Esemie — Building the frontend for an accounting platform designed for small businesses
An all-in-one accounting platform that helps small businesses manage invoices, expenses, budgets and financial reporting — built from the ground up and taken through to launch.
I joined Esemie from the beginning as Frontend Engineer and Frontend Team Lead, building the frontend application alongside leading the frontend team from development through launch. Esemie gives small businesses tools to generate invoices, track expenses, manage budgets, access financial reports, and give team members or stakeholders controlled access to business information.
- Frontend Engineer & Frontend Team Lead
- React · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS
- Frontend Development · Team Leadership
The challenge
- This was my first project that would go live with real users, which changed how I approached development.
- The goal wasn't just matching the design — every feature needed to work as expected, edge cases needed to be considered, and the experience needed to stay reliable once real users began interacting with it.
- The platform needed to support several distinct areas of small business operations — invoicing, expense tracking, budgets, financial reporting, multi-currency invoicing, and controlled staff/stakeholder access — as one cohesive frontend experience.
- As the frontend team grew, the application needed to stay consistent as multiple people contributed to it.
My contribution
- Built the frontend application from the ground up
- Translated product and UI designs into functional interfaces
- Worked with React, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS
- Led and coordinated the frontend team
- Ensured consistency across the application
- Integrated frontend features with backend services
- Tested features before release
- Supported the product through its launch to live users
Rather than joining an already established product, I was part of the process of turning the product idea and designs into a working application from day one. Alongside writing code, I led the frontend team — thinking beyond the individual feature I was working on to consider how different parts of the application fit together, and ensuring the frontend stayed consistent as multiple people contributed to the product.
A member journey
This was my first project going live with real users, so the frontend needed to be reliable, not just visually accurate to the design.
I treated feature completion as 'working correctly for real users' rather than 'matching the design,' running features through a build → test → review → refine cycle and paying close attention to edge cases before release.
Real businesses would be relying on the platform to manage invoices, expenses, and budgets, so failures had real consequences beyond a missed visual detail.
As frontend lead, I needed the application to stay consistent as multiple people worked on different parts of it at the same time.
I coordinated the team's work alongside my own feature development, thinking about how different parts of the application fit together rather than only the feature I was building.
Without that coordination, a growing team working in parallel risked inconsistent patterns and a fragmented experience for the businesses using the platform.
Impact
- Esemie launched successfully as a live accounting platform for small businesses
- First product I built from its early stages through to launch
- First product I shipped to real, live users
- First time leading a frontend team
- Grew from focusing primarily on building interfaces to owning product quality, collaboration, and real-user outcomes
Esemie was a significant milestone — my first experience building a product from early stages through launch, working with live users, and leading a frontend team. It helped me grow from focusing primarily on building interfaces to thinking more broadly about ownership, product quality, collaboration, and building software for real users.
Evidence & recognition — coming soon.