About me
Hello_world
π Hey, I'm Manu.
I've been building for the web for over 13 years. Started in Denmark studying branding, marketing, and design. Development came later, not because I planned it, but because I had ideas I wanted to build and nobody else was going to build them for me.
That pattern stuck. I learn what I need to learn when I need to learn it. Over the years, that's meant touching a lot of things.
The design years: Most of the Adobe suite (back when some of it was still Macromedia), Figma, Zeplin. I still think like a designer as in structure, hierarchy, how things feel to use.
The "I'll try everything" years: PHP, Java, some Android back when it was version 3. WordPress, Drupal, Joomla. Ruby on Rails, .NET, a bit of Swift. I built things in whatever would get them built.
The frontend years: This is where I landed. jQuery β Backbone β Angular β React. Grunt, Gulp, Webpack, Vite. Less, Sass, CSS that actually makes sense. Bootstrap, Foundation, Chakra, Material; I've used them all, have opinions about all of them.
The full-stack reality: Node, Express, Sails, MongoDB, Postgres. REST, OpenAPI, some GraphQL. OAuth, Auth0. Enough backend to be dangerous, enough infrastructure to deploy my own stuff on my own servers.
The current chapter: AI integration, generative AI tooling, building products that actually use this stuff in useful ways, not just slapping a chatbot on everything and calling it innovation.
Am I great at all of it?
No. Nobody is.
But I'm great at some of it. JavaScript and TypeScript are home. React is where I've spent the most time: building internal tools, customer-facing apps, enterprise platforms for medium to large companies. I've worked alongside backend teams in .NET, PHP, Python. I've inherited legacy codebases that made me question my career choices, and I've turned them into something maintainable.
I've joined projects that were on fire and turned them into something stable. Migrated codebases through major version upgrades when everyone else was scared to touch them. Moved apps from Webpack to Vite. Set up git flows for teams that were committing straight to main. Containerized applications that had never seen a Docker file. Fixed security vulnerabilities that had been sitting there for some time. Done accessibility audits and fixed what needed fixing. Squeezed performance out of React and Next.js apps that were sluggish.
I've integrated third-party APIs that had documentation written by people who clearly hated developers (or didn't have time). Set up CI/CD pipelines. Written documentation that people actually read. Onboarded juniors and taught them the stuff that tutorials skip.
I've automated repetitive tasks with scripts so nobody has to do it manually again. And once, I built a webapp that had to run inside a desktop app with IE8/9 support which was exactly as painful as it sounds. The client originally called it a "demo," but the architecture was solid enough that they kept adding modules for years.
That's the work. Not always glamorous, but real.
But here's the thing: tools are just tools.
I don't care about stacks for the sake of stacks. I care about results. The pillars I build on:
- Stability - it should work, reliably, under pressure
- Accessibility - not an afterthought, not a checkbox
- Clean code - for the next person, who might be me
- Performance - because slow is broken
- User experience - the whole point of all of this
I want to work with people who give a shit about what they're building. Founders, companies, teams that want to make something real, not just technically impressive, actually useful.
So what can I do for you?
Honestly? It depends on your situation.
You might need someone to architect a frontend from scratch. You might need someone to unf**k a legacy codebase. You might need an MVP built fast. You might need AI integrated into an existing product in a way that isn't just a gimmick. You might need consulting, a second set of experienced eyes before you commit to a direction.
Or maybe you don't need me at all. That's fine too.
I won't know until we talk. Tell me what you're trying to solve, and I'll tell you if I can help.