Carl (Cid) Romero

What I Do

As a frontend lead, I co-founded my org’s UI library, reducing dev time across dozens of teams while enforcing consistent UX and accessibility. I also lead frontend architecture for a greenfield React project made of micro frontends — ensuring test-driven, declarative, maintainable code from day one.

My Approach

Understand the org's needs, priorities, constraints, and goals to inform my chosen methods of achieving outcomes. While working in a large team, I contribute my opinion based on experience, but I remain agnostic to the "how" and focus on the "why".

But given complete freedom while developing, here are the heuristics I follow:

• Zero-dependency first. Vanilla JS > libraries. TypeScript only when complexity calls for it.
• Performance-aware. Small bundles, semantic HTML, minimal CSS, almost no JS.
• Test-first. One of my greatest accomplishments is having driven org-wide adoption of the testing pyramid and test-driven development (TDD).
• Mentorship-focused. I pair, coach, and translate business needs to dev intent.
• Always user-first. Simple, accessible, maintainable interfaces at every layer.

Tech I Lean On

React, Zustand, Context API, Custom Hooks, Git Hooks, Semantic HTML, Testing Libraries (Jest, Testing Library), Spring Boot, Module Federation.

Before Tech

I made music — for Cyberpunk 2077 and UFC 2.