Experience

Frontend and product engineer with 3+ years building consumer-facing experiences at scale, including a React Native app serving 100K+ users across iOS and Android. Own checkout and payment flows end to end, testing changes with A/B tests before rolling them out. Built the design system the team now uses. Trained as an architect before moving into frontend, which shows in how I structure component systems and in my eye for visual detail.

Experience

Apr 2025 — Present

Full-time

Frontend & Mobile Engineer

Gjirafa · Pristina, Kosovo

Own cart and checkout across web and mobile, including the payment gateways that power every transaction, testing changes with Firebase A/B tests before rolling them out
Build and maintain our React Native app, used by 100K+ people on iOS and Android; have shipped releases to both app stores
Cut 6.6MB from our JS bundle by profiling and removing unused dependencies, improving load time on lower-end devices
Own the web frontend across our three eCommerce platforms, GjirafaMall, Gjirafa50, and iGjirafa, and keep the experience consistent whether someone's on mobile or web
Take on select backend features, such as a wishlist flyout built on the existing cart pattern, using Claude Code to extend confidently into code outside my core focus
Built the design system the team now uses, after evaluating off-the-shelf UI kits and deciding against them to keep the app lightweight
Lead the personalized homepage experience, an ongoing initiative shaping how recommendations and promotions are presented to each user
Redesigned the GjirafaMall app independently, from user research through Figma to production React Native, engineering the full motion system including add-to-cart confirmation, pull-to-refresh, gesture zoom, and shared-element transitions. Audited the existing app frame by frame on real devices to establish the baseline for the rebuild
Serve as final technical frontend reviewer for a junior frontend engineer and backend engineers shipping smaller frontend features. Partner with the mobile app owner on mutual code review to uphold quality across the app, and help onboard new frontend hires
Use Sentry and Facebook Pixel to catch production issues early and prioritize fixes by real user impact. The app stays at roughly 99% crash-free
Make most of the day-to-day UI/UX calls, checked against A/B test results
Use Claude Code daily, but scope the work into small pieces and read every diff before it ships

Dec 2024 — Apr 2025

Full-time · 5 mos

Frontend Engineer

Gjirafa · Pristina, Kosovo

Implemented the checkout flow across web and mobile from Figma designs, adapting it for edge cases the designs didn't cover
Made ongoing performance improvements, including memoization, list virtualization, thread tuning, and back/forward cache, keeping the app fast even on older Android phones
Audited Lighthouse and PageSpeed scores alongside cross-browser consistency, resolving issues directly and flagging the rest for follow-up
Defined API contracts with backend engineers ahead of implementation, then integrated the REST APIs using React Query and Axios, handling data shape and caching
Contributed to migrating GjirafaMall from a single store to a multistore architecture across web and mobile, keeping the UI visually consistent while the underlying data models diverged
Mentor junior engineers through onboarding, code review, and ongoing guidance, from unblocking technical problems to brainstorming solutions together

Apr 2023 — Dec 2024

Full-time · 1 yr 9 mos

Frontend Developer

Gjirafa · Pristina, Kosovo

Trusted with our highest-visibility landing pages, including an Apple campaign and Starlink, delivering custom animations and microinteractions on each
One of three engineers who built the GjirafaMall app from scratch, taking ownership of checkout end to end
Designed a custom form library, later moving its state management from Redux to Context once Redux proved overengineered for the app's needs. Still the foundation for every form and checkout flow in the app
Built reusable components, including custom sliders, adopted throughout the app
Improved Core Web Vitals, SEO, and accessibility across our highest-traffic pages
Rebuilt Gjirafa50's Black Friday landing page, one of the highest-traffic days of the year, with a heavy focus on load performance
Redesigned the homepage with custom animations and personalized product recommendations, which ended up setting the visual direction for the whole platform
Built an internal CMS in Next.js as lead developer, intended for platform-wide marketing page publishing

Dec 2022 — Apr 2023

Internship · 5 mos

Quality Assurance Intern

Gjirafa · Pristina, Kosovo

Did regression and smoke testing across Gjirafa's platforms with Cypress, before moving into frontend engineering full time

Technical Skills

Mobile (React Native)

React NativeExpoTypeScriptReact Navigation (stack, tab, modal)Reanimated (worklets, gesture-driven UI)Shared-element transitionsDeep linkingTestFlightApp Store & Google Play releasesFirebase (Remote Config, A/B testing, feature flags)

Languages & Frameworks

JavaScript (ES2022+)TypeScriptReactReact NativeNext.jsHTML5CSS3Modern browser APIs

State, Data & APIs

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

Performance, Debugging & Quality

Core Web VitalsLighthousePageSpeed InsightsBack/forward cacheCode splittingPreload & priority hintsInlined critical CSSMemoizationVirtualizationLazy loadingImage optimizationBundle size profiling & reductionSentry crash & performance analysisReal-user data triageWCAG 2.1 awarenessSemantic HTMLAccessible UI patternsSEO fundamentals

Design & Design Systems

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

Web Platform

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

Architecture & Collaboration

Component-based designModular UI systemsFeature-based designScalable compositionLibrary & tooling decisionsCode reviewMentorship

Tooling

GitViteWebpacknpmESLintVS CodeCypress (E2E)HTTP / PostmanAdobe PhotoshopAdobe Illustrator

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.