From Saxophone to CodeThe Story of Silent Mountain Web Crafts

Hey there! I'm Jens Filipsson, a frontend developer and tech lead based in the Stockholm area of Sweden.

After working professionally playing the saxophone for 15 years, combined with web development as a parallel career, I shifted my primary focus. Nowadays I'm working full-time as a frontend developer/tech lead while keeping music as my cherished companion.

How it started

My web development journey began all the way back in 1996. A friend gave me two sheets of papers, which more or less contained all possible HTML tags available at the time.

Back then, things were very, very basic, especially compared to the web standards of today. Plain HTML, inline styles, "cool" background images and under construction GIF's, everything served by the hippest new kid on the block: Netscape Navigator.

Oh, and of course everything was in tables.

For all the youngsters out there that weren't around back then, here's what the Microsoft website looked like in 1994. Note the gray background, which was the default browser background color at the time.

Luckily, after a while CSS was introduced and we could finally style the page in a more sane way. If I wasn't hooked already, this was the final push I needed!

Since then, I’ve always been curious (perhaps the most important skill of a developer?) and have worked hard to improve my skills and keep up with the new tools and techniques that become available to us.

At the same time, understanding where we came from gives me an in-depth perspective on those very tools and techniques, as well as the problems they aim to solve.

Why 'Silent Mountain Web Crafts'?

The name is inspired by my village, Tystberga - which translates to 'Silent Mountain' in Swedish. Despite lacking an actual mountain, the name is quite fitting, as it's a small and quiet place.

For the second part of the name, I like to think of web development as a craft. With nearly three decades of experience, I've learned that creating great web solutions is about attention to detail, deep understanding of the tools, and most importantly, knowing how to solve real problems.

What you can expect working with me

I'm good at understanding the big picture, not just for a specific feature, but also seeing how it fits into the application as a whole. This ability has more than once given me the opportunity to be promoted to Tech Lead, although I initially was recruited as a Frontend Developer.

Helping the team grow and develop is something I'm passionate about and I'm a big believer in collaboration and knowledge sharing. I also try to actively contribute with positive energy and a bad (dad) joke from time to time.

Design isn't my strong suit, I'm a developer first and foremost, but have no problems recreating a pixel-perfect web experience from a design mockup. Or, as in the case of this very website, creating something that looks good enough for me but where a designer might have some things to say about it.

I find joy in solving complex problems with code that is easy to understand and maintain. I don't mind listening to jazz while doing so, and I always have a smile close at hand.

Sounds like we could be a good fit? Don't hesitate to get in touch!

Skills & Expertise

I work with a lot of different frontend technologies, but since they all share TypeScript/JavaScript as their common denominator, I tend to pick up new ones quickly.

Below are some of the technologies I work or have worked with regularly.