Manuel Hitz

Building personal projects with agentic coding tools such as Claude Code. Considering a CAS in AI-assisted software engineering at the Fernfachhochschule Schweiz (FFHS).

Senior Frontend Engineer at ZF SCALAR in Lausanne, Switzerland (remote)

• Led the creation of some of the first React components for Velocity, the company-wide design system with light and dark themes from day one.
• Delivered key features of the People Mobility app, which replaced the Bestmile platform: service and pricing configuration, shift planning, booking creation, and live operations monitoring.
• Helped deliver a working MVP of Trip Planning, the first feature for the Cargo business line, within six months.
• Improved the team’s documentation and frontend project structure, and wrote the guidelines for both.

Extensive details: manuelhitz.com/zf-scalar.html

JavaScript, CSS, HTML, React, TypeScript

Senior Frontend Engineer at Archilogic in Zürich, Switzerland (hybrid)

Took ownership of the Editor, a browser-based app for editing floor plans:

• Rebuilt the whole UI on a new design system, replacing three older ones, and added a main menu backed by one central system for actions, permissions and keyboard shortcuts.
• Moved the app to the new Space Graph data format over a year, alongside ongoing feature work, with every edit going through undo-redo operations.
• Built 2D interactions such as wall snapping and auto-connection, box multi-selection with spatial indexing, rotating selections, and asset snapping.
• Raised test coverage from 10% to over 60%, and set team practices such as weekly releases and reviews within 24 hours.

Extensive details: manuelhitz.com/archilogic-1.html and manuelhitz.com/archilogic-2.html

JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Vue, Tailwind, TypeScript, linear algebra, trigonometry

Senior Fullstack Developer at Bestmile in Lausanne, Switzerland

• Built, as one of two frontend engineers, a suite of web apps from scratch: a real-time fleet Dashboard, Administration, a Booking Portal, and single sign-on.
• Specified and delivered a fully customizable role-based permission system across the apps, in the backend and the frontend.
• Created private npm packages for shared styles, map styles, React components, and a JavaScript SDK covering hundreds of API endpoints, keeping test coverage above 80%.
• Delivered map-based interfaces showing large sets of live fleet data, such as live dispatching, demand heat maps, and a timetable editor with GTFS export.
• Developed a serverless middleware for the Android and iOS traveler apps, and moved legacy services to new microservices without downtime.

Extensive details: manuelhitz.com/bestmile.html

JavaScript, CSS, HTML, React, Tailwind, Mapbox, NodeJS, PostgreSQL, Firebase, Express, Koa, Sequelize

Senior Fullstack Developer at Doodle in Zürich, Switzerland

• Designed and built a JSON REST API shared by the mobile apps and the website, including push notifications.
• Built the mobile web version of doodle.com, a service used by 25 million people a month, and moved its ads to Google DFP.
• Implemented the responsive redesign of doodle.com, starting with the style guide for its core components.
• Introduced structured code reviews with pull requests, and ran frontend hiring from CV screening to final interviews.

Extensive details: manuelhitz.com/doodle-1.html and manuelhitz.com/doodle-2.html

JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Backbone.js, MongoDB, JSF, Java

Bike Messenger at krick cyclomessagerie in Genève, Switzerland

Extensive details: manuelhitz.com/krick.html

Software Engineer at SecuTix in Genève, Switzerland

• Built the box-office web app of the ticketing system for the Opéra National de Paris, including a widget framework driving ticket printers and payment terminals. It grew into the SecuTix product used by clients such as the Consortium Stade de France.
• Helped design and build an online ticket shop that clients could restyle, later rebuilt as a responsive site, and a mobile ticket sales app.
• Managed 4 developers.

JavaScript, CSS, HTML, PHP, ExtJS, JSP, Sass

Software Engineer at ELCA in Genève, Switzerland

• Rewrote the core of ELCA’s Cont’n’Shop 5 CMS: access and roles, publishing engine, forms and multi-site management.
• Built the Paléo Festival Nyon website for 2 consecutive years, with photo gallery, media player and contests, and supported it on site during the festival.

JavaScript, CSS, HTML, PHP, Java, JSP

Master degree in Computer Science at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland

Master’s thesis “Autonomous car driving in a virtual city”: built a virtual reality environment for learning to drive through a city with traffic signals and pedestrians.

Exchange student for 2 semesters at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, USA

Notable project: Building Virtual Worlds at the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC). Teams of 4 students accomplish 5 interdisciplinary projects to explore the possibilities and push the limits of Virtual Reality by creating immersive 3D worlds.