From a student email to eight years of building at M&M

Very nice! But I was humbled by it, even though it was something I had wanted for a while. I saw a real need for this role at Martian, especially in the frontend team. There was just this vacuum that needed to be filled. So, I put myself forward for it, and that was that. It was like, "Hey, remember this? Well, here you go."

It's an amazing chance to grow in a more people-focused role - not just a technical one. For now, it’s a shared responsibility, meaning more people-related tasks on top of my current work. As the company grows, my responsibilities might shift, especially if frontend work expands. Balancing both sides is a lot, so we’ll see how it plays out.

It’s a crazy story. I was a student in my final year, looking for an internship anywhere I could find one. I studied Information Science at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences—never really planning to end up in IT. But as I went through my studies, I realized IT was the best direction for job security and growth.

I taught myself programming through YouTube, books, and courses. While my studies had some IT-related topics, most of what I know, I learned on my own. Through a colleague, I heard about Martian (then called Honig) and decided to apply. Worst case, I lose nothing. I went in for a chat, showed them some of my projects, and they loved it! I completed my internship, and at some point, out of nowhere, Marin came up to me and said, "Come and work with us."

Yeah… for about 3 to 4 years, then I switched to JavaScript and React Native for mobile development. And after that I transitioned to frontend, though I still work with React Native on some projects.

I’m not sure if it was a natural progression or something I actively pursued, but it aligned with how Martian evolved. We started as a mobile-heavy agency when mobile apps were booming. Back then, we had mostly mobile developers and a small backend team. Over time, the focus shifted to frontend, and I shifted with it.

I’ve always liked exploring new things—repeating the same work bores me. Moving to frontend felt natural since I was already working with React Native, which shares its foundation with React for web. That made the transition much easier.

I've been working on two projects for a long time—over two years now. My day is full of interruptions, constantly switching between two teams and two project managers. It requires a lot of handling, multitasking, and juggling different tasks.

The main challenge is that I’m the only one working across both projects, so I frequently have to switch contexts. That’s the only real difference—everything else stays pretty much the same.

On one project, I was the lead frontend dev, and spent a lot of time talking with the team daily, joining huddles, coordinating who would do what, and discussing various issues. I also made sure to check in with them regularly, asking questions to keep them updated and engaged. I mostly work remotely, but I enjoy coming to the office once or twice a week. Since we’re a pet-friendly office, I usually bring my dog Ksena along.

I am currently on a project we are doing in KSA, NPSM - it is special because it was my first time as an official frontend lead. It's a huge responsibility—I had to fix it up, align the team, and even restructure the team. This project proved to the company that I could handle a leadership role. Especially in such an crazy pace.

In venture building, frontend development usually kicks off as soon as full development starts—right after we’ve validated the idea, done our research, mapped out the business, and often built a no-code prototype or landing page.

We start with prototypes and landing pages to test interest. Once that’s confirmed, development begins—and frontend gets going right alongside design and backend. Design is often partly ready by then, but we jump in early to get things set up and define the basics. Ideally, frontend would come after design and back-end, but to move fast, we start early. That way, we can speed things up and ship an MVP sooner.

Frontend sits at the center of everything—it connects design, backend, and product. A strong frontend developer doesn’t just write code. They understand how things look, how they work behind the scenes, and what the business needs. They work closely with the whole team, helping make sure things are doable, fast, and make sense.

In the end, frontend is very important. It’s what people actually see and use—so it shapes how they experience the product.

The biggest challenge for us, as it is for many in venture studios and rapid prototyping, is balancing speed, code quality, and learning new things—all while trying to launch an MVP as quickly and efficiently as possible. These three factors are always something we try to balance: experimenting with new technologies, improving as individuals, writing clean, scalable code, and maintaining high speed. The business side doesn’t care about the cleanliness of the code, or about what you’re learning—they just need a high-quality product delivered as fast as possible. That’s one of the hardest things about frontend—there’s a lot of code to write, and sometimes you have to make compromises.

I think the balance is great. There are periods of intense work, but then there are also phases where we slow down, evaluate things, analyze the data, and improve what’s already built. During these times, we also have the opportunity to refactor and clean up the code. And I appreciate that the company doesn’t expect anyone to work overtime unless absolutely necessary. We take pride in the fact that there’s no forced overtime. If you’re focused, eight hours a day is enough to get everything done.

Definitely the fully remote work. Even though I like coming into the office once or twice a week, I love the flexibility of being able to work from anywhere in the world without needing permission.

That, and the lack of micromanagement. It doesn’t matter if you work six or seven hours one day—no one is tracking that. There’s a high level of trust, and people simply get their work done.