Senior Full Stack Developer
TarequlIslam
In 2014 I asked a friend what “online” meant. Twelve years later I build products for the web.
Dhaka → working with a startup in the Netherlands
Scroll back to 20142014
“Online? What is that?”
I was studying computer science and had never heard of Facebook. A friend said everyone was online except me, and I had to ask what “online” meant.
An older brother I knew helped me open an account. All I had was a button phone and a little mobile data now and then, and most of it made no sense to me yet.
- Where
- Dhaka Polytechnic Institute · CSE, 5th semester
- Device
- Button phone
- Internet basics
2015
I didn't want to be left behind
Friends were forming groups to learn app development and web design. I didn't really know what those were, but I knew I didn't want to fall behind, so I picked web design.
I paid for the course with money saved from tutoring. My mother borrowed money from someone so I could buy a computer. After that it was practice at home every night: PSD to HTML, again and again.
- Where
- Creative IT Institute
- Paid with
- Tutoring savings
- HTML5
- CSS3
- Photoshop
- PSD slicing
- PSD → HTML
Nov 2016 — Aug 2017
Two days of work as an interview
I saw a job post on Facebook and sent my personal website as a sample. The interview was the same day my industrial attachment ended.
They gave me real work for a full day, then asked me back for another one. After those two days I had my first job offer.
What I did
- Converted large, complex PSD designs into pixel-perfect HTML/CSS
- Learned to match designs to the pixel across browsers and screen sizes
- Wrote custom jQuery plugins and built UI components from scratch instead of reaching for Bootstrap
- Role
- Frontend Web Designer
- Interview
- 2 full days
- HTML5
- CSS3
- JavaScript
- jQuery
- Custom jQuery plugins
- Bootstrap
- PSD → HTML
- Pixel-perfect UI
- Responsive design
- Cross-browser compatibility
2017 — 2019
Rejected about 20 times, then 100% JSS
Upwork rejected my profile about 20 times. I kept rewriting it until it was approved.
I worked my day job and took freelance projects from 10 PM. After four completed projects my Job Success Score was 100%, so I quit the job and freelanced full time for about two years.
What I did
- Worked with clients from many countries on a wide variety of projects
- PSD to HTML was my core skill, and most of my contracts used it
- Also did WordPress customization and theme development, Magento CSS work, responsive builds and bug fixing
- Kept a 100% Job Success Score, then freelanced full time for about two years
- Role
- Freelance Frontend Developer
- Where
- Upwork
- PSD → HTML
- HTML5
- CSS3
- JavaScript
- jQuery
- Bootstrap
- WordPress
- WordPress theme development
- Magento
- Responsive design
- Bug fixing
- Client communication
Job Success Score100%
2019
Marriage, and wanting stability
I got married in 2019. Freelance income goes up and down, so I decided to go back to a full-time job.
Apr 2019 — Mar 2021
A multinational team, and a lead who became a friend
I applied by email to a Facebook job post from a multinational company and used my Getwebinc and Upwork work as the portfolio.
It started as a remote job in a team of three. Our team lead was Bangladeshi, and after working together he became a friend. I recommended a friend from Creative IT, and when the company opened an office in Dhaka we worked from there, and sometimes still remotely. I kept freelancing alongside the job and started my first React work.
What I did
- Handled all frontend work for the company
- Turned designs into functional, responsive websites
- Moved to React for the last six months
- Started remote in a team of three, then worked hybrid from the new Dhaka office
- Role
- Sr. Frontend Developer
- Where
- NexusLab · Multinational · Remote → Dhaka office
- HTML5
- CSS3
- JavaScript
- jQuery
- Bootstrap
- Responsive design
- PSD → HTML
- Git
- React
Mar 2021 — Sep 2022
They offered more than I asked for
An Upwork interview turned into a full-time offer that was 10k BDT more than I had asked for. It seemed too good to be real at first, but I joined.
This is where I learned React properly: component architecture, Redux, and styled-components. I started as the only frontend engineer and later recommended a second one.
What I did
- The turning point of my career: built a large project management application in React
- Owned state management, UI, component architecture and API integration
- Led performance optimization and refactoring
- Mentored two interns: guided them, helped them and reviewed their code
- Left knowing I could learn anything I put my mind to
- Role
- Frontend Software Developer
- Offer
- +10k over ask
- React
- JavaScript (ES6+)
- Redux
- styled-components
- REST APIs
- Component architecture
- Performance optimization
- Refactoring
- Code review
- Mentoring
- Git
Sep 2022 — 2023
My old team lead brought us along
Our team lead moved to Germany and a few months later asked two of us to join him. We built the product remotely with GraphQL, Recoil, React and Tailwind, and the company raised a funding round.
After the raise, the company restructured around a new physical office in another country, and the remote team was let go.
What I did
- Built complex frontend features for the product
- Turned designs into functional, production UI
- Integrated APIs with GraphQL and handled bug fixing
- Role
- Frontend Software Engineer
- React
- TypeScript
- GraphQL
- Recoil
- Tailwind CSS
- API integration
- Bug fixing
- Git
2023 — 2024
Five quiet months
Losing a team I cared about hurt. For five or six months I didn't apply anywhere.
Mar 2024 — Dec 2024
From remote to corporate
A former colleague passed my résumé along, and I joined AsthaIT to work on the Toffee web app for Banglalink. It was my first on-site job after three remote ones.
Corporate culture works very differently from remote startups, and I had to learn how to work in it.
What I did
- Built features for the Toffee web app with Next.js, Tailwind and shadcn/ui
- Wrote unit and integration tests for production code
- Adapted from remote startups to corporate engineering processes
- Role
- Software Engineer IV
- Testing
- Unit + integration
- Next.js
- React
- TypeScript
- Tailwind CSS
- shadcn/ui
- Unit testing
- Integration testing
- Performance
Now
Dec 2024 — Now
A sample task, then an offer the next day
A graphic designer from my first job introduced me to their client. The plan was two or three months of freelance work, but they offered me a full-time role the day after I delivered the first task.
I joined to do frontend and now work across the whole stack.
What I did
- Lead the frontend and am responsible for the whole frontend application
- Code reviews, refactoring, performance optimization and frontend security
- Find and fix product bugs before users hit them
- Take part in product and frontend decision meetings with the CEO
- Contribute to the backend with NestJS and PostgreSQL
- Role
- Sr. Full Stack Developer
- Trial period
- 1 day
- Next.js
- React
- TypeScript
- Tailwind CSS
- shadcn/ui
- NestJS
- Node.js
- PostgreSQL
- Redis
- REST
- Authentication
- API Design
- Architecture
- Security
- Performance
- Microservices
- Code review
Skills
Frontend
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- React
- Next.js
- Tailwind CSS
Backend
- NestJS
- REST
- GraphQL
- PostgreSQL
- Redis
- Authentication
- API Design
- Microservices
Engineering
- Architecture
- Testing
- Security
- Performance
DevOps
- Linux
- Docker
- CI/CD
- Server Management
AI
- AI Engineering
Learning now
- DevOps
- AI Engineering