Senior Frontend Engineer @ Loan.co.uk

Frontend architecture for complex, high-trust products.

I help teams turn frontend complexity into clear, maintainable systems — improving performance, reliability, developer experience, and delivery confidence across fintech and e-commerce.

What I bring to complex frontend systems

I focus on the parts of frontend engineering that start to matter most as products, teams, and codebases grow: architecture, reliability, developer experience, and delivery confidence.

Frontend Architecture

Creating clear boundaries, maintainable UI systems, predictable data flow, and frontend structures that can scale as product complexity grows.

Developer Experience

Improving the way teams build, test, validate, review, and ship frontend work through better standards, tooling, documentation, and shared patterns.

Performance & Reliability

Reducing bottlenecks, improving user experience, and making frontend systems more dependable through architecture, measurement, and careful trade-offs.

High-Trust Products

Working across fintech and e-commerce systems where accessibility, security, reliability, and user confidence are part of the product experience.

Selected impact

Examples of where I’ve helped improve complex frontend systems — from performance and data flow to standards, reliability, and developer experience.

Performance architecture

Improved frontend performance by identifying bottlenecks in rendering, loading, and user journeys, then shaping more efficient patterns around data fetching, page structure, and interaction flow.

Focus: Core Web Vitals, rendering performance, loading strategy, frontend architecture.

State management and data flow

Worked on complex product flows where unclear state ownership and inconsistent data patterns made features harder to reason about, test, and extend. Introduced clearer frontend boundaries and more predictable data flow to improve reliability and maintainability.

Focus: State management, data fetching, validation, React, TanStack Query, Zod.

Frontend standards and developer experience

Helped move frontend work toward shared conventions, clearer review practices, better documentation, and reusable patterns that made delivery safer and more consistent across teams.

Focus: Developer experience, frontend standards, maintainability, mentoring.

High-trust product flows

Built and improved frontend systems for fintech, mortgage lending, and e-commerce products where performance, accessibility, security, and user confidence directly affect the product experience.

Focus: Fintech, regulated workflows, accessibility, secure frontend architecture.

About Me

Senior Frontend Engineer with 5+ years of experience building and improving complex applications across mortgage lending, fintech, e-commerce, and SaaS.

I focus on frontend architecture, developer experience, performance, accessibility, and maintainability — especially in systems where product complexity, reliability, and user trust matter.

A lot of my work involves stepping into frontend systems that are starting to feel strain: unclear data flow, inconsistent patterns, performance bottlenecks, fragile user journeys, or developer workflows that slow teams down.

I help teams introduce more structure through clearer boundaries, better standards, thoughtful tooling, and frontend systems that are easier to understand, extend, and operate over time.

My Engineering Philosophy

Mindful Minimalism

Great software often comes from restraint. Like pruning a bonsai, I remove unnecessary complexity so the core system becomes clearer, calmer, and easier to work with.

Patience in Process

I favour thoughtful iteration over flashy shortcuts. Strong engineering comes from steady improvement: clearer patterns, better feedback loops, and decisions that hold up over time.

Web-Native Thinking

I build with the grain of the platform — using web standards, performance, accessibility, and progressive enhancement as foundations rather than afterthoughts.

Daniel Philip Johnson tending to a bonsai tree

Professional Growth Path

My journey of continuous learning and evolution in the digital landscape

Senior Front End Engineer

Loan.co.uk

August 2024–Present

Modernised a legacy Create React App into a Next.js App Router + React Server Components architecture, and engineered a deterministic Zustand-based task engine for complex mortgage journeys.

Technologies

TypeScriptNext.jsReact Server ComponentsZustandStorybookWCAG 2.1 AAZodTailwind CSS

Key Contributions

  • Modernised a legacy Create React App into a Next.js App Router + React Server Components architecture, introducing server/client boundaries, caching rules, and rendering patterns that dramatically improved performance and established a scalable foundation for future features.
  • Engineered the dashboard task engine using a deterministic Zustand-based state architecture, unifying multi-source task data (uploads, fact-find, credit checks, document reads, debt consolidation) into a predictable flow that improved clarity, correctness, and reliability for advisors and customers.
  • Collaborated with design on a full dashboard and customer-app redesign, advising on technical feasibility, performance implications, and UX trade-offs to ensure proposed solutions were intuitive, fast, and realistic to implement.
  • Built a unified frontend platform including a token-driven design system (Storybook, WCAG 2.1 AA), feature-flagging system, Zod-powered form engines, analytics middleware, and typed API clients reducing UI inconsistency by 75% and increasing developer velocity across teams.
  • Drove a multi-quarter performance initiative, implementing parallel data fetching, server-first rendering, cache boundaries, bundle analysis, and strict code-splitting which cut app load time by 45%.
  • Spearheaded frontend security and compliance, reducing 400+ CVEs to 12, enforcing dependency governance, and integrating audit logging into React/Next.js interaction flows.
  • Designed and shipped an AI-powered chat interface with real-time streaming, optimistic updates, and state-machine-driven UI flows delivering a fast, reliable customer support experience.
  • Improved engineering culture by defining coding standards, frontend conventions, architectural guidelines, and documentation practices that enhanced consistency and long-term maintainability.

