Yardooh - React Engineering for an AI-Powered Creative Platform

Role: Senior Team Lead / React Engineer. Compensation: $4,000 per month. Product development: approximately 8 months.

Yardooh is a platform where children write stories together, create their own books and get AI support with their writing. Its interface is built around a galaxy of planets, characters and a fictional publishing house that guides young writers from their first idea through the writing process.

My main contribution was React development, frontend architecture and technical leadership. As Senior Team Lead, I broke product requirements down into implementation tasks, managed work in Jira, planned sprints and coordinated decisions with the CTO, product manager, designer, frontend, backend and mobile developers. Working with the backend team, I connected the interfaces, APIs, AI features, chat and notifications into complete user flows.

The frontend follows FSD (Feature-Sliced Design), separating pages, composed UI blocks, user actions, domain entities and shared components by responsibility. TanStack Query manages server data, while TanStack Store handles editor and UI state. Shared components, Storybook and separate visual themes for children and parents provide a consistent foundation for further development.

Collaborative writing required particular attention: participants, invitations, writing turns, drafts and pending AI checks all affect what a user can do. The interface needs to make it clear whose turn it is, what can be edited and what happens next. Individual books have a separate flow with genre and cover selection, an editor and literary feedback.

I worked with the backend team to integrate Gemini and tailor AI assistance to the storytelling experience. The goal was to connect the model to the editor through a writing process that children could understand.

On the frontend, this includes submitting text, showing the pending state, receiving feedback and revising the draft. Suggestions and explanations are kept separate from the author's text so children can make informed edits. CometChat integration and notifications support the collaborative experience.

I helped develop the game-inspired user flows and implemented their interfaces. In Galaxy, selecting a planet opens a preview and illustrated sections, with Mythara connecting the world to the writing experience. Animations, characters and contextual panels make exploration part of the interface.

The fictional Star & Quill publishing house extends this approach: a letter from the editor explains the process of working on a book. Game design helps make the next steps understandable to a young writer.

I also worked with the mobile developer on design tokens, integrations and adapting the web design for the app without creating additional mockups.

My work extended beyond the interfaces. I collaborated with the backend team on databases and services, helped develop the server infrastructure and Docker containers, and worked with the team to set up the API Gateway and integrate notifications. Frontend and backend work required coordination on API contracts and product behavior.

My contribution brought together React interfaces and frontend architecture for collaborative creativity, connected to AI, backend services and communication features. Product development took approximately eight months and combined interface development, contributions to backend solutions, sprint planning and team coordination.

Core stack: React 18, TypeScript, FSD, TanStack Router / Query / Store, Storybook, SCSS. Integrations and collaboration: Gemini API, CometChat, Node.js APIs, MongoDB, Docker, API Gateway, Jira.

This experience is relevant to teams looking for a senior frontend engineer who can design the architecture, integrate AI into a user flow and coordinate delivery with the backend team.