Portfolio
I'm Bilal, a frontend engineer building fast, visual products for the internet and I care way too much about UX to ship anything ugly.
I've worked with startups building developer tools, Open-source libraries, and side projects that started as weekend ideas that somehow turned into real products.
Currently open for collaborations. Book a call or Contact Me.
You'll usually find me building on GitHubor talking about the process on Twitter/X.sharing what I'm learning on LinkedIn.
Component Lab
Magnetic Button
A button that magnetically follows your cursor within its zone.
Ripple Tilt Card
A 3D-tilting card with a cursor-following glow and click ripples.
Password Strength Meter
Live-updating password strength meter with rule checklist.
Confetti Button
A canvas-powered confetti burst triggered on click.
Snippet Vault
A tabbed collection of copyable utility snippets.
Draggable Rating
A drag-and-hover star rating with live label feedback.
Animated Tabs
Tabs with a spring-animated underline and content crossfade.
Experience
Software Developer
·FreelanceRemote, Full-Time
Leading the design and development of open-source developer tools, from architecture and interface decisions to shipping on Vercel.
Frontend Engineer
·Ocean LabsRemote, Part-time
Worked as a Frontend Developer, building responsive, high-performance web applications while collaborating closely with designers and backend engineers to deliver polished user experiences.
- Developed and maintained modern, responsive user interfaces using React and Next.js with performance in mind.
- Collaborated with cross-functional teams to ship production-ready features and optimize Core Web Vitals.
Web Developer
·FreelanceRemote, Part-Time
Worked as a Freelance Web Developer, designing and building modern, responsive websites and web applications for clients across different industries, from concept to deployment.
Some of my works
Rhythmkey
Readmeforge
Metaviewer
Markhand
Commandeer
Repo Reviewer
A Little About Me
Hey it's me Bilal. I'm a frontend developer who genuinely enjoys building things for the web.
I'm driven by curiosity, clean design, and the satisfaction of turning ideas into products people actually use - that's what keeps me going.
- X (bilalmlkdev)
- GitHub (bilalmlkdev)
- LinkedIn (bilalmlkdev)
- Instagram (bilalmlkdev)
- Bluesky (bilalmlkdev)
- Mastodon (bilalmlkdev)
- Email (bilalmlkdev@gmail.com)
- daily.dev (bilalmlkdev)
- Medium (bilalmlkdev)
I enjoy the entire process: designing thoughtful interfaces, writing maintainable code, and building systems that scale - from React and Next.js to APIs, databases, and auth flows.
Creativity has always been my way to express myself. I draw, design, move through gym, and explore new corners of the world whenever I can.
How I work
Building great products is more than code. I think about the entire experience - how users interact, how systems behave, and how products evolve over time
Strategize
Understand users, business goals and constraints before building anything.
Iterate
Experiment, prototype and refine continuously through feedback.
Launch
Ship thoughtfully and validate in real-world conditions.
Measure
Use data, performance insights, and usage patterns to improve.
What I'm learning right now
Just the things I'm spending real time on lately.
Crossing into the backend
I've spent most of my time as a frontend developer, comfortable with UI, state, and everything that renders on screen. Lately I've been pulling back the curtain on what happens before that: APIs, databases, and how a server actually decides what to send back.
I'm working through Node.js, Express, and PostgreSQL, building small REST APIs from scratch, writing my own auth with JWTs instead of trusting a library to explain it to me, and learning to model data with actual relationships instead of props and JSON files.
Learning by building, not just reading
To make it stick, I'm building a small Node.js CLI tool that scaffolds new projects. Nothing fancy, but it forces me to actually touch the file system, write real database migrations, and use TypeScript on the server side instead of just the client.
The part I keep coming back to is error handling. On the frontend I obsess over how a broken state feels to a user, I'm applying the same instinct here, so the CLI fails with a clear, useful message instead of a cryptic stack trace. Same UX brain, just pointed at a terminal now.
Artifacts
How I Started Coding: From Curiosity to My First Line of HTML
Before frameworks, before TypeScript, before any of it - the story of how I stumbled into web development and why the first "Hello World" hooked me for good.
Aug 2026·4 min read·Article
Becoming a Frontend Developer: The Skills, the Struggles, the Shift
The stretch between knowing HTML/CSS and actually calling myself a frontend developer - what changed, what I had to unlearn, and what actually made the difference.
Aug 2026·5 min read·Article
What My First Real Projects Taught Me That Tutorials Never Did
Tutorials teach you syntax. Real projects teach you everything else - the story of the mistakes, the messy code, and the lessons that only showed up once I started building for real.
Aug 2026·5 min read·Article