All work

Frontend Developer

My first job inside a real engineering team, before GTM and before Clay, back when shipping meant someone else had already written the tests.

What I did

React components built against an existing unit-test suite, plus a long run of bug backlog cleanup across the product.

What the work was like

  • Building components to match an existing design system - props, states, edge cases, responsive behaviour.
  • Wiring the frontend to APIs: fetching, forms, validation, loading and error states.
  • Writing and fixing unit tests, then getting the PR through review.
  • Working down the bug backlog - layout glitches, state bugs, cross-browser quirks.
  • Picking up small features end to end, with a senior reviewing every diff.
  • The team rituals: standups, ticket grooming, code reviews.

What it taught me

How to work inside a team, mostly, and inside a large codebase I had not written a line of. Learning other people's patterns, matching the design system, changing code without breaking what surrounds it: that is a skill you only build in a codebase bigger than you are.

The other half was collaboration. Picking up tickets, asking questions in the right place, taking feedback on a diff without taking it personally: that part carried into every role since.