Fresha

Written By Ardian Ibrahimi

Growing as an Engineer and Leader at Fresha

I work at Fresha, a global beauty and wellness platform that powers roughly 700,000 appointments every day. Operating at this scale shapes how I think about engineering: every decision—technical or organizational—has real impact on customers, partners, and the business.

My journey at Fresha evolved across roles: from frontend engineer, to backend engineer, and eventually to team lead. Across all of them, my focus stays consistent—delivering value, building reliable systems, and creating teams that communicate well and get results.

Frontend Engineering at Scale

I started as a frontend engineer, working primarily with React in a micro-frontend architecture. This setup allows multiple teams to move independently while contributing to a single cohesive product—crucial in a fast-growing organization.

My day-to-day work focused on translating complex business workflows into intuitive user experiences. I built features that directly support bookings, payments, and operational efficiency for salons and barbershops. The frontend stack includes:

  • React for UI development

  • REST and GraphQL APIs for data access

  • Jest for unit testing

  • Cypress for component and integration testing

  • Happo Storybook for visual regression and snapshot testing

Transitioning to Backend Engineering

Driven by curiosity and a desire to become a more complete engineer, I transition into a backend role. I wanted to better understand how how backend decisions shape product capabilities and scalability for the likes of SaaS companies like Fresha.

This gave me a chance to work with Elixir, Ruby, and Ruby on Rails, backed by PostgreSQL, Redis, and Kafka. This shift strengthened my understanding of:

  • Data modeling and database performance

  • Distributed systems and asynchronous processing

  • Trade-offs between speed, consistency, and reliability

Working closer to the core of the platform gives me a clearer view of end-to-end ownership. I see how frontend choices affect backend load, how data pipelines support reporting and analytics, and how system design enables—or limits—future business initiatives.

Throughout this transition, I keep a strong focus on observability, using Datadog to ensure systems are measurable, debuggable, and resilient in production. At scale, visibility is not optional—it is a prerequisite for trust and velocity.

Leading the Reporting Domain

As my scope and impact grow, the company asks me to step into a team lead role. This transition is not something I actively pursue, but rather a reflection of the trust built through consistent delivery, ownership, and impact across teams.

Together with my awesome team (Team Dardania) we took ownership of the entire reporting domain at Fresha, a business-critical area that powers insights for internal teams and external partners. The platform is built on Snowflake and StarRocks, handling large volumes of data while enabling fast and reliable analytics.

In this role, my responsibilities expanded beyond individual contribution. I focus on:

  • Aligning technical direction with business priorities

  • Empowering engineers to own problems end to end

  • Creating strong collaboration with product and stakeholders

  • Maintaining high standards for quality, reliability, and delivery

Culture becomes a first-class concern. I actively invest in building a healthy, communicative, and results-oriented team, where trust, feedback, and accountability enable sustained performance. My goal is not to control execution, but to create the conditions in which the team can do its best work.

Delivering Value as an IC and a Leader

Whether I act as an individual contributor or a team lead, my mindset stays the same: technologies, frameworks.. now even AI agents are simply a tool to enable outcomes. I measure success not by lines of code shipped, but by problems solved and value delivered.

I work closely with product managers, designers, and business stakeholders to ensure technical decisions support long-term goals. I encourage pragmatic engineering, thoughtful trade-offs, and systems that are easy to evolve as the company grows.

The Bottom Line

Working at Fresha has pushed me to grow continuously—as an engineer, a leader, and a person. I build scalable systems, learn new technologies, and lead teams through complexity, all while staying grounded in the purpose of the work.

At scale, engineering is never just about code. It is about people, communication, and building the right things—together.

Ardian Ibrahimi
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