I've been working with computers since I was a small kid though I became more serious about programming only during my university studies. It was during that time that I became interested in open source and eventually the path led me to found my own company, SurviveJS Oy, built around educating people about JavaScript. I also became involved in the founding of Finland's first React and GraphQL conferences and at the moment operate as a conference director.
I moved to Vienna from Finland around 2017 and since then I've become perhaps more cosmopolitan and cultural person. The time I've spent in Austria has made me appreciate Finnish culture and I returned to Rautalampi, Finland in 2021 after witnessing the impact of the pandemic on city life and culture in general.
By now, I'm an experienced developer, author, and consultant. I'm a known figure in the community and I've been awarded for my efforts (Blue Arrow Awards). I've also been listed twice on the influential ICT persons of the year by Tietoviikko (2019, 2020).
Starting from 2022, I resumed my university studies at Aalto University through a lucky break and now I am aiming for a PhD in Computer Science. The theme of my work has to do with the emergence of hybrid models for web development. Essentially my research target is to bridge the static and dynamic realms of web development particularly for Content Management Systems (CMSs) and Static Site Generators (SSGs). Although I haven't been enrolled to the program for long, I've already completed majority of my obligatory studies (40 ECTS credits in total) and managed to get three papers approved by a conference. I have listed the works below:
I expect to be able to complete the study portion of my PhD this year (2023) while making significant progress on papers. Given I have the first works available and a good amount of papers for a PhD is between four and six, I will start the work on the thesis itself soon. The work will also give me a good idea of what is missing.
Given freelancing wasn't the most fulfilling way for me to live my life, I deduced that I should change my direction. As a result I started authoring technical books related to topics such as React, webpack, and maintenance under the SurviveJS brand. So far I've sold over 5000 books self-published. In addition, I've performed training and consulting related to the topics.
During this period I had to develop my technical writing and marketing skills and in short doing this changed everything and eventually led me to moving to Vienna, a new environment.
I was awarded for my efforts in 2017 as I was named as the Finnish Code Ambassador by Blue Arrow Awards.
In 2018, I began to organize technical conferences in Finland with a small group of other developers in a voluntary manner. The first event, React Finland held in April, was a great success. It sold out two months before the conference and had around 300 attendees. The three day conference gave us enough confidence to organize another event in October. GraphQL Finland was smaller in scope and although not sold out, it had over 150 attendees and was well received by the community.
The second edition of React Finland in 2019 was even a greater success and it reached 400 attendees while gaining highly favorable feedback. The event was a major step for the brand and overall execution of the event was on a good level. As a director, I was responsible for the overall planning, certain technical bits (asset generator, site), and marketing (content marketing supported by other initiatives).
The third edition of React Finland in 2020 was full of challenges due to the ongoing pandemic and it taught me a lot about crisis messaging and management while forcing the team to cope with the shifting business environment. We ran the conference online in 2021 and again live in 2022 before pivoting to Future Frontend in 2023.
On SurviveJS side, I've focused more on consulting since 2017 due to demand. I've listed some of my clients below:
In addition, I've run numerous of workshops in countries around Europe. Sometimes these have been done for a specific business and occasionally I've run them in conferences. The topics have been mainly webpack and React related although I've done occasional marketing consulting as well.
During my time in Vienna I was one of the organizers of ViennaJS, React Vienna, and Tech Movie Night meetups while being active and known figure in the community. I picked up the basics of German and appreciation for different cultures in that period.
I was a freelancer between 2011 and 2015. My first actual case was in 2010-2011. During that I developed a Canvas element based drawing tool for RateMyDrawings.com. Technologically it was based on RequireJS (module system) and RightJS (jQuery clone).
During 2012 and 2013 I participated in the local startup scene and went through a couple of failures. Incidentally a hobby project, http://jster.net/, became the biggest success of this era.
For NDA reasons I cannot disclose details on my work always but the following should give you idea of the type of work I performed during this period:
My story with open source begins with Blender. Incidentally I came upon the project through a university course during which I needed to perform some 3D modeling. As it happens one thing lead to another and I ended up modifying the codebase and submitting changes as patches. My previous experience with embedded C came in handy. Eventually I became a maintainer of the node editor of the application and even visited annual Blender Conference a few times, once a speaker.
Since then I have done plenty of development on my own. Most of my projects are available under my GitHub account (https://github.com/bebraw). Besides these some reside below the account of a local geek collective, Geek Collision, which I helped to establish (https://github.com/geekcollision). I've listed a few examples below. Not all of them might be popular but that doesn't mean they aren't useful.
In addition, I was a core developer of webpack for many years and helped to establish the project as a mainstream option for bundling. I've developed infrastructure to support my business. The work includes GraphQL APIs, React frontends, websites, and supporting tooling.
The books are available through https://survivejs.com/ and also in eBook formats. The webpack book is also available on paper through Amazon.
In addition to computer skills, I know the value of soft ones. In essence, most software problems can be traced down to a softer issue somewhere and I believe as developers we should do far more than only to develop.