He was still doing frontend. He didn't think of it that way because modern view perverted the meaning beyond all recognition
> Most of the "frontend work" I saw was via Rails ERB templates [puke emoji].
Okay, so ridiculous stack/language bias aside, he's doing frontend, but it's not the frontend he wants. He wants to be writing JavaScript. Which is fine, but he's implying Shopify messed up when it seems he just didn't have a clear understanding of what the role entailed and what the tech was he'd be working with.
It seems extremely improbable to me that at no point in the hiring process, starting from the job advertisement on down, was this ever stated.
I don't know why but honestly I'd expect something a little more reasonable from someone coming from academia, but in the broader context of the piece as a whole it makes perfect sense.
This is the quote that is especially telling:
> I asked myself the question, "Am I becoming a better frontend developer through this experience?" and the answer was of course no.
He didn't think he was getting better by learning different approaches to solving the same problem? He doesn't think that more server-side code would make him understand the context of frontend development better?
Funny enough, I'd buy "I don't enjoy the work" or "Rails is outdated" (this is debatable) over his complaints.