Skip to content

Open to Senior/Staffproduct engineering rolesRemote, US & Canada

Eduardo Sotero. Senior Frontend Engineer working in React, Next.js and TypeScript

Senior Frontend EngineerFull Stack Engineer

UI through data · Design systems · Web performance · AI engineering

I build interfaces that survive real traffic, and the systems behind them. Storefronts for millions of monthly visitors, a GraphQL BFF over a maze of legacy services, and a live streaming platform I architected from the first commit as CTO. Today I lead AI engineering at Lithios Apps and set the standards our engineers work by.

Florianópolis, Brazil · Full EST overlap

Shipped for

  • Rooms To Go
  • The Clorox Company
  • Birchbox
  • Mothership
Portrait of Eduardo Sotero
12+ years of experience

Design systems, storefronts, and a live streaming platform.

Live links and source where I can share them.
The Pixelore UI landing page: a pixel-art headline reading Build browser games faster, over Get started, Play the demo and Browse components buttons.

Pixelore UI

Designer & Engineer · Open source · Personal

Design system

Mainstream React design systems target dashboards, not browser games. Pixelore is the 8-bit alternative: 18 Radix-based primitives, dual ESM+CJS distribution, a Tailwind v3/v4 preset, and a signature HeartBar component, all targeting WCAG 2.2 AA. Published on npm and proven by a full RPG built on top of it.

React 19TypeScriptTailwind v4Radix UIMotion 12tsuppnpm + TurboChangesets
The Pixelore Quest title screen: a new game panel offering the Warrior, Mage and Rogue classes, each with a pixel-art sprite and its HP, MP and ATK stats.

Pixelore Quest

Designer & Engineer · Open source · Personal

Game demo

A complete turn-based RPG built on @pixelore/react that exercises every component end to end. Status effects, an equipment system with derived stats, a multi-phase boss, persistent saves, and a hand-authored pixel-art sprite pipeline. Playable in the browser.

React 19TypeScriptViteTailwind v4Motion 12@pixelore/react

Rooms To Go Storefront

Senior Frontend Engineer · Rooms To Go

eCommerce at scale

Four years on the buying journey of a top US furniture retailer, serving millions of monthly visitors. I led the move from Gatsby to Next.js, migrating route by route while the old app kept serving traffic. I also built the GraphQL BFF that sits between the storefront and the services behind it, and the design system that several squads ship with in production.

Next.jsGatsbyApolloStorybookStrapi

Artio Events

CTO · Lead Engineer · Artio Events, Inc.

Live streaming platform

As CTO and lead engineer I architected a live events platform from the first commit: scheduling, live audience interaction, and the video, on Firebase, PostgreSQL, and AWS. The broadcast played through Video.js over HLS, and Twilio ran the WebRTC breakout rooms that covered the intervals, with Socket.IO carrying chat and room state, so attendees could talk while the stream was off air. I set the React and TypeScript component standards the team built on, and took the product to launch.

Next.jsTypeScriptVideo.jsHLSWebRTCTwilioSocket.IOFirebaseAWSPostgreSQL

Clorox Brand Platform

Frontend Developer · The Clorox Company

Fortune 500 brands

Marketing pages for Hidden Valley and Kingsford at a Fortune 500, built as React components embedded in the WordPress platforms behind both brands. Campaign designs became responsive, accessible pages, and the content team could publish them without waiting on engineering. I also migrated the smaller brand sites off Eleventy onto Next.js.

ReactWordPressNext.jsEleventyTypeScriptCMS

Birchbox Multi-region

Software Engineer · FemTec Health / Birchbox

Multi-region CMS

CMS-driven eCommerce frontends for the US, UK, and Spain. I modelled the Prismic documents and the i18n routing so the three markets share components and diverge only in content. That took engineering out of the publishing path.

Next.jsTypeScriptTailwind CSSPrismic

Mothership Redesign

Senior Frontend Engineer · Mothership

Performance refactor

I built the product pages in React and Next.js, and refactored the map-based interface that dominated the page's LCP. I wired HubSpot lead capture into the acquisition funnel through GraphQL and Apollo.

Next.jsReactGraphQLApolloStyled-components

Twelve years shipping for North American teams, interface to database.

