No Pay, No Work; Early Career Lessons

a year ago

The author worked at Little Elephant Company in 2013, a small team of 7 people operating from a house.
The company specialized in AR and renewable energy projects, including a web application for energy savings grants in Mexico.
The work involved complex business rules, multi-stage application processes, and document verification workflows.
A domain-specific language (DSL) for PHP was developed to encode business rules and generate web forms dynamically.
JavaScript and jQuery were heavily used for UI enhancements, form validations, and rebate calculations.
Development practices were chaotic, with version control managed via SVN and file coordination through verbal communication.
The author also worked on a mobile app using PhoneGap, which had performance and UI issues.
Payment delays from the main client led to financial instability, culminating in the author resigning due to unpaid wages.
The experience taught the author the importance of mutual value in employment: 'No pay, no work.'
Despite the challenges, the author valued the learning experience and exposure to full-stack development at a young age.

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