Front End Engineer Bigcommerce

IDHL

July 2023–August 2024

Defined React and Next.js architectural foundations for enterprise commerce platforms and engineered high-performance PWAs using React Server Components.

Technologies

BigCommerceReactNext.jsTypeScriptGraphQLTailwind CSSStorybook

Key Contributions

  • Defined the React and Next.js architectural foundations for two enterprise commerce platforms, introducing durable component patterns, rendering rules, and performance constraints that increased team velocity and improved project margins by 15%.
  • Engineered a Next.js-powered PWA using React Server Components, modular components, and structured hydration boundaries, and documented the patterns in Storybook to unify UI behaviours across teams.
  • Created shared React data-fetching primitives (GraphQL wrappers, typed hooks, caching strategies) that reduced integration overhead by 55% and eliminated duplicated logic across teams.
  • Engineered performance and caching improvements across the storefront, including GraphQL caching and edge-oriented rendering for the checkout, delivering faster TTFB, smoother buyer journeys, and more stable performance at scale.
  • Collaborated with product designers to shape high-conversion storefront and checkout experiences, advising on feasibility, performance trade-offs, and component-level UX improvements.

Fullstack developer

hiyield

July 2021– July 2023

Designed and delivered headless eCommerce architectures and engineered Google Cloud data pipelines for real-time dashboards.

Technologies

ReactNext.jsGraphQLPrismic CMSStorybookTypeScriptGoogle CloudFirebaseStripe

Key Contributions

  • Designed and delivered a headless eCommerce architecture using React/Next.js, GraphQL, and Prismic CMS, supported by a shared Storybook component library that improved scalability and reduced page load times by 35%.
  • Rebuilt a plugin-heavy WordPress platform into a React + TypeScript JAMstack application with Firebase auth, serverless APIs, and Stripe integration, replacing brittle legacy code with a fast, secure, and maintainable modern foundation.
  • Engineered Google Cloud pipelines (Pub/Sub → Compute → Elasticsearch) that processed 2M+ records per quarter, enabling real-time dashboards and powering low-latency search experiences across React-based customer interfaces.
  • Built a React customer portal that unified account management, bookings, collection requests, and storage tracking, fully integrated with warehouse and logistics systems to deliver accurate, real-time updates to customers.
  • Collaborated with designers to refine user flows and component patterns, ensuring new features across eCommerce and logistics products were intuitive, performant, and consistent with evolving design system standards.

Founding Front End Engineer

codecareer.io

2020–2021

As a founding developer, built a React-based job board platform from the ground up and implemented Python automation for multi-source data fetching.

Technologies

ReactPythonMongoDBTailwind CSS

Key Contributions

  • As a founding developer, built the React-based frontend for a job board platform from the ground up including search interface, job filters, pagination, and real-time data display supporting 3,000+ daily listings and reducing page load time to under 1.2s on average.
  • Designed Python automation to pull job data from 5+ APIs, storing parsed entries in MongoDB reducing API costs by 50% and improving listing freshness and frontend accuracy.

React Developer (Freelance)

Self-Employed

February 2019 – August 2020

Developed custom React frontends and automated data collection workflows for various clients.

Technologies

ReactPythonMongoDB

Key Contributions

  • As a founding developer, built the React-based frontend for a job board platform from the ground up including search interface, job filters, pagination, and real-time data display supporting 3,000+ daily listings and reducing page load time to under 1.2s on average.
  • Designed Python automation to pull job data from 5+ APIs, storing parsed entries in MongoDB reducing API costs by 50% and improving listing freshness and frontend accuracy.

Latest writing

Fresh notes on frontend craft and engineering leadership.

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Let's Connect

I'm always open to discussing new projects, creative ideas, or opportunities to be part of your vision.

Location

Truro Cornwall

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"The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen."

— Rachel Naomi Remen