Skip to main content
Lead Frontend Engineer · Open to New Roles

Karthik
Talam

Next.js Architect · Frontend Platform · Team Lead

I build high-performance frontend platforms and lead the teams that ship them — faster pages, tighter pipelines, and engineering cultures that scale.

Resume
Live sky · based on your location · hover ☀︎

About

I make teams ship
better — and faster.

When I'm not building products, I'm designing AI-augmented development workflows, contributing to open source, and automating everything I possibly can.

I'm a Lead Frontend Engineer with 8+ years building high-traffic web platforms — from startup MVPs to enterprise-grade B2B e-commerce serving multiple markets. I specialize in Next.js App Router architecture, enterprise authentication, and platform migrations at monorepo scale.

Currently leading ~10 frontend engineers across two parallel tracks on a TypeScript monorepo, where I drove a 20% page-load improvement, scaled test coverage to 4,500+ tests, and pioneered an agentic AI workflow that cut ticket closure time by ~35%.

Next.js 15React 19TypeScriptGraphQLAI-Augmented DXFrontend Architecture
Karthik Talam

8+

Years Exp.

4,500+

Tests Shipped

~35%

Faster Shipping

10+

Engineers Led

Currently at

Publicis Sapient

Publicis Sapient

Lead Experience Engineer · Nov 2024 – Present

Open to new opportunities

Work

Selected Work

Side projects with real users, real metrics, and real code.

Know Your Government

Open-source civic tech tool that makes Andhra Pradesh government orders searchable and understandable using AI-generated summaries — empowering citizens with transparent access to public data.

→ Used by citizens to decode AP government orders in plain English

SvelteKitTypeScript

AP GO Scraper

Serverless API pipeline that scrapes AP government orders, generates AI overviews via Gemini 2.5 Flash, and caches results with Upstash Redis — all running on Vercel's edge runtime.

→ Processes hundreds of PDFs → AI summaries via edge runtime

HonoTypeScriptGemini AIUpstash Redis

Next.js E-Commerce Starter

Production-ready e-commerce template showcasing Next.js 16 React Server Components, parallel routes, and SQLite — a reference architecture for building modern, high-performance storefronts.

→ Reference architecture for high-performance Next.js storefronts

Next.js 16TypeScriptSQLite

Next.js FCM

18

Drop-in Firebase Cloud Messaging integration for Next.js web apps — the simplest way to add web push notifications. Actively maintained.

→ The simplest drop-in push notification solution for Next.js

Next.jsJavaScriptFirebase
See more on GitHub

Experience

Career Journey

8+ years across startups and enterprises — shipping products that matter.

Nov 2024

Lead Experience Engineer

Publicis Sapient

Retail / B2B Commerce

  • Tech lead on a multi-market B2B e-commerce platform (TypeScript monorepo), leading 2 frontend tracks (~10 engineers); own architecture decisions and serve as default code reviewer across the repository
  • Established track ownership boundaries that enabled two parallel tracks to ship independently with zero cross-track regressions — cutting average PR-to-merge cycle time and eliminating integration bottlenecks
  • Led a dedicated 3-engineer performance squad that delivered ~20% faster page loads — improving Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP) across the application
  • Designed and rolled out the team's AI-augmented development workflow — authored 4 custom Copilot agents, 8 specialized skills, and integrated 7 MCP servers, cutting ticket closure time by ~35% and reducing review-comment addressal by 75%
  • Drove the test-coverage initiative, growing the suite to 438 test suites / 4,543 tests and lifting component line coverage from 88% to 96%
  • Led the React 19 / Next.js 15 upgrade and Yarn to pnpm migration across the entire monorepo; introduced TanStack Query and migrated Storybook to v10
  • Architected an SVG sprite icon system replacing 250+ static React icon components — eliminated ~5.1 MB duplication and achieved a ~77% reduction in gzipped icon payload
  • Instrumented frontend observability and unified analytics tracking through a typed event schema; codified engineering standards for branching, security, accessibility, and performance adopted across the project

Jan 2024

Senior Frontend Engineer

Nordek Technologies

Fintech / Web3

  • Stabilized Norpay post-launch — triaged UX friction points and shipped targeted performance fixes that cut usability-related support tickets by 15%
  • Architected and launched the GQpay application, directing a team of two UI engineers and one backend engineer; completed the project ahead of schedule, increasing market presence across the EU
  • Built the Web3 transaction layer using Wagmi and Viem, integrating EVM-compatible chains for crypto payments and supporting multiple wallet providers

Aug 2021

Senior Product Developer

Backstage Technologies

Creator Economy

  • Led the redesign of the Backstage landing page using Next.js, integrating multiple mini-apps (blogs, feature videos, sign-up flows) into a unified experience
  • Designed and built creator tools web app that doubled organic sign-ups; platform supported a 4x scale spike during paid acquisition campaigns
  • Led a team of 4 in designing paid membership flows, supporting 500+ active subscribers within the first month
  • Designed and shipped in-app rewards system, increasing user engagement by 25% and boosting retention rates by 15%
  • Consolidated 3 microservices into a single streamlined service, leading to a 30% reduction in API call latency
  • Instrumented production observability with Datadog and Firebase Crashlytics — reducing mean-time-to-detect for production incidents

Aug 2020

Senior Software Engineer

Mindship Technologies

Marine Marketplace

  • Led 3 engineers building Harbormoor's boat listing marketplace and SEO layer — achieved first-page Google rankings for targeted marine service queries
  • Redesigned service enquiry flow, leading to a 10% increase in sales
  • Re-architected community feature with optimized data fetching, reducing load times by 5x
  • Optimized service listings with efficient data loading/rendering, improving load times by 50%
  • Shipped a full-suite POSH compliance platform (Conduct) in 4 months for organizations with 1000+ employees — covering registration, complaint tracking, video-based learning, and interactive assessments
  • Built complaint management dashboards and learning module interfaces; designed admin tooling for company-wide POSH initiatives — course assignment, progress tracking, and compliance reporting

Skills

How I Build

Tools and technologies I reach for when building products.

Frontend

React 19Next.js 15SvelteKitTypeScriptJavaScript (ES6+)Tailwind CSSFramer MotionTanStack QueryHTML5CSS3

Architecture

Frontend ArchitectureMonorepo (Turbo, pnpm)Design SystemsCore Web VitalsAccessibility

Backend

Node.jsGraphQLREST APIsFastifyKoa.js

Auth & Security

NextAuth v5Azure AD B2CMicrosoft Entra ID

Testing

JestVitestReact Testing LibraryStorybookSonarCloud

DevOps & Infra

DockerCI/CDGitGitHubVercelFirebaseAzure DevOpsAWS (Lambda, S3)Datadog

Web3

WagmiViemEthers.js

AI & DX

AI-augmented workflowsCopilot agentsMCP serversPrompt engineering

Leadership

Technical LeadershipCross-functional CollaborationArchitecture Decision RecordsMentoring

Contact

Working on something
ambitious?

I'm selective about what I take on — but if you're building something hard, that's exactly where I do my best work.

Email

Best way to reach me

karthiktalam8@gmail.com

LinkedIn

Let's connect professionally

/in/karthik-talam

GitHub

See what I'm building

karthik-js

Based in India · Available for remote work worldwide