Ciao 👋 I’m Edoardo, a Inventive Frontend Engineer primarily based in Vienna, Italian by origin. Almost a decade in, and that is nonetheless the one factor I’ve ever wished to do.
My work sits on the intersection of engineering and craft. Inventive frontend growth: animation, complicated interactions, headless CMS structure, the occasional refined impact that makes somebody cease and look twice. I’ve labored with shoppers like Buck, Disney, Porsche, Pink Bull, Le Labo Fragrances, and Getty. I’m presently freelance and open to new tasks, so for those who’re constructing one thing that deserves to be constructed effectively, get in contact. Over time I’ve touched just about the entire stack: backend, servers, APIs, frontend, e-commerce, design techniques.
Early in my profession I even constructed a small CMS from scratch simply to get my palms soiled with Node, Categorical, MongoDB, and Handlebars. I generally write technical articles, together with for Codrops, and I attempt to keep lively and visual locally. I’m additionally a part of Okay Dev, which has been an awesome area for that. I generally construct the form of work that finally ends up on Awwwards, FWA, and CSSDA, however there’s much more that by no means sees an award web page and I’m equally happy with it. I lately joined the Awwwards jury. That one nonetheless feels surreal. I take it significantly although: the online has sufficient templated, copy-pasted, patched-together web sites. My objective as a decide is to assist maintain the bar genuinely excessive and reward the work that’s truly pushing one thing ahead.
What retains me right here is that the browser continues to be a genuinely artistic medium. It rewards obsession. It punishes shortcuts. I discover that motivating in a approach I can’t totally clarify.
Right here’s a take a look at a few of what I’ve been as much as these days. 🔊 Audio on.
Tasks I’m Proud Of
Selecting favorites is difficult. I’ve shipped quite a bit over time and I’m genuinely happy with most of it. What I’ll say is that a few of my most formative work occurred earlier than AI turned a day by day software. Again whenever you’d be caught on one thing for days, satisfied you’d by no means determine it out, and you then did. That form of wrestle leaves a mark. The understanding that comes out of it’s totally different from something you will get by prompting your approach by means of an issue. There are additionally a couple of tasks within the pipeline I can’t share but, I genuinely can not wait.
1. Anuc Residence
A web site for Anuc Residence, a furnishings and inside model. My first Web site of the Day as an unbiased freelancer. Dev-wise, completely owned by me from kickoff to launch.
Tech stack: Vercel, Sanity, Subsequent.js
12 months: 2025
Collaborators: Eva Landaluce
Recognition: Awwwards Web site of the Day, FWA, picked up throughout a number of design directories.
Why it stands out: This one began from a clear, thought-about imaginative and prescient. Eva dealt with the branding and design, and from the start there was a transparent temper we wished to guard: calm, clean, unhurried. My job was to translate that into code with out dropping it. Mild animations, intentional interactions, nothing that may get in the best way of the sensation. The technical selections had been all in service of that environment.
There’s additionally one thing categorically totally different a couple of mission the place your title is on the road from begin to end. No company round you, no group to soak up the stress. Simply you, the consumer, and the work. When the SOTD got here by means of I jumped out of my chair and it took me an excellent half-hour to settle again down. That one is particular in a approach the others aren’t.
2. My Private Web site
My private portfolio. No formal design course of, only a tough sketch after which straight into code, iterating as I went. It ended up profitable a Web site of the Day anyway, which says one thing. I take advantage of it commonly and maintain including to it.
Tech stack: Vercel, Cloudflare, Sanity, Subsequent.js
12 months: 2025
Recognition: Awwwards Web site of the Day, FWA, picked up throughout a number of design directories.
Why it stands out: There’s one thing liberating about constructing one thing completely for your self with no consumer, no temporary, no constraints. It’s in all probability over-engineered by any affordable normal, however that’s the purpose. It’s my little playground, and likewise the place I experiment. Private web site all you need, however the tech behind it’s enterprise stage. That’s how I roll.
