Frontend Coffee Break - Podcast
Frontend Coffee Break is a monthly podcast hosted by Jesus 'Chucho' Castañeda and Ricard Torres, both Principal Frontend Software Engineers at Cognizant Netcentric. In each episode, they take a break and discuss the latest in frontend development, along with occasional topics outside of it. The show is designed to give developers a relaxed, coffee-fueled pause while staying up to date with industry trends.
Episodios
Ep. #56: The state of coding with AI
We chat about the state of coding with AI; context engineering, tools tips and recommendations on what to be in the lookout for. How to leverage AI, how to let it support you, while learning... Adapt to the new ways of working and share what works for you.
Ep. #55: CSS is getting a boost in 2026
We discuss a bunch of new CSS features you should know in 2026. Not all of them are baseline available but we should be ready for when they are. Here are the new things we talk about:corner-shape: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/Properties/corner-shapeCustom Select: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_development/Extensions/Forms/Customizable_sele
Ep. #54: From "Works on Chrome" to "Works on Web"
We discuss Interop 2025 and the upcoming 2026 edition that has opened the call to action for feature suggestions. Chucho and Ricard explain you how they used to hack browsers to get that cross-browser support with JavaScript polyfills and CSS conditional rules. These days are gone, we look forward to more browser interoperability. We have a small wishlist for 2026, what's yours?https://wp
Ep. #53: The raise of the amateur website and AI
We discuss how inexperienced developers are leveling up, how no-code solutions are taking over, and do you even need to know how to code anymore? Is vibe coding the new go-to for everything or just certain use cases? Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #52: The Importance of Taking Time Off
Long vacations, short vacations? How to take time off, how to plan your vacations? How do you unplug from coding in your time off? Or do you keep coding on personal projects while you're off work?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #51: The State of the Framework in 2025
The State of JS survey is open. We discuss React, Svelte, Vue, vanilla JS... We have opinions about it and we want to hear yours too.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #50: How to deal with impossible deadlines
We've all been there, you're thrown into a very tight project schedule that might be impossible to deliver. What can we do in these situations?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #49: FE is complex, can we make it simpler?
Frontend has gone from FTP to the frameworks war, to complicated pipelines with hundreds of node modules. Why did we do this? Is it getting better? Should we do something about it?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #48: FE Journey Through the Remote Work Revolution
Chucho and Ricard discuss how remote work has changed, where are they more productive now and invite you to share your take. What's your best work setup?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #47: What motivates FE Developers?
We talk what lights a fire under us, what motivates us to continue working FE. Is it the stack? A new shiny framework? UI? UX? Have a listen and let us know what motivates you to code.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #46: Are Frontend Developers going away?
We discuss how AI is making FE developers obsolete (maybe!). Are we going to disappear? What can we do to ensure we continue to exist? How to embrace AI to be more productive?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #45: Storybook, Web Components and Figma Tokens
This is an angular-free podcast but we do talk web components. Chucho and Ricard discuss Storybook, what to consider when thinking about using it. Are Figma tokens the future? Sources of truth are nice but are they worth it?What's your experience with these tools?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #44: Technical Interviews in the age of AI
We discuss how AI has changed the way we do interviews. Remote only, plus access to AI chats has forced the industry to work differently. How should we conduct interviews? What should we ask? What should we look for in candidates?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #43: Mobile First in 2025: Why Are We Still Getting It Wrong?
Ricard today complains about sites not being mobile-first and Chucho drops a history lesson. What is mobile first? Why are we still talking about this? How can we deliver better experiences?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #42: Accessibility in 2025, tips to be ready
We discuss the European Accessibility Act (EAA) that might affect your website, how to check, and deal with common issues. How hard is it to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA? We give you an insight and share our experience.What's your experience with accessibility?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #41: How we manage stress in the FE world
We chat about things that can be stressful as a FE developer, we suggest things that work for us on how to deal and mitigate it (for you and you team).Share your tips and tricks with us!Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #40: CSS in 2024 was fun
We share what we loved most about the 2024 CSS Wrapped as well as other CSS changes we've witnessed over the years that changed our way of working (yes, we will talk about border-radius).What where CSS changes that blew your mind?https://chrome.dev/css-wrapped-2024/Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #39: Best practices, standards and guidelines
We discuss how we work with guidelines, standards and best practices at Cognizant Netcentric. Including our very own ESLint and Stylelint open source configurations.Do you follow any guidelines when coding FE?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://x.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #38: Morals, ethics and being eco-friendly as a FE Developer
We discuss the moral of working for certain industries, how can we be more green (spoiler: it's web performance) as developers, as well as open source.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #37: Lessons learned as FE Developers
Chucho and Ricard have been coding for more than 18 years. These old time developers will share some of their hard learned lessons on being a developer and/or a FE Lead.Share your sips of wisdom with us.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #36: How to keep up to date with FE?
