The Autonomy to Tackle the Full Stack
A shift to deliver actionable insights to our users faster
In my three years at Sylvera, I’ve spent most of my time on frontend development. Sure, I would work closely with my backend teammates to shape API contracts, but until recently, the implementation was entirely on their side. This could cause context switching, delays due to handovers, and ultimately slower delivery. And our data sources, ETL pipelines, and backend codebases remained more of a black box to me than I would have liked.
📚 Upskilling in All Directions
These days, our engineering team is encouraged to work across the entire stack, from our Snowflake data warehouse straight through to our apps.
Of course, this shift doesn’t happen overnight — it requires a lot of upskilling. Before data engineers add functionality to our Next.js apps, or frontend engineers start updating our APIs, we turn to each other for guidance (and we have GitHub branch protections, it’s not anarchy). Everyone is always willing to give a walkthrough of a codebase and do some pairing, but we’re also given so much autonomy and trust to learn by doing. Maybe that starts with something small, like adding a new field to an existing endpoint powering the Early Stage Catalog. But before you know it, you’re updating full flows, creating new endpoints, and shipping end-to-end features without feeling overwhelmed.
🤝 Bigger Impact, More Satisfaction
Since our shift to full stack development, I’ve had more opportunities to provide guidance on frontend topics like data fetching or Next.js routing, so that new frontend contributors can add data visualizations directly to the Project Catalog. I’ve also gotten to learn new skills from a wider range of teammates.
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Thanks to working full stack, I’ve gotten to:
- Add insights directly to product offerings like Pre-Issuance projects without depending on other teams.
- Better understand end-to-end project scope and timelines.
- Build for a whole new set of users — fellow Sylverans who use internal tooling to produce assessments like Estimated Ratings at scale.
People who love frontend work will tell you they love the instant feedback of adding a feature to the UI, and knowing that their work is going directly into the hands of users. This is how I’ve always felt, but now I know that a feature reaches users because I built the UI, and the API behind it. On any given day, I’m likely feeling the satisfaction of using SQL to explore our data, updating our backend with Node.js and Prisma, and wrapping up with good old Next.js, React, and Tailwind.
🌱 Opportunities to Grow While Doing Work That Matters
Climate change is a complex problem, and there will always be tons to learn at Sylvera thanks to the intricacies of carbon markets. Now, with the opportunity to dive in across the full stack, this is more true than ever.
If you’ve ever been frustrated by the boundaries of your role, this is the kind of place where they start to disappear. And you’re in luck — we’re hiring!
