THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WEB DEVELOPER, REALITY OF A FEMALE FREELANCER

DeepPockets #4

The Psychology of the Web Developer, Reality of a Female Freelancer
By Maisa Imamović

Underneath the user interface of any website—be it simple or complex—lurks the web developer’s struggle with money, prestige, and power. An ever-lasting race to the top, never not working. Yet what are these unseen costs of being a traditional web developer, and who decides the rules of the game?

In this book on the psychology of an emerging yet often overlooked profession, Maisa Imamović explores the technological complexities underneath ordinary websites by asking questions such as: Who is a web developer? What does their assistant look like? Why does everybody want a ‘simple’ website? What on earth is WordPress cringe? And what does it mean to be a female freelance web developer in a world full of tech bros?

Strolling through this landscape of questions with irony and self-reflection by her side, Imamović takes the reader on an insightful, playful journey. Combining recollections of the author’s very first digital friend with a characterization of a bossy Senior Web Developer and his loyal Assistant as well as funny, raw testimonies of her own (post-pandemic) development within the field, the book can be read as a quest for liberation of the constraints of being both a web developer and a user.

Maisa Imamović is an Amsterdam-based writer, web developer, designer and artist, currently doing an MA at CalArts. The Psychology of the Web Developer: Reality of a Female Freelancer is her first book.

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