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Fifteen years of shipping on the web

A look back at fifteen years of client work — what changed, what stayed exactly the same, and what I would tell the first-year version of myself.

February 19, 20268 min read
careerfreelancereflection

The stack has changed four or five times over. The actual job — translating a client’s half-formed idea of what they want into something that works, on a deadline they picked before they understood the scope — has not changed at all.

I want to write the long version of this at some point: the projects that taught me the most, the ones I’d take back, and the handful of decisions from year one that I’m still making the same way today because they turned out to be right the first time.

For now, the short version: build the boring thing well, and say no more than you think you should.

Alexander Talaat
Washington, D.C.

Full-stack developer and WordPress architect writing about headless CMS, Next.js and AI-assisted builds.

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