Robel Belihu
Senior Frontend Engineer
I'm a frontend engineer based in Addis Ababa. Five years building React and Next.js apps for startups and product teams, currently at BigLittleThings. I work best on projects where the frontend genuinely matters — design-led products, complex interactions, performance-sensitive interfaces.
When I'm not coding, you'll find me learning guitar and sketching.
Currently at
BigLittleThings
Based in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Open to
Remote work worldwide
Stack
"His frontend expertise, proactive communication, and commitment to quality truly stood out. He quickly grasped our needs, proposed smart solutions, and delivered."
Doni A.
CTO · Uptrine Technology Solutions
Experience
My professional journey and key milestones.
Senior Frontend Engineer
BigLittleThings
Oct 2024 – Present
B2B e-commerce platform for the German market.
- Sole frontend engineer on a product team, responsible for the full frontend from architecture decisions through to production deployment.
- Building a React and Next.js codebase against a typed backend API, collaborating closely with backend engineers and designers in a cross-functional team.
- Translating Figma designs into responsive, accessible UIs while maintaining performance standards across customer-facing surfaces.
- Driving incremental improvements to Core Web Vitals, rendering performance, and frontend architecture as the product scales.
Frontend Engineer
Uptrine Technology Solutions
Jan 2021 – Sept 2024
Product startup, multiple SaaS products.
- Built frontends for multiple SaaS products from greenfield — component libraries, design-system patterns, and state management reused across the organization.
- Led a Next.js migration that significantly reduced page load time and improved SEO across the platform.
- Standardized global state with Redux Toolkit, cutting redundant API calls and smoothing complex multi-step user flows.
- Improved rendering performance through memoization, virtualization, and code splitting across high-traffic surfaces.
Freelance Frontend Engineer
Upwork
May 2021 – Present
Contract work alongside full-time roles.
- Five completed contracts, all five-star rated, 100% Job Success Score, with repeat clients across engagements.
- Shipped production React and Next.js applications for clients in e-commerce, real estate, and SaaS.
- Built reusable component systems that cut delivery time across subsequent project phases.
Featured Projects
A selection of recent work.
Production · B2B SaaS · EU marketBigLittleThings
Sole frontend engineer on a product team — responsible for the full frontend from architecture decisions through to production. Building a React + Next.js codebase against a typed backend API in a cross-functional team, translating Figma into responsive, accessible UIs, and driving improvements to Core Web Vitals and rendering performance as the product scales.
Live · Publishing platformRipple
A Medium-style publishing platform where anyone can read, write, and engage with ideas across tech and beyond. Built with Next.js, Prisma, and Supabase, with Google auth, a rich text editor, likes, comments, and a clean dark/light UI.
Eliminated manual reportingAdmin Dashboard
Designed and built a high-density analytics dashboard for Emerald Games, giving the operations team real-time visibility into player activity, revenue trends, and system health. Replaced a manual spreadsheet workflow — the team now runs reporting in seconds instead of hours.
Live · Web3 talent platformHireVibes
Built a pixel-perfect, accessible React frontend for a Web3 talent marketplace, integrating wallet-based authentication and Ethereum-native job listings. Maintained strict TypeScript discipline across a complex async data model connecting smart contracts, IPFS, and a REST API.
Live · Ethiopian real estateTaza House
Engineered a property marketplace for the Ethiopian real estate market from scratch — advanced search and filtering, Firebase real-time sync for live listings, and an intuitive listing management flow for agents. Went from wireframes to production in under 8 weeks.
40% load time reductionTrackSym
Architected the frontend and REST API for a crowdsourced COVID-19 symptom tracker used by health researchers to monitor outbreak patterns in real time. Achieved a 40% reduction in load time through code-splitting, lazy loading, and API response caching.
Live · Personal finance appFinanceer
A personal finance dashboard built with Next.js 15, TypeScript, and Framer Motion. Features a financial health score ring, income and expense tracking, savings goal progress, and a full theming system with 4 accent palettes and dark/light mode — all persisted to localStorage.
DecommissionedNebeb
Designed and built an online reading platform end-to-end — authentication, a custom content editor, real-time reading progress, and a social sharing layer. Scaled to thousands of active readers and established the frontend architecture that the product is still running on.