see the full demo on the GitHub page here, but the gist of it is I'm using many seemingly haphazard techs to achieve the interactivity that it has, such as HTMX, Golang, Turso DB, Hyperscript, Tailwind, ESBuild, and many others.
And notably, I don't use Framework at all!
It has fancy features such as a WYSIWYG text editor with both rich text and markdown shortcut keybinding, real-time rendering to static files, Social Auth, 20+ Themes (with free Dark Mode!), and many others.
And of course, I made it from scratch.
Hell, from it, I managed to spin off a separate project which is also open source called gotes-mx which is a very simple template for Fullstack Golang Apps that has 31 Github stars and 4 forks.
Detail-oriented
I'm someone with very keen eyes on detail and I get hung over little intricacies that don't work well. I spent several weekends just so that the editor for this blog is good enough that I can write, draft, and publish my articles directly here. It's dogfooding at its finest.
I am also very meticulous about how the stuff I make looks. I remember how I was down to create various custom views and directly render via Canvas when working on the Native Android Apps that have custom interaction.
It also extends to this website. I'm very particular with design and this site has had many, many redesigns throughout its lifetime.
Someone that Proud of Their Work
I am also incredibly proud of what I have achieved in my current employment. My current company, Gravel Technology, has helped me to realize what I want to be as a Software Engineer by allowing me to grow out of my role as an Android Dev.
One of my crown achievements is my contribution to Gravel Dulur Apps, of which I contributed to almost all aspects from Android Dev to Backend even down to DB and Infra.
The app itself is a mix of Job Board + Salary Management & Disbursement + Attendance Tracker for Construction Workers in Indonesia, which poses a significant challenge in its features and design.
And feature-rich it is. It has some fancy functionality such as "Real-time" Location Tracking, Attendance Geofencing, Fraud Detection, Order Matching Algorithm (similar to Uber in concept), Automatic Money Disbursement, Loyalty System, and many others.
All of that works in a very low-resource environment, as many construction workers in my country live below the poverty line and most likely use outdated devices.
Why Applying for Tailwind Labs
There are many, many reasons. But primarily? I want to be remembered.
I'm coming from Indonesia, basically a 3rd world country. I'm effectively a nobody in a nobody land. At best, people know us as "Something something related to Bali" (okay, while I'm here, I want to elaborate that Bali is a Province in Indonesia, the country name is Indonesia and not Bali).
There is a thriving tech ecosystem here, just like any other growing economy out there. But I'm severely unsatisfied.
The reason is simple:
people here are easily satisfied with being mediocre
Most Software Engineering job here is the equivalent of Assembly Line worker who churns out codes to achieve nebulous values that are defined by the JIRA story point ticket.
Even before I dive into frontends, I always hear the name of Tailwind, and how it revolutionized the whole CSS business.
Its approach to utility-based class and the focus on Locality of Behavior is a breath of fresh air. It's intuitive, and it works. Tailwind is the missing piece for me when I for multiple times tried, and failed, to dive into frontend devs.
I want to be part of that, I want to know how the sauce is made, and I want my life to reach a point where I can proudly say "I'm part of the team that makes the web rocks!".
Why Not To Hire Me
I want to be candid for a second here. I'm barely qualified for the role. And there are many, many dealbreakers that I believe would be hard to swallow for any employer. Some of which as follows:
I don't live in the preferred time zone. I live in the Jakarta Time, around GMT+7.
I don't have formal Front End experience (But I do help with Front End stuff @ work).
I have not formally shipped any code in TypeScript.
I have very little knowledge of Web Accessibility. Though I do have a lot of it on the Native Android Dev side.
I don't have a Work VISA for either Canada or the US.
I don't have a CS degree, I'm fully self-taught.
But, if my pitch somewhat interests you, I can guarantee that I will do everything I can to fulfill the role given to me.
I can overcome the timezone difference with many things (relocation, pay cut, async, even power through the timezone difference by working at odd hours). I just want to be given the chance to finally make something meaningful for a change.
Final Words
That's all of the pitch that I can think of. I hope that something sticks with you all and that you find any of it interesting.
But if not, then will still hope for the best success possible for Tailwind Labs. I might want to at least get some rejection letter, or better yet specify what I'm lacking. But I will still be happy either way.
You guys deserve it and I'm proud to ever be part of the process, even if it's just a footnote in some ATS system somewhere.
Thank you!
Best Regards,
Wyndham