About me

There's Always a Bigger Project

Our small team of four had just wrapped up one of the largest projects our agency had ever undertaken when the next mammoth project came knocking. The scope of this new challenge dwarfed everything that had come before.

As the Tech Lead for the frontend, I took on responsibility for the project's architecture and technology selection. After analyzing the requirements and functional specifications, I decided to build the application using Next.js, a performant and versatile framework that gives us maximum flexibility without getting in the way. With TailwindCSS, we ensured a smooth and scalable UI development process, even for complex projects. React Aria enabled us to meet the high standards for accessibility and usability.

I worked closely with the backend team to coordinate the API's structure and documentation using OpenAPI, creating a seamless interface between frontend and backend. Acting as the technical point of contact, I managed both external requirements and internal implementation considerations, ensuring that our workflow supported a productive and efficient process. Additionally, I was responsible for frontend quality assurance, from code reviews to testing and performance optimization.

After more than a year of intense collaboration, the result was an intuitive, accessible, and high-performing application that met all of the client's functional and technical requirements. By leveraging modern technologies and established best practices, we built a future-proof platform that remains flexible, extensible, and maintainable for the long term.

Fresh Wind in the Sails

As a newcomer to the company, I quickly realized that the tech stack used for websites was in dire need of an overhaul. The CMS in use was a monolithic TYPO3 setup that rendered templates using the narrowly focused Fluid Templating Engine — a tool rarely seen outside of TYPO3 projects. On the frontend, jQuery and Bootstrap were the go-to tools — technologies that are increasingly hard to justify for modern projects.

This led to several critical issues. Websites suffered from poor performance, which negatively impacted SEO, reach, and, ultimately, the revenue of our clients. Projects progressed slowly and required more time than necessary, as the tech stack restricted both the workflow and the scope of possibilities.

I took the initiative and developed a working tech demo that tackled these problems head-on by leveraging modern technologies. Since the company specialized in TYPO3, I needed to find a solution that fit our team's skill set: a headless TYPO3 setup paired with a Next.js frontend via an API connection.

I knew that to win over my colleagues and the management, I needed to address all potential concerns up front: How do we get Next.js to replicate TYPO3's dynamic page structure? How can we implement custom TYPO3 content elements in the frontend? How do we integrate forms configured in the TYPO3 backend? What about SEO, sitemaps, and caching?

Using React for the frontend not only opened up a new world of possibilities but also made our development process significantly more efficient and the code far more maintainable in the long run. Thanks to Next.js's caching and routing capabilities, we achieved a whole new level of performance and SEO optimization.

The alternative approach I introduced didn't just give us a way to improve our internal workflows — but also to elevate the quality of our work in a sustainable way.

From Intern to Tech Lead

During an internship designed to assess my skills, I was tasked with rebuilding an existing project from scratch in a different framework.

The project was the administrative interface of an internal tool previously implemented with Vue.js. The goal was to evaluate my approach to problem-solving and my ability to quickly adapt to unfamiliar technologies. This was a trial task that had been used with several other interns before me.

In less than three weeks, I familiarized myself with React, Meteor.js, DevExtreme, and MongoDB and rebuilt the project with full functionality as requested. This outcome was unexpected, as the exercise was never intended to result in a production-ready solution.

The assessment was a complete success. The new project fully replaced the old tool, and because of how well it went, I became the go-to person for technical decisions. While we don’t have fixed roles, I’ve essentially taken on the responsibilities of a Tech Lead, making key choices on how we implement things moving forward.