Building out shopifyjobs.dev — a journey through an idea
I’ve recently been thinking a lot and reflecting on what led me to this career path as an engineering leader. I love building things, seeing progress, learning new technologies, and providing a solution to a problem. I used to create websites on the side; it brought me joy. Some of them failed, but some were successful. Success was measured in traffic, ad sales, accomplishment, learning new things, getting book deals, and opening up new opportunities.
I’ve decided to jump back into creating things and not just being a consumer of everything. I have so many ideas, but they need to be executed.
I always want to improve myself, and one way to do that is to open up my thinking to the world and share my craft. It’s scary to put yourself out there for people to comment on, but it’s a great way to learn and grow.
A leader once told me,
“You must get comfortable with being uncomfortable, as this is when growth happens.”
Sharing my true thoughts on a blog is slightly uncomfortable. Still, I have seen success in being open as a manager and showing vulnerability (check out Brene Brown’s TED Talk on Vulnerability). I can grow from this experience and help others along the way.
The best way to do this is to build side projects and share the thinking behind them. My goal is to use this project to document my thought process. Building this will help me focus on what I need to do each day and utilize many modern tools, AI being one of them.
Let’s talk a bit about the idea. Shopify is everywhere in my world right now—it’s in my LinkedIn feed; it was a conversation in my last role, and our good friends are running their antique shop on it; I’ve interviewed for a few roles utilizing it—it's everywhere and seems like a good thing to invest more time into. But in my search for jobs, I haven’t seen an easy way to find jobs related to Shopify—enter Shopifyjobs.dev!
Problem Statement: I can’t find a place where all of the shopify jobs are listed, instead I have to jump across 10 different websites pulling information.
Every idea should start with a problem statement. I plan to use the Lean Canvas v2 framework from Lean UX to frame the problem and take you through my thinking. I plan to engage with the community, get feedback, and improve this app. You might wonder, aren’t you concerned that someone will steal your idea? Nah, an idea is just an idea; it’s all about the execution.
I have secured the domain Shopifyjobs.dev and created a quick logo with Canva. Progress over perfection; I can change it later but need a starting point.
After reading about Request Metrics a few years back, I was inspired to outline the journey to building this. They have a great step-by-step series on how they built request metrics. It was so interesting to read and so helpful to so many people.
My goals for this blog post series will be to help others learn and push myself to think through all areas. I recently had to do a case study for a job on how I would take a product to market. I spent the whole weekend on it, which was a rewarding experience. I felt like a CEO in control of my product, getting to choose the best path forward, etc. I plan to do the same here and put it into practice.
What tools will I use? This is a starting point, and I’m sure this list will grow as I learn, but I think I will use the following tools to get started. These are all go-to tools related to planning. Thinking and planning are necessary steps that often get overlooked, and then you start building something and lose sight of why you started it.
- Miro — Whiteboarding, Brainstorming, Idea Generation, Mind mapping.
- Airtable — I love Airtable and would love to use this for a roadmap and/or schedule.
- Trello — I love the bare Kanban boards. They are great for quickly organizing.
- Medium — To outline my journey.
- Chat GPT / Bing — To generate ideas and help structure my thinking.
- Canva — To create logos, designs, etc.
- Figma — To create wireframes, UX designs, and more.
- Framer — Low code / No Code
My next post will share the Lean Canvas v2; this will be my starting point for the idea. I will commit to posting once a week and making 1-week sprints with an end goal after each one. If you haven’t read Atomic Habits, I highly suggest it. The book is written by James Clear is a transformative guide demonstrating how small, consistent changes can lead to remarkable results.
If you want a thought starter on Thursdays, sign up for James Clear’s 3–2–1 newsletter. He provides 3 of his ideas, 2 quotes from others, and 1 question to answer. It’s a simple concept, but I always await the email.
