# Valentina Calabrese

> Valentina Calabrese is an Engineering Manager at Photoroom, leading the website team while staying hands-on in React and TypeScript. MSc in Computer Science (HCI) from Georgia Tech. AI-powered editing experiences, interface craft, agents.

## About

I'm Vale. I run the website team at Photoroom, and I'm still hands-on. The roadmap, the hiring and the 1:1s are my job. So is the code.

I grew up in Italy and studied computer science in Parma, with a year in Leeds and a semester at Boston College along the way. The master’s at Georgia Tech came later, in Human-Computer Interaction, mostly because I wanted to know why some interfaces feel obvious and others feel like homework.

The work I like most sits where product, design and engineering overlap. An onboarding flow that quietly doubles activation. A batch editor that handles hundreds of images without making you think about it. An AI feature that shows you the result before it costs you anything. These days a good chunk of my week goes into working with coding agents, and into figuring out which parts of the craft they change and which parts they don’t.

I care about the details most people never consciously notice: timing, spacing, how a component breathes on hover, whether a screen reader gets the same story as a sighted user. That kind of attention and shipping fast are not opposites. They just need a team that wants both.

Outside work: drums, guitar, bubble tea, and a skateboard I am slowly getting better on.

## Current role

- Title: Engineering Manager
- Company: Photoroom (https://www.photoroom.com)
- Scope: leads Website engineering while remaining hands-on
- Since: April 2025 (joined as Senior Front-end Engineer)

## Expertise

- Working with agents: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Orca, Grok Bot, Agent skills and prompt design
- AI in the product: AI-powered editing experiences, Generative features in production, Agentic workflows, LangChain and RAG
- Front-end: TypeScript, React, Next.js, MobX, GraphQL, Tailwind CSS, Radix UI, Astro
- Quality and testing: Playwright, Cypress, Jest, React Testing Library, Accessibility
- Design: Figma, Design systems, Storybook, Zeroheight
- Leading: Technical roadmaps, Hiring and 1:1s, A/B experimentation (Amplitude), Cross-functional delivery
- Languages: TypeScript, JavaScript, Python

## Experience

### Photoroom (April 2026 to present)
Engineering Manager, Website, Paris, hybrid
- Lead photoroom.com engineering: technical roadmap, architecture, quality, and acquisition goals.
- Manage the website team: 1:1s, feedback, performance, and career growth.
- Drive delivery across marketing, search, brand, product, and growth stakeholders.
- Stay hands-on in React and TypeScript on growth and monetisation initiatives.

### Photoroom (April 2025 to April 2026)
Senior Front-End Engineer, Paris, hybrid
- Rebuilt the web onboarding flow in MobX, lifting activation from 50% to 95% and enabling rapid A/B testing across login, onboarding, and paywall.
- Owned Photoroom’s batch editor end to end, rebuilding core editing and selection workflows for processing hundreds of images at once, with per-section ZIP export, bulk multi-select actions, and tile reordering.
- Built in-browser AVIF export: a client-side AV1 encoder and AVIF container that preserves transparency while exporting transparent cutouts as smaller files than equivalent PNGs.
- Built AI Shadows, a credit-aware preview that lets users judge generated results before spending credits, integrating the ML team’s pipelines into the editor.

### Remote.com (April 2022 to March 2025)
Front-End Software Engineer, Remote, Italy
- Shipped AI-powered offboarding-compliance features into production by integrating LangChain and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) into user-facing workflows.
- Built and maintained design-system components in React and Styled Components, improving UI consistency, accessibility, and developer velocity across the product.
- Led the migration of design-system documentation from Storybook to Zeroheight, creating a single source of truth for designers and engineers.

### CloudAcademy (May 2020 to March 2022)
Front-End Software Engineer, Mendrisio, Switzerland
- Revamped the onboarding and first-run experience, boosting user retention by 20%.
- Delivered features in React, GraphQL, and Styled Components, backed by unit (React Testing Library) and end-to-end (Cypress) tests.
- Contributed reusable design-system components (Storybook, TypeScript, React).

### Mailchimp (May to August 2019)
UX Engineer Intern, Atlanta, GA, USA
- Selected from over 5,000 applicants to join Mailchimp’s Design System team and help standardize UI patterns across the platform.
- Implemented the UI for Mailchimp’s Design Principles page, used to standardize design practices across departments.
- Contributed to internal tooling with new components built in React, Storybook, and LESS.

### Adobe (June to September 2018)
Front-End Engineer Intern, New York, NY, USA
- Collaborated on Behance’s stories feature in Vue.js, with integration and unit tests in Jasmine.
- Improved accessibility and keyboard navigation for Behance’s main navigation menu.

## Education

- M.S. in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction specialization, Georgia Institute of Technology (2021 to 2023). GPA 4.0.
- B.S. in Computer Science, Università degli Studi di Parma (2016 to 2019). Erasmus year at the University of Leeds, UK. Exchange semester at Boston College, MA, USA.

