So, I’m a front end developer here at We Are Empire and I’ve come across a few things that a large number of my front end developer followers on Twitter appear to have in common.

1. Coding and Cats

I’ll start with cats. Although some don’t have cats, they do tend to share the internet’s obsession with cat photos - my Twitter stream is full of them. I myself have two cats (Loki and Rorshach), those reading this who also happen to follow me on Twitter will have met them.

2. Fuelled by Coffee

Moving on to coffee, I have developed somewhat of a coffee obsession over the last few months. It sort of came from nowhere too, as before that I didn’t really drink anything other than tea when it came to beverages of the hot variety. Then my drinks world turned upside down when Drew treated me to a latte. Not long after that it sort of spiralled out of control, with fresh bean samples being ordered from hasbean, aroamaah! and Pact Coffee, of which all but one has been delicious, each providing different qualities, with a particular favourite being an Ethiopian bean from hasbean.

3. I Live My Life in the City

Next up, it’s cities. Ever since my first visit to Manchester I have fallen in love with the place; there’s just something about it. Although the commute can be a bit taxing at times, it beats working in a small town where creativity seems to be limited. It also has the added benefit of having a large amount of industry meetups, of which I’ve been to quite a few, including McrFRED, NUX, Magento Meetup and DigiHike, where I’ve met some amazing like minded creatives.

4. A Compulsive Obsession

Now onto the mild case of OCD. The amount of perfectly formatted code samples, super tidy work stations and neatly arranged LEGO collections I’ve seen shared on Twitter is unreal. Everyone seems to want to organise things, and I’m one of them, with the arrival of CSS preprocessors it has only reinforced this obsession, which I’ll delve into in future posts. Everything just has to have its place. Coasters, keyboards, mice, cushions, rugs, books, aforementioned LEGO collections - everything has its place when you’re a front end developer. I have however found that this isn’t strictly limited to devs alone. Our very own Drew has a particular obsession of organising his desk, unlike Louise who loves to display numerous examples of brochures, typography books and other artwork over her desk.

So if you like cats, coffee, cities and are particularly organised, there could be a good chance you may be a front end developer.