About me
I'm Brett Dorrans, a principal frontend engineer and design systems specialist with more than 15 years of experience. I've built and scaled design systems at Encompass, LendInvest, Golden Charter, and multiple startups - helping teams cut through months of potential technical debt by putting the right foundations in place. My work spans fintech, regulated SaaS, and high-growth startups, where I've been both the first or only frontend hire trusted to embed the discipline from the ground up, and a steward of a larger team seeking to improve their processes.
Today, I focus on embedding accessible, resilient frontend platforms that scale with the business and protect against the hidden costs of technical debt.
Career highlights
- 15+ years building and architecting frontends that scale, the last 5+ across regulated industries.
- Led design system rollouts and governance at Encompass, LendInvest, and Golden Charter.
- Specialist in React, TypeScript, accessibility, and developer experience.
- Proven track record of saving teams months of rework by aligning design systems and tooling to business goals.
- Comfortable leading as the sole frontend engineer or guiding a team, embedding practices that last.
Engineering philosophy
In October 2021, at 34, I suffered a cerebellar stroke. Recovery forced me to slow down, rethink, and rebuild - not just my health but my approach to engineering. That experience reshaped my outlook: I no longer see success as speed at all costs, but as sustainable delivery that supports both the people who use software and the teams who build it.
Months of rehabilitation taught me pacing, adaptability, and perspective. It reminded me that engineering culture - like health - needs sustainability at its core. I now carry that lesson into every team I work with: design systems, processes, and platforms should protect people, not drain them.
I specialise in building design systems and frontend platforms that embed accessibility, governance, and developer velocity from the start. My goal is to serve both users and engineers by creating systems that scale gracefully, reduce hidden risks, and improve day-to-day developer culture.
Above all, I build with a human-centred, sustainable mindset - software that works for the long term, and teams that don't burn out delivering it.