Member interview with Leslie Büttel

Leslie joined us as a web developer in September 2025—about time we finally found out who this designer-turned-developer from Switzerland really is! Let’s ask her a few questions!

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you, and what did you do before joining Village One?

Well, a lot of things, I guess 😅 But let’s introduce myself first. Hi, I am Leslie. I recently joined Village One as a frontend developer.

I am from Zurich, Switzerland, where I also grew up. Now I live in Berlin. Actually, I’ve lived in this city for 11 years now. But let’s go back one step: after school I did an apprenticeship in a design agency that was working in the events and exhibition stand construction field. I learned a lot about materials and spatial thinking. I then decided to study graphic design in England and worked as a graphic designer for several years, where I designed all sorts of things like logos, books, posters, stationery, you name it… and of course websites. With the websites I had this thing where I was really interested in building them myself. At some point I decided to go all in and learn how to code for real. And now I call myself a frontend developer. I guess I could call myself a multidisciplinary designer and frontend developer – embrace the generalist 🧘

What motivated you to join the Village One Co-op?

I was always drawn to kind of “do my own thing.” I switched between freelancing and employment back and forth. After my parental leave I decided, “now is the time to try again!”, and I started freelancing again. I really enjoy the freedom it gives me regarding decision-making and planning my days. I can decide what hours I work or even which days, which clients I take on and which ones I’d rather not. And it actually worked quite well for me. But what I was really missing was a team. So when Village One reached out to me, I thought, this is the best combination of both worlds!

How does your work day usually look like?

Well, I get up and get ready in the morning like probably most people do. I’m rather a late riser, so sometimes there’s time to eat my Müsli and drink a cup of coffee and sometimes there’s not. So I always appreciate it if I don’t have early meetings. When I am at my desk, I check my mails and go through my notes from the day before to remind myself what my tasks are for the day. And then, I’m staring into my laptop for some hours and type things. Sometimes there’s a call.

Besides an occasional call, I have a rather quiet environment. I don’t listen to music or podcasts during work because I can’t focus well when I do. It goes well (sometimes) for design work, but when I need to code something I like it to be quiet. My Spotify year recap is kind of embarrassing, it’s like, “Good job! You listened 22h of music this year! That’s a total of 5 acts and 8 songs. 🎉” Nowadays my daughter has taken over my playlist and it’s now suggesting Peppa Pig and lullabies first and foremost.

What do you do when you're not sitting in front of a computer screen?

I do sit in front of the computer a lot, I have to admit. Even in my spare time, I’m building some random websites with cool domain names nobody knows of 😄 But if not, I probably spend my time on a playground with my little daughter or do some other kids’ activities with her. If I have time for myself, I might craft or build something for myself or make some fancy food like homemade granola or sourdough bread (although my sourdough died a while ago 🙈). I like sewing my own clothes, and the goal is always that they’re sewn so clean and neat that nobody notices I made them myself.

Anything else you would like to share?

At the end of 2022, my partner in crime and I bought an abandoned house in the Harz region. We are now slowly renovating it. Of course, people always ask, “Do you want to move there some day?” But we actually plan to have it as a vacation destination. Also, both of us have jobs where we can easily work remotely, so doing some workation there is totally an option. But besides that, we are very slow in renovating the place and probably won’t be finished with this project within the next 15 years. So living there permanently is not really an option at the moment anyways 😁

Anyhow, this house also has a garden, which, of course, was totally overgrown with multiple trees and plants. We could not even see how big it actually was in the beginning. But it’s now cleared, and I think we have already dug up like 15 tree stumps. Now we can actually start thinking about what plants we want to have there. The goal is obviously something like Monet’s Garden, just smaller ;) To start with, I found some roses in the wild that I really liked. One I passed in Berlin on the way at the side of the road, and one I found in a garden of an abandoned house. I cut off a piece of each and am now growing my own roses. Let’s see if they survive this winter.

Note from the editor: We are regrettably hearing reports that the roses have, in fact, died between the writing and publication of this interview.