Andrew Betz Interview
1. What originally drew you to web development, and how has your focus changed over time?
I like how web development blends my creative and logical sides and keeps both active and rewarded. Web development is one of the fastest ways to get tools into the hands of users. Installed applications generally have a lower adoption rate, and you have to consider multiple platforms for deployment. When I first started, I didn’t know that one day people would be using my apps on their phones.
2. What types of projects or clients do you usually work with, and which technologies do you rely on most?
Internal EA projects that manage things or people. Examples include making sure all legal approvals are in place for third-party content used in our games or onboarding new hires and ensuring they have access on day one.
Technologies: C#, .NET, Visual Studio, Azure, AWS.
3. What tools, software, or CMS platforms do you use most often in your daily workflow?
VS, Jira, Slack, Confluence, Perforce, Jenkins, GitLab, Bruno, SonarQube, Application Insights, Grafana.
4. Can you walk me through your typical development process—from client request to final deployment?
Old process:
– Boss tells me to work on something for person A on team X.
– I talk to them and gather input from the rest of the team.
– Build the requirements document and review with stakeholders.
– Acquire or purchase necessary hardware.
– Build the MVP, test with stakeholders, refine, and iterate until the boss says we’re done or until the project deadline.
Current process:
– Boss assigns me to a project with a team of developers, a Product Owner, a Scrum Master, and a support team who will maintain the product after release.
– The Product Owner delivers requirements and creates the roadmap.
– Developers break requirements into tasks.
– The Product Owner and Scrum Master organize work into sprints and track everything in Jira.
– Daily standups in Zoom keep everyone aligned.
– Communication and questions happen in Slack.
– Documentation lives in Confluence.
– Systems engineers help create CI/CD pipelines.
– Dedicated test and production environments support deployment.
– Support team learns the system early so they’re ready for launch.
– Feedback from users becomes new work via the Product Owner.
5. How does your company or team collaborate on projects between developers, designers, and clients?
Standups, Zoom meetings, Slack conversations.
6. What’s the biggest challenge you face as a web developer, and how do you handle it?
Balancing support for older applications while adopting new technologies.
Documentation is critical — even documenting a screenshot or error message in Slack creates a trail you can refer to later. Six months down the line, problems often resurface, and having documented solutions saves massive time (or lets you delegate the fix).
7. How do you stay current with evolving technologies in web development?
New projects often determine which technology stack you’ll use, and you adapt as needed. The challenge is choosing tools that are modern yet still supportable by your team.
8. What skill, language, or concept do you wish you had learned sooner in your career?
IoC / Dependency Injection.
9. What skills or traits separate a good developer from a great one?
Communication. Developers who disappear often return with broken work or massive rewrites that affect the entire system. Asking questions, even simple ones, builds trust and ensures alignment.
10. What advice would you give to a current web development student preparing to enter the industry?
I started with a lot of front-end work (HTML, JavaScript, CSS) and giant code-behind classes that were hard to maintain. Today, it’s all about having good logging and alerting, writing modular and testable code, using interfaces and factories, thinking in small reusable components, and building solid templates for repeatable UI elements.