Epic React

I’ll try to keep the preamble brief, but earlier in the year I was approached to join egghead. I’ve known Joel for over a decade and I was chuffed to potentially have an opportunity to work with him again. In June that opportunity became reality. Epic React had been a topic of conversation since those earlier-in-the-year conversations. It was already a huge project then. By June it was in full swing. By the time I’d found my feet in early August, it was clear that helping get this thing across the finish line would be a good use of my time.

This post is about the team that made this happen. I’m honored to have been able to work on this with them. The unity of a team getting a large product released into the world is always something I enjoy experiencing and continue to be amazed by.

The Author

I knew of Kent C Dodds before coming to egghead but I wasn’t aware of the breadth of his catalog or of the size of the community that has formed around him. This is a person who cares about other people. Not just a few people. He cares deeply about a lot of people. He’s realized that his talents are best utilized teaching others how to best build web applications, and he’s applying himself whole-heartedly to “help people make the world better through quality software.”

The Director

As I mentioned, I’ve known Joel for some time. What I’ve learned working with him for three months is the depth of his vision for this organization and the products it produces, his charisma, and the deep ethical core that guides the choices he makes in all areas of the business. I would add his software development talents to that list, but I already knew about those.

The Scholar

John Lindquist I only knew as the quieter progenitor of egghead. Now I’ve learned just how humble, generous, and caring he is. He is also an educator at heart.

The Twins

Ian and Zac Jones. Having twins on a team is great. It adds interest to the narrative. Especially when they have complementary skills. Ian is one of our main developers. Zac is one of our main content producers. Together they are a powerful force. Not unlike a fictional extraterrestrial twin team, except identical instead of fraternal. And from Earth.

The Unicorn

Vojta Holik is one of those mythical design-developers. He’s in Brno, CZ. He’s like Snake Eyes, but without the mask and with a sense of humor. If there’s a particularly slick bit of UX on Epic React, it’s because of Vojta.

The Art Professor

Maggie Appleton art directs all egghead courses, and while she did not literally render the art for Epic React, what you see was her concept and she guided the entire process. She’s also an anthropologist, and her contributions at egghead are much broader than just her illustrative talents.

The Ninja

Lauro Silva can–an importantly absolutely will–do anything you throw at him to do. In fact, he often does things before you get around to asking him to do them. It’s almost like he can read minds. Lauro is part of our content team, but also a capable developer. The amount of content in Epic React is astonishing, and the entire production team handled the load adroitly and made it all perfect.

The Philosopher

Taylor Bell does instructional design. He helps make sure the content is actually going to teach you what you need to learn. He also knows more about music than you do.

The Ukrainian Anesthesiologist

Evgeniy Nagalskiy started slinging front-end code because where he’s from it pays more than making sure people don’t die when in surgery. And he’s good at it. As you would expect. He’s most likely to be chosen first when picking teams for the apocalypse. Which might be upon us, so I wish he lived closer.

The Advocate

Lucas Minter is part of the content team, and graciously entered a shit-ton of data into the system so you can consume it. And he did it without complaint. The unsung hero of the entire operation. He also kept tabs on and responded to an insanely busy channel on Kent’s Discord all day today.

The Heir

Cree Provinsal, Joel’s eldest. It pains me when I see friends raise such good people. They set the bar so high for the rest of us. Cree slung content as well. It takes an army for a product of this magnitude!

The Kid

Haze Provinsal edited hours and hours of videos without going mad or even slowing down. In fact, he got faster as he went. Also a musician, I have a bit of fear for the world he’s about to unleash his talent upon.


The Consigliere

As for me? I just feel lucky to have been able to contribute in any way I could. I did a lot of calendaring and Notion document creation. Yesterday I even made some commits to the repository. I like being a silent force behind the scenes.

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