Theodore Damianidis · Senior Frontend Software Engineer

Behind the climb

Who carries the pack, how the work gets done and what is in it.

Back to the climb

About

Building things that have to last

Frontend engineer, ten years in, mostly at startups. I work across the stack: React and TypeScript up front, Node.js, GraphQL and databases behind. I take a feature from the schema to the screen.

I work closely with Product, Design and UX, from the first sketch to release. At Geekbot, used by teams at GitHub, Shopify and GitLab, I led the frontend team for four years: I built its design system, set the team's coding and review standards, brought Claude Code into the daily work with the rules and review contexts that make it useful and mentored the engineers who joined.

Now I am hands-on again at DeepSea.ai, where I set the frontend architecture: a Turborepo monorepo, the move off Create React App, a design system and the guides the frontend guild works from, with releases going out all the while. I ask what we are solving before how and I write code that stays easy to change.

Currently

Senior Frontend Software Engineer at DeepSea.ai

Based in

Thessaloniki, Greece. Remote for most of the last ten years.

Experience

10 years, 5 roles, 4 teams

Languages

Greek (native), English (fluent)

Education

BSc Computer Science, TEI of Central Macedonia

How I work

What ten years have settled into

Opinions, by how often they hold

  • Boring code beats clever code

  • What we are solving, before how

  • A design system beats one-off UI

  • AI writes the draft, not the decisions

  • Write it twice, then abstract

  • Tests where they earn their keep

It depends

Every time

Where a week goes

  • Writing code, 45%. Architecture included: it is decided by building it.
  • Code review, 20%. The cheapest place to catch a bad idea.
  • Deciding what to build, 15%. Mostly saying no to good ideas.
  • Mentoring, 10%. It shows up later, in someone else's code.
  • Meetings, 10%. Few and the ones that stay have a decision in them.

Skills

What is in the pack

Frontend

  • TypeScript
  • React
  • Next.js
  • Redux
  • TanStack Query

Design systems

  • Design Systems
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Atomic Design
  • BEM
  • Storybook
  • Various UI Libs
  • Figma

Across the stack

  • GraphQL
  • Apollo Client
  • Node.js
  • Prisma
  • Socket.io

Quality and tooling

  • Accessibility
  • Performance
  • Vitest
  • Sentry
  • Vite
  • Turborepo
  • Docker

AI in the workflow

  • Claude Code
  • Cursor
  • v0
  • MCP

Leadership

  • Frontend Architecture
  • Code Review
  • Mentoring
  • Cross-team Delivery
  • Stakeholder Management

Contact

Putting a team together?

Always open to a conversation: new opportunities, interesting challenges, or simply exchanging ideas. Replies within a day, usually less.

Thessaloniki, Greece · Remote · UTC+2/+3