Carl (Cid) Romero
Pragmatic Frontend Lead | Web Minimalist | Systems Thinker
I help teams deliver accessible, maintainable, high-quality software — faster.
What I Do
As a frontend lead, I co-founded an enterprise design system, reducing dev time across dozens of teams while enforcing consistent UX and accessibility. I also lead frontend architecture for a Spring Boot + React system — ensuring declarative, testable, maintainable code across various microservices and microfrontends.
My Approach
Understand an 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 solo, here are the heuristics I follow:
- Zero-dependency first. Vanilla JS > frameworks. 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 was driving org-wide adoption of the testing pyramid (unit, integration, e2e) 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, React Testing Library), Spring Boot, Webpack 5 Module Federation.
Before Tech
I made music — most notably for Cyberpunk 2077 and UFC 2.
Recommended Reads
- The Phoenix Project
- The Goal
- Elegant Objects
- The Mythical Man-Month
About This Website
It's an educational digital garden. Everything about this website is a forever work-in-progress: the books, the blogs, the code — all of it.
I'm building a 'hello world' distributed system across multiple GitHub repos to help entry- and mid-level software engineers learn about the type of work and processes they'll hopefully work with further in their careers. The content, the layout, the code, and beyond (as the system grows) all live in separate repos with various architectural decisions made in the name of accessibility, maintainability, and user experience. If all goes according to plan, readers and contributors can gain hands-on experience with the types of workflows they can expect at larger tech organizations with mature, thoughtful systems.