I'm a frontend engineer with 12+ years of experience, and I own features end to end. My depth is the interface layer: design systems, Core Web Vitals, WCAG 2.2. My range is everything that has to exist for that interface to work, which in practice means API design, data modelling, auth, background jobs and the deploy.

At Rooms To Go I designed and built the GraphQL BFF that unified the services behind a storefront serving millions of monthly visitors, plus the design system several squads shipped on. At Artio Events I was CTO: I architected a live events platform from the first commit and took it to launch. The broadcast ran on Video.js over HLS and WebRTC rooms covered the intervals, all of it on PostgreSQL, Firebase and AWS.

Today at Lithios Apps I build the platform every client project starts from: Next.js, Fastify, MongoDB, queues, auth and storage. I also lead how our engineers work with AI.

Outside work I write open source: my own projects, and Octane, the compiled successor to Inferno. I built create-octane there, the scaffolder that takes you from an empty folder to a running app, and I still work on the CLI.

I don't do backend in isolation. I do whole features, and I'm best when I own the seam. I work from Brazil with full overlap on Eastern Time, US and Canada.

Twelve years shipping for startups and global brands.

  • Senior Software Engineer · Lithios Apps

    2026 - Present

    Raleigh, NC · Remote

    • I lead AI engineering across the company: I set the standards for Claude Code and Cursor, and run the internal training for engineers.
    • Built the platform every client project now starts from: Next.js and Vite on the frontend, Fastify APIs, MongoDB/MySQL, Bull queues, Better Auth, S3 and Sentry, deployed to Railway. Standing up a new MVP went from two days to thirty minutes, environment variables included and demo-ready.
    • Building a library of Claude Skills, specialized agents that automate engineering work. One reviews maintenance-contract candidates against the technical and usability criteria leadership set, then writes up a standard report.
    • I own client products end to end, from the interface down to the data layer and the deploy.
  • Senior Frontend Engineer · Rooms To Go

    2022 - 2026

    via Toptal

    • Owned the buying journey of a top US furniture retailer with millions of monthly visitors, from the storefront interface to the data layer.
    • Led the storefront's migration from Gatsby to Next.js, route by route, with the Gatsby app serving live traffic the whole way instead of a single cutover.
    • Designed and built the GraphQL BFF that unified the storefront's services into one schema. Then made it the standard integration path for new features.
    • Worked the serverless side of the same storefront: Firebase Cloud Functions handled user creation and the analytics pipeline, and checkout ran on several payment providers rather than one.
  • Software Engineer · FemTec Health / Birchbox

    2022

    via Toptal

    • Modelled the content schema and the i18n routing for three regional storefronts, so US, UK and Spain share components and diverge only in content.
    • Took engineering out of the publishing path: non-technical teams manage localized content on their own.
  • Senior Frontend Engineer · Mothership

    2022

    via Toptal

    • Owned the product pages and refactored the map interface that dominated their LCP, from the render path down to how the data reached it.
    • Integrated HubSpot lead capture using GraphQL, Styled-components, and Apollo.
  • Frontend Developer · The Clorox Company

    2021 - 2022

    via Toptal

    • Built marketing pages for the Hidden Valley and Kingsford brands, embedding React components into the WordPress platforms behind them.
    • Migrated the smaller brand sites off Eleventy onto Next.js.
  • Frontend Engineer · Lithios Apps

    2021 - 2022

    via Toptal

    • Built the components and frontend structure across startup projects, on React with REST APIs, Redux, Jest, Tailwind CSS, and Styled-components.
    • This engagement led to a direct hire at Lithios Apps in 2026.
  • Chief Technology Officer · Artio Events, Inc.

    2020 - 2021

    Salt Lake City, UT · Remote

    • CTO and first engineer. Architected a live events platform from commit zero: scheduling, live audience interaction, and video delivery, on PostgreSQL, Firebase and AWS.
    • The broadcast played through Video.js over HLS. Twilio ran the WebRTC breakout rooms that covered the intervals, with Socket.IO carrying chat and room state, so attendees could talk while the stream was off air.
    • Owned every technical decision, down to the React and TypeScript standards the team built on, the data model and the deploy. Took the product to launch.
  • Front-end Engineer · FeraCode

