About Me

Frontend engineer with 3+ years building production interfaces across web and mobile at Gjirafa — React Native + TypeScript on mobile (100K+ users on iOS and Android) and JavaScript + animation craft on a server-rendered web stack across 3 multi-country eCommerce platforms serving Kosovo, Albania, and North Macedonia. Designer and engineer held as one discipline — solo-owned a full mobile app redesign from research through Figma to production code, and the design system the rest of the team now composes features on. Specialise in checkout and payment flows, performance, and design-system work. Background in architecture (B.Arch) shapes how I approach interfaces — modular thinking, clear hierarchies, and attention to states, edge cases, and motion.

Experience

Apr 2025 — Present

Full-time

Frontend & Mobile Engineer

Gjirafa · Pristina, Kosovo

Own web frontend across GjirafaMall, Gjirafa50, and iGjirafa — three multi-country eCommerce platforms; technical decisions and code review go through me
Solo-owned the full redesign of the GjirafaMall mobile app from research through Figma to production React Native — audited the existing app frame-by-frame on real devices to produce the design brief, then rebuilt around UX laws applied as load-bearing decisions: Jakob's, Hick's, Fitts's, Doherty Threshold, and Peak-End
Built the design system the team now composes new features on — design tokens, an 8-step modular type scale, a 4pt spacing grid, semantic color palette, unified iconography, and a 12/20px radius system, with 1:1 Figma↔React Native parity (same names, props, and variants on both sides)
Shipped microinteractions and motion across the app — add-to-cart confirmation, tab bar spring physics, branded pull-to-refresh, gesture-zoom galleries, shared-element transitions, skeleton states, and staggered list animations — built with Reanimated for native-thread performance
Own cart and checkout flows on web and mobile (OrderSuccess and Complete) — created and maintain them; integrated a local payment gateway to support regional payment methods
Built a custom form library that became the foundation for all checkout flows and forms in the mobile app — drove consistent validation, state, and UX across the app
Investigate production issues using Sentry and Facebook Pixel — triage crashes and performance regressions from real-user data, reproduce subtle bugs, prioritise fixes by user impact, and refine UI based on actual usage
Improved navigation performance across all three platforms — added back/forward cache support so users returning to product listings load instantly, alongside smoother infinite scroll and refined pagination
Held cross-browser and cross-device parity as a baseline across all internal platforms — consistent behavior on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, and responsive layouts that adapt cleanly from desktop down to mobile, including touch-first interactions where they differ from mouse
Drive REST API contracts with backend engineers when starting features — define data flow and request shape up front, reducing UI latency and rework
Lead the web frontend team — scope and assign work to junior frontends, review their code, and onboard new joiners; collaborate with backend, design, and QA across Agile sprints
Integrate Claude Code into daily delivery with rigorous review discipline — scope work into reviewable units, read every diff, enforce architecture and code standards

Dec 2024 — Apr 2025

Full-time · 5 mos

Frontend Engineer

Gjirafa · Pristina, Kosovo

Delivered a redesigned checkout flow across web and mobile — implemented end-to-end based on product and design specs, ensuring consistent business logic, validation, and visual treatment across surfaces
Built product, gift card, and Story section pages in the mobile app
Drove continuous performance work — memoization, list virtualization, render-cycle profiling, JS thread vs UI thread tuning — reducing latency on real devices including lower-end Android
Integrated REST APIs with React Query, Axios, and Fetch — partnered with backend engineers on data contracts, request shape, and client-side caching
Mentored junior engineers through code reviews and architectural guidance

Apr 2023 — Dec 2024

Full-time · 1 yr 9 mos

Frontend Developer

Gjirafa · Pristina, Kosovo

Owned landing and creative pages across web and mobile — trusted with the highest-visibility surfaces (Apple campaign, Starlink, and others) for combining pixel-level UI precision with custom JavaScript animations and microinteractions added proactively
Redesigned and rebuilt Gjirafa50's Black Friday landing page as primary developer — one of the highest-traffic surfaces of the year. Reworked the visual treatment and page structure for the new campaign with significant focus on performance: image optimization, lazy loading, code splitting, preloading hero assets with priority hints, and inlined critical CSS for above-the-fold rendering
Delivered the homepage redesign with custom JavaScript animations — set the visual direction for a full web platform redesign adopted across all surfaces
Built an internal CMS in Next.js + TypeScript as primary developer on a small team — content authoring tool with a visual builder, dynamic routing, and a component-based rendering system used to publish marketing pages across the platform
Contributed to building the GjirafaMall eCommerce mobile app in React Native + TypeScript from scratch as one of three core contributors — owned the checkout flow end-to-end (still do), built a custom form library now used across the app, and created reusable components (e.g. custom sliders) adopted throughout the project
Improved Core Web Vitals, SEO, and accessibility across high-traffic pages — code splitting, image optimization, semantic HTML, WCAG-aware patterns

Dec 2022 — Apr 2023

Internship · 5 mos

Quality Assurance Intern

Gjirafa · Pristina, Kosovo

Regression, feature, and smoke testing across Gjirafa platforms
Applied Cypress for test automation
Developed a UX-focused QA mindset grounded in real-world usage patterns

Technical Skills

Languages & Frameworks

JavaScript (ES2022+)TypeScriptReactReact NativeNext.jsHTML5CSS3Modern browser APIs

Design & Design Systems

FigmaUI/UX design & implementationInteraction designMicrointeractionsDesign tokensModular type scaleSpacing gridSemantic colorRadius systemsIconographyComponent librariesFigma↔code parityCross-surface consistency

Mobile (React Native)

React NativeExpoReact Navigation (stack, tab, modal)Reanimated (worklets, gesture-driven UI)Shared-element transitionsSpring physicsDeep linkingNative module integrationTestFlightLower-end Android optimisation

Web Platform

Server-rendered eCommerce at scale (ASP.NET MVC + Razor)Custom JavaScript animationNext.js production via internal CMSResponsive designCross-browser parity

State, Data & APIs

Redux ToolkitContext APIReact QueryREST APIsAxiosFetchData contract design with backend engineersClient-side cachingPayment gateway integrationFreshchat

Performance, Debugging & Quality

Core Web VitalsLighthouseBack/forward cacheCode splittingPreload & priority hintsInlined critical CSSMemoizationVirtualizationLazy loadingImage optimizationSentry crash & performance analysisFacebook PixelReal-user data triageWCAG 2.1 awarenessSemantic HTMLAccessible UI patternsSEO fundamentals

Architecture & Collaboration

Component-based designModular UI systemsCustom form libraryScalable compositionLibrary & tooling decisionsMulti-week project scopingCode reviewMentorshipAI-assisted development with rigorous review

Specialisations

Checkout & payment flows across web and mobileeCommerce UXLocalization & multi-market support (Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia)Design-system work

Tooling

GitViteWebpacknpmESLintVS CodeCypress (E2E)Adobe PhotoshopAdobe IllustratorHTTP / Postman

Education

Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch)

University of Pristina

2021

Architectural training in systems thinking, modular design, and visual composition — directly applicable to interaction design, component architecture, and design-system thinking.

Frontend Development with Backend & DevOps Foundations — Graduated Cum Laude

LIFE by Gjirafa

2022 — 2023

Highly selective engineering program run by Gjirafa. Recruited early onto the Gjirafa engineering team based on demonstrated performance during the program. Curriculum: software engineering fundamentals, data structures, algorithms, networking, DevOps; React, Next.js, TypeScript, CSR / SSR / ISR / SSG, clean code, testing.