JAjameshush·Feb 23, 2020
Hi there! I used to work at the NFL. We were VERY early adopters of React, and I was lucky enough to work with some of the best frontend engineers I’ve ever worked with in my entire career. We built our own version of NextJs and Create React App 2+ YEARS before those projects became popular in the community (https://github.com/nfl/react-wildcat). This is what I primarily worked on, along with being responsible for making sure NFL.com was accessible, and working on the build/test/deploy pipeline for NFL.com and the NFL.com App (which is react-native). 1.5 years ago my boss and I left and joined System1.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the website was farmed out to contractors, so we weren’t given too much business support to really push some of these open source projects forward and give them the same level of "marketing sparkle" that
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a company like Facebook would encourage. For example, part of me was STOKED to see NextJs come out, because it was a better version of react-wildcat. But to be honest part of me felt like with that extra level of marketing sparkle react-wildcat could have been what NextJs was built on to begin with.
I don't really fault NFL for this because these projects didn't drive any revenue. Also the way NFL.com's business model worked didn't really give engineering a "wedge" to increase profits, so engineers were all considered a cost center. E.g. at most adtech or publishing companies you can write a few lines of ad related code and prove revenue increased in an A/B test 24 hours later. NFL had no problem selling ads directly because of how amazing their brand is, so fancier code wouldn't really make a difference.
Also career-wise I learned even though I got to touch decently high profile open source projects like React Helmet, React GPT, and React Metrics, it didn't really transition to any benefit in job interviews. Before leaving NFL I interviewed at top FANG level companies and got rejected at the phone screen. Even non-FANG companies didn't really seem to care. Keep doing those leetcode problems kids!
Most of the original team members from that era of the NFL have moved on to different companies after it became pretty clear that more and more work was going to become outsourced. I got lucky and really clicked with my boss at the NFL, so when he left I tagged along and fumbled (no pun intended) into an absolutely excellent opportunity at System1. All in all, working there was a great experience!