From 2009 to 2022 I was, for all practical purposes, the entire web department at The Cable Center.
There was no marketing team handing me briefs. No design department. No dedicated developer to pass things off to. If the site needed something, it was my job to figure it out — from strategy and information architecture all the way down to the actual code and server maintenance.
What that actually teaches you
When you're the only one, you can't hide behind process. You see the full consequences of every decision you make. You also learn very quickly what actually matters versus what sounds impressive in meetings.
I learned to care more about the long-term health of the site than about looking clever. I learned that the best solutions are often the simplest ones that non-technical people can understand and maintain after I'm gone.
That period shaped almost everything I believe about this work today.