Why is it important to be on the loop for the latest and greatest FE technologies out there? The latest JavaScript framework? What's possible with the latest CSS? Performance and SEO... There's just so much. We share our tips and tricks to stay fresh and relevant.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #35: Patterns, anti-patterns and dark patterns
We explain the differences, share examples and give you plenty resources to get you started. Chucho can't stress enough that you should read these at least once!patterns.devGang Of Four GOF Design Patterns Design Patternsdeceptive.designFollow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #34: Development conferences. Worth it?
We talk about web development conferences, going in-person or attending online. Are they worth it? What's the benefit? Couldn't you just watch a recording?What's the most interesting conference you've ever attended? If you haven't yet, any conferences you'd like to go to?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #33: How to write quality and maintainable code?
We chat what is code quality, what are code smells, tips and tricks to make your code readable and maintainable.What are your tips?Code quality metrics: https://www.sealights.io/code-quality/code-quality-metrics-is-your-code-any-good/Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #32: Knowledge Sharing in your Team
We discuss different ways to do knowledge sharing in your team or company. The challenges we've faced and what has worked for us.Find out about our Netcentric Academy https://www.netcentric.biz/jobsFollow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #31: How we started 2 frontend podcasts
Did you know we have both this and a different internal FE podcast? The internal podcast started first and gave us the idea to start one on YouTube. Tune in to know how it all began and what we learned along the way.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #30: Accessibility Month
What is Accessibility? What's your experience with Web Accessibility? What does it mean a website is accessible? Keyboard navigation? Labels? These and more in today's episode.https://accessibility.day/https://www.w3.org/WAI/https://dynomapper.com/blog/27-accessibility-testing/273-wcag-the-web-content-accessibility-guidelines-explainedFollow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honup
Ep. #29: Should you use Web Components?
What's your take on Web Components? What are the best use cases? Should you use them for regular AEM projects? What's the best thing about Web Components?Check out a performance comparison of different frameworks and techniques to create Web Components: https://webcomponents.dev/blog/all-the-ways-to-make-a-web-component/Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torre
Ep. #28: Chucho loves Single Page Apps
SPA? MPA? Are these still relevant in 2024? When would you use an SPA vs a regular MPA? Have you heard about the new View Transitions API?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #27: What is a FE Lead?
FE Manager, FE Lead... there are many names for what we think might be the same thing. We discuss what a FE Lead is accountable for. What to expect from a FE Lead? Types of leaderships. Join the conversation and tell us what's the your ideal type of FE Lead.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #26: How much UX should a FE developer know?
We discuss UI, UX, design and the role of the frontend developer. Reading recommendationsLinkshttps://www.nngroup.com/articles/https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-101-introduction-to-usability/Books by Donald NormanThe design of Everyday ThingsEmotional DesignBooks by Jakob NielsenUsability EngineeringDesigning Web UsabilityEyetracking Web UsabilityBooks by Steve KrugDon't make me
Ep. #25: Open sourcing our FE Build
Today we're joined by Dragan Filipovic, Senior Front-end Software Engineer at Cognizant Netcentric. We talk how he spearheaded the initiative to open source our FE Build.A Frontend build system that can be used in both AEM and non-AEM projects.Try it out here:https://github.com/Netcentric/fe-buildFollow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/
Ep. #24: Content management, decisions or options?
When creating web components for content editors, do you give them all the options? or take decisions that will work best for development and maintenance?We discuss headless vs server-side rendering as well. Ricard loves JSON files. Chucho? Maybe not.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #23: Impostor Syndrome in Frontend
What is the Impostor Syndrome? How to fight it? Why is it more common than we think in Frontend development? We discuss this and offer some tips that have worked for us!Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #22: AI tools in our every day work
We talk about GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, phind, and Bard. We share how we use it for coding. How about you?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #21: How to find time for career development?
How can you find time for your career development? ⏱️ Here’s our take on it: In the latest episode of the hit Frontend Coffee Break podcast, we discuss the strategies that frontend leads and managers employ to make room for growth amidst their daily responsibilities.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #20: Is Mobile First still a thing in 2023?
Is the mobile-first mindset still relevant in the world of development? 🧐 Here’s the deal:Today we discuss the best practices and approaches for developing websites and apps for mobile devices.Chucho mentions Ricard's library for Two Way Data Binding, here it is: https://github.com/quicoto/two-way-data-binding Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://
Ep. #19: Should you be constantly challenged?
What benefits frontend developers the most: working on long-term projects, or switching every six months? 🤝We discuss the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) on new technologies in the changing world of frontend development.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #18: Core Web Vitals in 2023
Looking for a better way to optimize and improve your project’s web performance? 🚀 We’ve got you covered:Today Chucho and Ricard are joined by Ines Akrap, Senior Web Performance Engineer, for insights into Core Web Vitals in 2023.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@devAdditional resources:🔗 https://github.com/Netcentric/progux
Ep. #17: How to work with images on the web in 2023
Are you a web developer or designer passionate about creating visually stunning, high-performance websites? 🤩We review the optimal ways how to upload images in 2023.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@devAdditional resources:- https://web.dev/learn/images- https://squoosh.app
Ep. #16: Reacting to Rich Harris' video on frameworks and the web
Today we react! It's not necessary but it would give you more context if you watched first Rich Harris' video before listening to the episode. If not, that's ok too, we'll try to give you as much context as possible.Rich Harris' video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXCipjbcQfMFollow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #15: Is progressive enhancement worth it?