The true problem was video. Over 300 of them throughout the positioning. I constructed a customized pipeline and a customized Sanity discipline: drag and drop a video within the studio, it uploads to Cloudflare, generates a 240p preview, and auto-populates all of the fields. All the pieces runs on the AWS S3 SDK with movies in an R2 bucket, so caching comes without spending a dime. Subsequent.js server parts, cache tag revalidation, one click on save in Sanity and solely the one part that modified will get revalidated.
This model has lasted longer than any earlier one, which for me is the true praise.
3. Tersa
A wellness and restoration model with a robust artistic course. Pioneering holistic restoration options, and a web site that wanted to really feel prefer it.
Tech stack: AWS, Craft CMS, Subsequent.js
12 months: 2023
Collaborators: Wild
Recognition: FWA, Awwwards Honorable Point out, The Webby Awards Honoree
Why it stands out: This one was genuinely enjoyable to construct. The artistic course was expressive and the mission pushed me into new territory on a couple of fronts. It began with a headless Shopify integration, my first time constructing a headless cart utilizing the Storefront API. An attention-grabbing expertise that taught me quite a bit, even when it acquired eliminated later for enterprise causes.
The opposite problem was visible: huge, blurry, animated gradients. Sounds easy till you attempt to blur and animate that many pixels on display screen without delay and Safari simply refuses to cooperate. That mission taught me there’s a exhausting restrict to how a lot you may push that impact earlier than the browser pushes again. We labored round it rigorously, examined early variations of Rive for animated icons, and used it for the gradients too. Good lesson discovered the exhausting approach.
4. Le Journal Society
A luxurious editorial platform for Le Labo, mixing craftsmanship with a imaginative and prescient for timeless design and sustainable artistry.
Tech stack: AWS, Craft CMS, Subsequent.js
12 months: 2022
Collaborators: Wild, Frederik Hansen
Why it stands out: This one simply sticks. Frederik’s artistic course was spectacular and the collaboration felt genuinely fluid. We mixed robust belongings with cautious technical execution and the end result was one thing that felt cohesive in a approach that doesn’t at all times occur. A enjoyable, artistic mission that by no means acquired submitted for awards, which is a pity, however the work speaks for itself regardless.
About Me
It in all probability began with my father’s Home windows 98 laptop computer. I used to be 5, couldn’t learn or write, no thought what I used to be doing. However there was one thing about having a machine in entrance of you that responded to what you probably did. That feeling by no means actually went away. I began programming at 14, at an IT highschool that launched it the old style approach: logical diagrams on paper, then Java written by hand. At 16, an internship at a software program home the place I picked up JavaScript and jQuery, and spent most of my time coaching an early ML mannequin to acknowledge and skim fuel meters. Optical character recognition on utility {hardware}. Fascinating drawback for a 16-year-old.
Internet got here correctly at 17, by means of a college course that lit one thing up. I began a Laptop Science bachelor round that point and ultimately dropped it, however the algorithms course alone was well worth the detour. That’s what genuinely formed how I take into consideration issues: breaking them down, discovering essentially the most environment friendly path, eradicating what doesn’t should be there. I discovered Codrops nearly instantly, award websites adopted, and I understood fairly rapidly that this was a artistic medium disguised as a technical one.
What adopted was six months of intense self-study, 12 hours a day, commonly till 2 or 3am. On-line sources, Stack Overflow like each developer who has ever lived, programs right here and there. I went by means of Atom, then Elegant Textual content, then VS Code when it got here alongside and by no means appeared again. However the factor that actually moved the needle was replication: choose a web site you admire, open a clean file, construct it from scratch in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. When caught, open DevTools, examine the DOM, keep there till you perceive. You’re not following directions. You’re reverse-engineering selections made by individuals who already knew what they had been doing. There isn’t a extra highly effective option to study this craft.
After that, companies, then six years at Wild in Vienna, and now freelance once more.
The return to freelance was deliberate. Company life is snug in ways in which begin to price you after some time. What I didn’t totally anticipate was how a lot the non-creative aspect would demand: positioning, pricing, realizing which shoppers to pursue and which to say no politely however firmly (an artwork kind in itself). Nonetheless figuring elements of it out.
Outdoors of labor, I hit the health club commonly. Again within the day I advised myself I used to be going to be a match developer, simply to go in opposition to the stereotype. Been engaged on it for years.
