Fintan Dunleavy

Senior Software Engineer
fintan.dunleavy@gmail.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fintandunleavy

Summary

Senior Software Engineer with 12+ years of experience building customer-facing web products with React, Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and Node.js. Strong frontend product engineer with recent work on design systems, Core Web Vitals, site performance, reusable component architecture, and production observability. Experienced in partnering with product, design, and engineering teams to ship polished, performant, accessible UI at scale, while mentoring engineers, supporting hiring, and leading frontend architecture decisions.

Skills

React, Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Material UI, Storybook, TanStack Query, Node.js, Express, JavaScript, Design Systems, Accessibility, WCAG, Core Web Vitals, Performance Optimisation, Responsive UI, Frontend Architecture, Component Libraries, Testing Library, Jest, Playwright, Puppeteer, New Relic, NRQL, CI/CD, MCP Servers, AI-Assisted Development, Agile Delivery, Mentoring, Hiring, Stakeholder Collaboration

Experience

Shutterstock

Senior Software Engineer
May 2021 - Present

Shutterstock is a global provider of licensed images, videos, music, and creative tools.

• Led frontend delivery for cross-team initiatives, owning technical direction, implementation quality, and stakeholder communication across product, design, and engineering.
• Built and maintained a design system with React, Base UI, Tailwind CSS, and Storybook, delivering reusable components such as dropdowns, menus, and shared interaction patterns across multiple product areas.
• Improved Core Web Vitals across key product surfaces, using CrUX dashboards alongside New Relic and NRQL to identify bottlenecks, validate improvements, and bring vitals into the green.
• Improved frontend performance through caching, SSR changes around parallel requests, hydration fixes, and latency reduction.
• Remediated WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility violations across customer-facing UI, including keyboard navigation, screen reader support, focus management, semantic HTML, ARIA, colour contrast, forms, modals, and interactive components.
• Shaped frontend architecture decisions for scalable, maintainable UI, balancing product delivery speed with long-term code quality and clearly explaining trade-offs to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Served on an AI steering committee covering governance, security, productivity, and developer workflows, helping shape adoption of Codex, GitHub Copilot, reusable skills, MCP servers, and Figma MCP for design-system and component implementation work.
• Partnered closely with product managers, designers, and business stakeholders to turn ambiguous requirements into clear implementation plans, communicate risks and options, and keep delivery aligned with user and business goals.
• Presented progress, demos, and technical recommendations in accessible language for engineering teams, product stakeholders, and non-technical audiences.
• Strengthened engineering capability by mentoring engineers, leading onboarding, contributing to recruitment processes, and supporting hiring decisions through technical interviews.

Software Engineer
May 2019 - May 2021

• Built and evolved customer-facing Shutterstock product features using React, Next.js, TypeScript, Node.js, and modern frontend tooling.
• Developed and updated API endpoints using Node.js and Express to support product features and frontend workflows.
• Wrote end-to-end, unit, and integration tests using Playwright, Puppeteer, Jest, and Testing Library.
• Collaborated with product management, designers, and stakeholders to clarify requirements, provide implementation updates, and ship scoped user-facing improvements.
• Presented feature work in sprint demos and communicated technical context clearly to teammates and non-technical stakeholders.

Celtech Software

Front End Developer
October 2016 - May 2019

Celtech Software is a retail software company known for real-time retail systems used across the UK and Ireland.

• Developed responsive single-page applications using AngularJS 1.x, Angular 6+, React, Redux, and TypeScript.
• Upgraded AngularJS applications to Angular 6+, improving maintainability and modernising the frontend stack.
• Built automated test coverage with Karma, Protractor, and Puppeteer, integrating tests into CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, GitLab, and Docker.
• Configured Tomcat, NGINX, and Docker for application delivery and local development workflows.
• Worked in an Agile environment and participated across the software development lifecycle.
• Helped introduce Git workflows to the team.
• Demoed and presented work to internal and external clients.

Canadian Tire

Web Application Developer
September 2014 - August 2016

Canadian Tire is a leading Canadian retailer with over 500 stores and a large online presence.

• Developed single-page applications using AngularJS in a test-driven environment with automated UI testing.
• Developed Java Spring APIs integrating with Elasticsearch.
• Worked in an Agile environment using JIRA for task tracking.
• Developed functional and system design specifications for client engagements.
• Implemented continuous integration and deployment using Jenkins, Git, and Docker containers.
• Worked with development teams and end users to ensure technical compatibility and user satisfaction.

CityLearning

Web Developer Intern
April 2013 - October 2013

Education

Dublin City University

BSc. Computer Applications, Software Engineering
2009 - 2014