There is one question on the minds of web developers and tech enthusiasts everywhere: How 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘺 relevant is progressive enhancement and graceful degradation in 2023?In the latest episode of the Frontend Coffee Break podcast, we spill the tea on whether these approaches are still worth it, as well as the best techniques to get the most out of them according to the device you’re using.Follo
Ep. #14: FE Web Performance: the good stuff
We talk about what we look for on a website when it comes to web performance. What are the basic things we first check? What tools do we use?FE developers even if not web performance experts need to be able to identify issues and how to solve them.At Cognizant Netcentric we've written some articles about web performance, have a look:https://www.netcentric.biz/insights/2019/01/web-font-per
Ep. #13: Should you document your code?
Time to get real: Should you 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 document your code?We’re breaking it down in the latest episode of the Frontend Coffee Break podcast. Our resident experts, Jesús and Ricard, weigh in on whether you should document your code, how often this should be done, and why every developer should use JSDoc on a daily basis. What's your take on this topic? Any recommendations we might’ve missed?F
Ep. #12: JavaScript debugging process
Take a moment to consider your current JavaScript debugging process. Thankfully, we're dropping some hot tips to make things run smoothly.In the latest episode of the hit Frontend Coffee Break podcast, Ricard and Chucho delve into the most effective ways to debug JavaScript in 2023, which’ll save every developer loads of time and frustration.What’s your preferred way to debug JavaScript?
Ep. #11: What is a skill map and why you should have one
How do you know what to learn next? What's the required skills to move to the next level of your career? Do the skills in job offers reflect what you do on your day to day?Today we discuss that and how we've implemented for FE at Cognizant Netcentric.Here some roadmaps to get inspired:https://frontendmasters.com/guides/learning-roadmap/https://roadmap.sh/frontendWhat do you recommend?Foll
Ep. #10: Unit Testing, love it or hate it?
Ricard loves unit testing! Chucho will challenge it, is it worth it? A waste of time? Who's going to win today's fight? Do you write unit tests in your projects?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #9: Remote Interviews
We've been interviewing for a very long time, now that we only do remote interviews we share our tips, do's, best stories and some horrors too.Share with us what was your best interview, or any tips you can give the rest of the listeners.Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #8: We love side projects
We love to build side projects, to learn something new, have fun, or just solve a problem.Today we discuss what these are and some tips, as well as ideas.Question for you: do you usually do side projects? Share the latest you've done!Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #7: Public speaking, knowledge sharing and why you should try it!
We give you our take on why we think knowledge sharing is important and some of the ways we do it at Cognizant Netcentric.What's your experience with public speaking?Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #6: Which CSS should you learn in 2023?
CSS has come so far, we share what we used to do, what we do in JS and what can we do in CSS. What are you most looking for in CSS for 2023? Is there any change that has surprised you this year?Learn more:https://smolcss.dev/https://www.udemy.com/course/css-grid-mastering/https://flexboxfroggy.com/https://cssgridgarden.com/Follow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard To
Ep. #5: How much is too much JavaScript?
When starting a website do you always think about the JavaScript framework first? Can we reduce the amount of JavaScript? Server Side Rendering is still the best approach?Learn more:- https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/Progressive_Enhancement- https://qwik.builder.ioFollow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #4: Why TypeScript?
Do you use TypeScript? Should you? When is it a good approach? Large projects, small projects...Join in on the discussion.Learn more:- https://www.typescriptlang.org/ - https://github.com/tc39/proposal-type-annotations - https://github.com/features/copilotFollow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/honupo- Ricard Torres https://ricard.social/@dev
Ep. #3: What is a FrontEnd Developer?
In this episode, we share our perspectives on the must-have knowledge, understanding of frameworks and the kinds skills Frontend Developers need to have today.Learn more:- https://frontendmasters.com/guides/learning-roadmap/- https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS- https://www.amazon.es/Secrets-JavaScript-Ninja-John-Resig/dp /193398869XFollow us:- Chucho Castañeda https://twitter.com/
Ep. #2: How to create desktop apps using Frontend stack
Our topic for today is desktop apps, specifically applications created using Frontend technologies (HTML, JS, and CSS), which are specifically designed for desktop use.Is it your first time coding a desktop application? Then tune in and listen to how they create desktop apps using Frontend stack and get your insights. Learn more:https://www.electronjs.org/https://tauri.studio/https://neut
Ep. #1: Why should you have a blog?!
In a world of vlogs, is blogging something from the last decade?We dare to say blogging is still a trending topic! In this episode of Frontend Coffee Break, Chucho and Ricard discuss the basics, the latest technology stack, and the benefits of blogging. Tune in and listen to their personal and professional blogging experiences!Do you have a blog? Any FE related blogs you read?Learn more:-
