Meet the Team: Kenneth Sese by Alex Six

Q&A with Kenneth

Meet the Team: Kenneth Sese

For our first article of our new "Meet the Team" series, we have an exciting announcement for all you Filament table fans out there! Kenneth Sese, the creator of the Advanced Tables package has joined the Filament Core Team!

Kenneth brings with him years of experience building web applications with Laravel and Filament. He has been an important part of the Filament community for a long time, and has continually pushed the boundaries of what is possible with Filament's table package (personally, I'm still in awe of some of the features he's gotten to work with the existing package).

On the team, Kenneth will be offering his insight and experience to help us continue to improve the official tables package, giving everyone an even more robust and feature-packed experience right out of the box. For all you fans of Advanced Tables, no need to fear–Kenneth will still be actively developing and maintaining the plugin as well!

#Q&A with Kenneth

#How long have you been programming and what influenced you to start?

 If you include coding small games on my TI-85 graphing calculator when I was a kid, then I’ve been dabbling in programming for over 30 years! But honestly, it wasn’t until 2005 that I truly started exploring programming, specifically web development. It started mostly as a hobby, helping friends with their businesses and then continued to grow from there.

#How long have you been using Laravel?

Up until 2014, I had been building rudimentary websites and backends using plain ol’ PHP, HTML, and CSS (so much procedural code!). However, when the non-profit organization I was the director of in Guatemala wanted me to create a new platform to manage donations and child sponsorships, I knew I needed something more robust. After a brief detour into CodeIgnitor that I quickly abandoned, I discovered Laravel, which at the time was on version 4. I never looked back. Since then, every project I’ve built has utilized Laravel, and I can’t imagine developing with anything else.

#How long have you been using Filament?

As our non-profit organization continued to expand its programs, we decided to venture into opening an early education program for the local community. Eventually, we needed a way to manage child enrollment, attendance, track scholarships, payments, etc. By this time I had tried every imaginable admin panel: Voyager, Nova, Backpack, Quick Admin Panel, etc. None of them really worked the way I wanted/needed them to. Then I came across Filament which was on v2 at the time. The selling feature for me was the integration with Livewire/Alpine which I was already very familiar with. Within no time I had our school admin panel up and running. Looking at that repo, the first commit pulled down Filament v2.17.15.

#What is your favorite Laravel feature?

My favorite Laravel “feature” has to be the ecosystem. On top of Laravel’s incredible framework, you also have robust first-party products, a multitude of third-party packages, helpful learning resources like Laracasts, and the nicest, most supportive developer community there ever was. All of that comes together to create an amazing developer experience that you just can’t find anywhere else.

#What is your favorite Filament feature?

What constantly amazes me about Filament is its architecture. While it’s true that you can quickly build an admin panel with Filament, that’s also true of a lot of other admin panels. However, what sets Filament apart is that when you need to go deeper, you actually can. Far too often, we start with a framework or platform and get excited about getting 50% of the way there quickly…but when we need to start implementing the details that are important to our specific application, things can quickly fall apart. But with Filament, you rarely hit those roadblocks. The fact that Filament can be customized and molded to meet the needs of each developer and their unique requirements is a testament to its design and its incredible architecture.

#Tell us a bit about your Advanced Tables plugin. What is it, why does it exist, and how did it get to be what it is today?

For whatever strange reason, I’ve always loved the UI/UX around filtering data in tables. I would spend hours on Dribbble looking at table designs that I could use for whatever backend I was building at the time. I’ve always felt that allowing end-users to manipulate a table to get to the information that is important to them is critical to that user’s efficiency and satisfaction with the app. Thankfully, Filament has always had powerful filtering, searching, and sorting. However, what I saw was missing was a way for an end-user to save that view and quickly access it again. I wanted an end-user to be able to filter/sort/toggle a table just how they liked it and then access that view whenever they needed it, even if they logged out or accessed the app from a different device. That was the elevator pitch to myself, and out of that, Advanced Tables was born.

From there, the plugin grew, and thanks to the amazing input and ideas from other developers and their end-users, more features were added. What’s exciting is I still have multiple ideas I’m working on and even more on the roadmap. It’s been amazing to watch the plugin grow and hear from other developers about how it’s benefited their app. I could have never imagined it would become this successful, and I’m grateful to Filament and the community for making this all a reality.

#What has been the most fun or exciting challenge for you in your career so far?

The most fun/exciting challenge for me by far has been the transition into becoming a full-time developer. Up until 2024, it was just a hobby, but the more time I spent on Advanced Tables, the more I realized programming was something that I could do for the rest of my life. Honestly, though, I never thought it’d be a possibility. I’m completely self-taught, and because of that, I always assumed my chances of being hired were slim. So when the opportunity to work with Kevin McKee and his team at Padmission was presented, I was thrilled. However, leaving behind a stable job at the non-profit that I had led for more than 15 years was no easy task. On top of all the progress and relationships that had been developed over the years, there were many unknowns regarding a sudden career change this late in my life. Thankfully, my wife was fully supportive of the decision, and the fact that she actually stepped into my old role at the non-profit made it even easier. Now, a year into the change, I couldn’t be happier. It’s amazing to write code for a living, work with and learn from talented developers, and truly make a difference in the lives of others with the products we’re building.

#Tell us about your setup: computer, keyboard, editor of choice, etc

Computer: 16” Macbook Pro M2
Keyboard: Wireless Apple keyboard
Mouse: Wireless Apple trackpad
Monitors: Two 4k 27” dell monitors
Speakers: Two Eris E3 speakers
Editor: VsCode (proudly!)
Legos: And an assortment of Legos around the office including Notre Dame and the Great Wave.