Philosophy
The technical and the aesthetic will not be separate issues. A fantastically designed web site constructed on fragile code isn’t nice work. It’s half-finished work. The codebase is a part of the craft.
I’m not a designer, however years of working carefully with genuinely gifted ones gave me one thing adjoining: an actual sensibility for what’s working and what isn’t, the vocabulary to have an precise dialog about artistic course. That got here from proximity, not concept. I can function in two modes: receiving a completely resolved design and honouring it faithfully, or being introduced in earlier when issues are nonetheless being formed. The second is extra attention-grabbing. The primary requires a self-discipline that’s underrated.
I’m not a full-3D-website individual both. These experiences could be spectacular, however they’re usually an excessive amount of. What I care about is the refined impact that earns its place. Restraint, achieved effectively, is more durable than spectacle.
Efficiency is non-negotiable. A sluggish web site isn’t an appropriate trade-off for visible ambition. And on code: good software program is rarely about how a lot you write. Dijkstra mentioned it greatest: “if we want to depend strains of code, we should always not regard them as strains produced however as strains spent.” Eradicating code is the true work. So go inform the AI tech bro that no one cares about what number of strains their LLM spit out yesterday.
I’m an opinionated developer, and I’ll personal that. On tooling: I used GSAP again within the day with vanilla stacks and it’s a implausible library for that. However in a React codebase, I attain for Movement, previously Framer Movement, which I’ve been utilizing because it launched. Selecting GSAP in React means loads of guide wiring that Movement simply handles for you. I’d relatively not spend my afternoon looking at a 400-line useEffect and 100 refs.
And the small issues: a boring navbar ruins the texture of an in any other case nice web site. If urgent ESC doesn’t shut a modal, I discover. Not everybody does, and I get that, however to me it indicators that accessibility and the little interactions weren’t a precedence. These particulars are precisely what separates work that’s been actually cared for from work that’s simply been completed.
I’m additionally obsessive about code high quality and code fashion. The artistic growth world has a particular sort of codebase I can’t unsee as soon as I’ve seen it: a 5000-line JavaScript file, no construction, no logic, simply vibes. I used to be writing code like that once I began. It really works, technically. Nevertheless it doesn’t scale, it doesn’t survive a second developer, and it doesn’t mirror the identical care you place into the visible end result. Actual programming has construction. That’s not a constraint on creativity. It’s what makes the creativity sustainable.
Instruments & Workflow
My default stack is Subsequent.js, React, TypeScript, and Sanity. Movement for animations. Deployed on Vercel or Netlify, with Cloudflare in entrance for edge efficiency. Figma for something design-adjacent, Notion for writing and pondering, VS Code and Cursor for code. On AI tooling: for me it really works as an addition to my IDE, not a alternative for it. I would like full visibility and management over what I’m writing and what the LLM writes. I’m the director of every part that leads to the codebase. Cursor’s autocomplete is unmatched for that, and I don’t see a motive to alter the setup anytime quickly.
The desk stays clear. I work in absolute silence. Each non-negotiable.
Last Ideas
The instruments are shifting sooner than they ever have and lots of people are deciphering that as that means craft issues much less. I believe it’s the other. Style, judgment, the power to assume clearly by means of a tough drawback: these take years to construct and no mannequin goes to try this give you the results you want.
When you’re earlier in your journey, a couple of issues I’d inform my youthful self. When you’re enthusiastic about going freelance, don’t rush it. Spend time at an excellent company first, surrounded by people who find themselves higher than you. Take in how they assume, how they work, how they deal with stress. You’ll develop sooner there than you ever would figuring it out alone. And when you’re there, make your self seen. Share your work, put your title out, don’t wait for somebody to note you. While you really feel prepared and you’ve got the inspiration, make the leap.
Those who make freelance work are those who genuinely benefit from the course of, not simply the end result. That enjoyment reveals up in every part: the way you talk, how responsive you’re, how a lot you care in regards to the particulars no one requested you to care about. When you love what you do, you’re already extra fascinating to work with than a lot of the competitors. No positioning technique replaces that. And for those who’re passionate and good sufficient, the remaining will comply with.
The instruments have been altering for many years. The pondering continues to be yours.
