Independent · Berlin · remote or on site
I help teams build frontends they can live with.
Twenty-five years of shipping web software, the last ten with React. I join teams as a developer, an architect or an interim lead — whichever one the problem actually needs.
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01What I do
Three ways this usually starts.
Building
The product itself. Web and mobile frontends in React, React Native and TypeScript, from an empty repository to something in the store — including the parts nobody enjoys, like migrations and release pipelines.
Leading
Interim tech lead, frontend lead, or the architect somebody calls before the decision gets made. I take responsibility for the call, not just for the ticket.
Levelling up
Reviews, mentoring, technical hiring, and the unglamorous work of raising a codebase's floor. The point is that the improvement outlasts the engagement.
02Selected clients
Where the work went.
03How I work
Four things worth knowing before we talk.
You get me
There is no bench and no handover. The person in the kickoff is the person writing the code.
Product before code
I have been a product person for as long as I have been an engineer. Expect questions about why something is being built before answers about how.
Quality is a schedule decision
Types, tests and review are how I stay fast for longer than three weeks. When a deadline is buying debt, I will say so — and then help you decide it is worth it anyway.
AI as a power tool
I work with coding agents every day and read everything they write. The speed comes from the tooling; the judgement stays mine, and so does the responsibility.
04Writing
I wrote the German book on React.
In 2019 I self-published “React lernen und verstehen”, the first comprehensive React book in German, followed by the English “React Deep Dive”. 320 pages, built out of what went wrong in fifteen client projects. Both are free to read online.
Books and articles05Contact
Tell me what you are building.
A few sentences about the product, the team and the timeline are enough to start. If I am not the right person, I will usually know someone who is.
office@manuelbieh.de