This past week has been an interesting one.
After some time off, a few days knocked out by the flu, and a trip to London, I finally slipped back into something resembling normality. My routine has slowly started settling again, and with it that familiar sense of flow that makes everything feel a bit more manageable.
Almost everything, at least.
At the moment I don’t have any classic feature work assigned to me. We’re in the middle of a sort of tech-detox sprint, dealing with tasks that usually sit just outside the day-to-day roadmap. The kind of work that doesn’t ship shiny new features, but quietly cleans up what’s been left behind, ties loose ends, and improves the platform in ways that only really pay off over time.
Over the past few days I’ve been working on a script that analyses how our internal UI library is used across the platform. It relies on AI to understand what each component does, then runs a set of Node scripts to inspect usage, implementations, props, and patterns.
I won’t take credit for the original proof of concept, and I don’t want to dive too deep into the technicals. What made this task interesting to me wasn’t the script itself, but everything that orbited around it.
The work came out of a cross-team group I’m part of that follows the evolution of our internal UI library. Each team has an ambassador, we have weekly standups, and we try to keep a single source of truth around frontend and UI decisions. It’s a shared space where designers and developers align, debate, and set the tone for where the UI is heading, instead of each team drifting in its own direction.
This alone was new territory for me.
I’d never really worked outside my team like this. Picking up a task with an engineer from another team, involving stakeholders outside my usual circle, and dealing with needs that weren’t tied to my standard tickets felt refreshing, and slightly unsettling in a good way.
Working closely with someone from another team was particularly interesting. We’re all highly skilled, but we don’t often get the chance to collaborate across boundaries. Each team follows the same company culture and standards, yet small differences inevitably emerge. I really enjoyed that kind of cross-pollination, and the straightforward networking that came with it. Building solid relationships across the company always pays dividends later.
Another layer of interest came from closer to home.
This task revolved heavily around data: gathering it, storing it, and making it useful. The initial proof of concept was a rough dashboard in Storybook, but we already have a sophisticated data infrastructure in place. It felt like a missed opportunity not to leverage it.
So I reached out to the data side of my team.
That conversation alone was eye-opening. As a frontend developer, I’m often somewhat detached from how data actually flows through the system. Seeing how it’s ingested, transformed, stored, and eventually surfaced gave me a much deeper appreciation of what my teammates deal with every day. It added context, empathy, and a sense of shared ownership that I know will influence how I approach future work. Even when I’m not directly involved.
It also strengthened relationships with people I don’t collaborate with as often. More bonds, better teamwork.
I won’t lie: this task stressed me a bit.
Working on a script that isn’t my usual kind of work, especially one I didn’t originally write, was already uncomfortable. Add to that the coordination between multiple people, teams, and domains, and I found myself outside my comfort zone more than once.
But it wasn’t bad stress.
It felt like the kind of discomfort that comes from stretching just enough to grow. Not paralysing anxiety, not the kind that blocks you, but the subtle, tiring unease that signals you’re learning something new.
The task isn’t finished yet, but the progress we’ve made in such a short time exceeded my expectations. The conversations were good. Some relationships came out stronger. I learned things I don’t usually get exposed to.
I guess it’s fair to say that this time, the stress was absolutely worth it.