    2019 - 2020

    Florianópolis, Brazil

    • Led architecture for a B2C media-exchange marketplace across web, mobile and APIs, on React, TypeScript, Node.js, GraphQL and REST.
    • Built the charts by hand in D3, working at the level of scales, axes and data binding rather than off a component library. Routing ran on React Router.
    • Managed a team of 4 engineers, owning delivery from the interface through the integrations behind it.
Earlier roles (2017 - 2018)
  • Front-end Developer · CreativeDrive

    2018

    Florianópolis, Brazil

    • Turned designs into responsive interfaces with React and Angular at agency pace, meeting tight deadlines.
    • Reused component patterns across projects, cutting rework between clients.
  • Web Developer · VHL Sistemas

    2017 - 2018

    Florianópolis, Brazil

    • Built and maintained frontend features of a time-management platform in AngularJS, Vue, and PHP.
    • Added E2E tests with Nightwatch.js and component patterns to reduce regressions.

Education

  • Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina

    2011 - 2016

    Bachelor's in Information Systems

    Santa Catarina, Brazil

  • Senac Santa Catarina

    2010

    Technician, Java Development

    Santa Catarina, Brazil

Languages

  • Portuguese · Native
  • English · Fluent, C1
  • French · Basic to intermediate

The toolkit, from the interface down to the deploy.

A working stack refined across product, agency, and enterprise environments. I pick tools for fit rather than novelty.

Frontend

TypeScriptReactNext.jsReact RouterDesign SystemsFigma to ReactTailwind CSSStorybookJestVitestCypressPlaywrightD3 / ChartingVideo.js / HLSAccessibility (WCAG 2.2)Core Web Vitals

APIs & Data

GraphQLApollotRPCREST APIsBFF architectureSchema designPostgreSQLMongoDBAuthenticationStripe

Runtime & Infrastructure

Node.jsFastify / ExpressServer ComponentsRoute HandlersServer ActionsCachingEdge runtimeBackground jobsFirebase / Cloud FunctionsDockerAWSVercelCI/CDSentry

AI Engineering

Claude CodeClaude SkillsAgent DesignMCP ServersCursorSpec-first promptingAnthropic APIStructured output

How I build with AI.

I lead AI engineering at Lithios Apps: I set the standards for how our engineers use these tools and I run the internal training. Design intent and architectural decisions stay with me. The tooling is what makes the work faster and harder to get wrong.

Tools I use

Claude CodeDaily driver for repo-aware coding and refactors
Claude SkillsPackaged agents for engineering automation
CursorEditor-level autocomplete and inline edits
MCP ServersContext bridges for Figma, Atlassian, GitHub
Claude APIModeration, vision and structured output in product code

How I work

01

Skills as engineering automation

I build a library of Claude Skills, specialized agents that encode a real process. One reviews maintenance-contract candidates against the technical and usability criteria leadership set, then writes a standard report. The judgment stays consistent no matter who runs it.

02

Standards, then training

Tooling only compounds if the team uses it the same way. I define how Claude Code and Cursor fit our workflow, then run the internal training that gets engineers there. The standard is the deliverable, not the tool list.

03

Spec-first prompting

I write the spec before any code: constraints, file paths, acceptance criteria. When the model has that, the output lands close enough that review becomes a question of taste rather than a list of corrections.

04

Refactoring with guardrails

Types, tests, and lint do not bend for a model. AI proposes the refactor, and the compiler and test suite decide whether it ships.

Spec-firstVision-awareType-safeRepo-grounded

Taking React 360 to a sold-out room.

Eduardo Sotero on stage at Front in Floripa 2019, mid-sentence beside a lectern, with the conference banner reading "Maior evento front-end de Santa Catarina" to his left and a slide from the Solar System demo projected to his right.

Building 360 and VR experiences with React 360

Criando experiências 360 e VR com React 360

Front in Floripa calls itself the largest front-end conference in Santa Catarina, and the 2019 edition sold out. I spoke to a room of roughly 400 people about putting 360 and VR on the web with React 360, and demoed a solar system you move through in the browser. The source and the live build are both still up.

Event
Front in Floripa · 7th edition
Date
30 November 2019
Where
Florianópolis, Brazil

Hiring for a senior product engineering role?

I’m open to senior and staff product engineering roles with US and Canadian teams, plus selected freelance work. I work from Brazil with full overlap on Eastern Time.