Context
At Optimacros, I owned the internal component library and design system. My role combined frontend team leadership, product ownership, project management, and design system leadership.
The challenge: a foundation for product teams
The task was to establish a shared UI library from scratch. This involved more than components: documentation, themes, package versions, and a reliable way to distribute updates.
My role and the team
I formed a team of three developers and one designer. I owned hiring, one-to-ones, development plans, and team processes. I introduced planning, retrospectives, task estimation, and documentation in Jira and Confluence.
I personally designed the library and component architecture and led code and design reviews. I developed a custom React state manager and a typed Zag.js adapter, and coached the designer on a component-based approach.
From design tokens to packages
I created the Figma design system and a token-based theming system. I set up Storybook for component development and documentation. Shared coding and project structure guidelines helped the team work consistently.
I organized a Lerna monorepo, GitLab CI/CD, package versioning, and npm publishing with Nexus. I wrote scripts for recurring operations and a Figma plugin to export component styles.
The outcome: a library managed as a product
The initiative delivered over 40 independent reusable components. The team had an architecture, documentation, themes, and a complete library release process, from a code change to a published package.
Behind the outcomes
A component library needs product thinking: a team, clear conventions, and support for its internal users. My work connected those responsibilities with hands-on architecture and development.