## Projects

- NeonDrift OS (React, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind, Zustand): A cyberpunk-themed web desktop environment with synthwave radio, pomodoro timer, weather app, and mood curator. Features offline music playback, real-time audio visualization, and multiple retro-futuristic themes. https://valentinacalabrese.com/projects/neon-drift-os
- Relocated (TypeScript, Vite): A tool to help digital nomads discover and compare European cities for relocation based on preferences like climate, cost of living, and quality of life. https://valentinacalabrese.com/projects/relocated
- Asbrusn.art (Astro): A portfolio website I built for an artist friend, showcasing her drawings, watercolors, crafts, and photography. https://valentinacalabrese.com/projects/asbrusn-art
- Momentum Dashboard (React, TypeScript, Tailwind, Vite): A React App inspired by the popular Momentum Chrome Extension with current time & weather info, customizable greeting, stoic quotes, beautiful backgrounds, and more. https://valentinacalabrese.com/projects/momentum-dashboard
- YouTube Focus (HTML, CSS, JavaScript): A Chrome Extension to blur out YouTube Video Thumbnails (& comments) in order to enhance focus while minimizing distractions and context-switching. https://valentinacalabrese.com/projects/youtube-focus
- Vim Mentor (React, Tailwind, Next.js): An educational Web App to learn Vim that I made as a project for the Edu Tech class I attended as part of my MSc in CS at Georgia Tech. https://valentinacalabrese.com/projects/vim-mentor
- Speed Reader (React, MobX): A speed reading application built with MobX and React. https://valentinacalabrese.com/projects/speed-reader
- Fontsy (Sketch): A fancy paywall for a photo editing app specialized in adding gorgeous texts to your images. https://valentinacalabrese.com/projects/fontsy
- Safe-fi (Sketch): This is a paywall mockup for a VPN app allowing people to surf the Web in a more secure way. https://valentinacalabrese.com/projects/safe-fi
- Classically (AdobeXD): This project is a concept for an educational app about classical music. https://valentinacalabrese.com/projects/classically
- Winter Wonderland (Figma): A concept for a Ski Mobile App. https://valentinacalabrese.com/projects/winter-wonderland

## Blog

- Agentic Engineering Is Not a Vibe (2026-02-07): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/ai-engineering-is-not-a-vibe
- My AI Agent Installed Malware on My Server (And Then Caught Itself Doing It) (2026-02-07): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/my-ai-agent-installed-malware-on-my-server
- Graduation Day (2024-01-11): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/graduation-and-new-year-resolutions
- Decoding the Magic of React’s useEffect hook (2023-07-30): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/decoding-use-effect-hook
- Understanding the Differences Between useCallback and useMemo (2023-07-29): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/differences-use-memo-use-callback-hooks
- Summer 2023 (2023-05-19): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/summer-2023
- Intro to Cognitive Science (2023-01-20): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/spring-2023
- Almost time to wrap up (2022-12-28): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/wrapping-up-2022
- Long time no see (2022-10-22): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/long-time-no-see
- End of year 2021 (2021-12-31): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/end-of-year-2021-edition
- Fall 2021 Updates (2021-09-05): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/fall-2021-updates
- Design Principles (2021-06-02): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/design-principles-and-why-they-matter-a-lot
- 4 Different Ways to Reverse a String in Javascript (2021-06-01): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/4-ways-to-reverse-a-string-in-javascript
- Summer Break (2021-05-22): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/taking-a-summer-break
- A Day in the Life of a Front-End Engineer  (2021-04-01): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/day-in-the-life
- 2021 Updates (2021-03-29): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/updates-about-OMSCS-and-HCI
- Goodbye 2020 (2020-12-31): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/goodbye-2020
- Goodbye 2019 (2019-12-31): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/goodbye-2019
- Mailchimp Internship (2019-08-25): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/my-mailchimp-internship-in-atlanta
- A New Adventure (2019-04-16): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/a-new-adventure-in-the-us
- The Fox Internship (2019-01-01): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/the-fox-internship
- My Adobe internship (2018-11-11): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/my-adobe-internship
- Mastering Resilience (2018-06-12): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/the-subtle-art-of-resilience
- A dream come true (2018-06-12): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/a-dream-come-true
- Hello world (2018-04-05): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/welcome-to-my-portfolio-website
- NDC London 2018 (2018-01-01): https://valentinacalabrese.com/blog/ndc-london-2018

## Contact

- Website: https://valentinacalabrese.com
- Email: valent95@gmail.com
- GitHub: https://github.com/vale-c
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/calabresevalentina/
- X: https://x.com/valecodes
- dev.to: https://dev.to/vale
- Medium: https://medium.com/@vale-dev
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/vale_codes

## How to cite

```
Valentina Calabrese (valentinacalabrese.com)
```

## Additional resources

- https://valentinacalabrese.com/for-llms (LLM-optimized page)
- https://valentinacalabrese.com/rss.xml (RSS feed)