Making complexity approachable – Building internal tools as a Frontend Engineer

Time for Talent – With Mads Brandt

Hi, my name is Mads, it’s nice to meet you! 👋

I joined Tactile in May 2025 as a Frontend Engineer on the Core team.

The Core team plays a big supporting role across Tactile. We build and maintain the internal tools that keep everything running smoothly – from dashboards for the Data and Marketing teams to build systems and LiveOps tools. Our work connects so many parts of the company, and I love that what we build behind the scenes has such a wide impact across Tactile.

I also work closely with the other frontend engineers and product designers on cross-team projects like our internal design system, where we focus on creating a cohesive and consistent user experience across all our internal tools.

🚀 Before Tactile

It wasn’t exactly a straight line to becoming a developer for me. I’ve always been good with computers, but I actually started out studying marketing – which luckily turned out not to be for me, so I dropped out. After a few years of working in a supermarket, I decided to follow my curiosity for tech and applied for Computer Science.

That’s where I really found my passion for software development. Most of our classes were in Java, but I was always more drawn towards JavaScript and React, crafting frontends that not just functioned, but felt great to use. During an assignment on one of the first semesters we had to build frontends using static Java Server Pages (JSP). I couldn’t help experimenting a bit, so I figured out how to inject jQuery into them to make the pages dynamic.

While studying, I joined an InsurTech consulting company as a student developer and later continued there full-time as a backend Java consultant with a little bit of frontend. Over the next three years, I transitioned from the backend to solely frontend development, eventually becoming the Frontend Lead.

By early 2025, I was ready for something different – something bigger, more creative, and with more focus on how we build things and doing it the right way. I wanted to work with more frontend engineers to learn from and spar with, and a culture where taking the time to do things properly isn’t seen as a luxury but as part of the job. That’s when I found Tactile.

💜 Joining Tactile

When I joined Tactile, it was quite a change. I went from a company of around 40 people to one with more than 350 – over 200 in Copenhagen alone, and representing more than 50 nationalities. It’s almost rare to be a Dane here, and even rarer to be born and raised in Copenhagen like me. I love that, though – it gives the office such an international, inspiring energy with talents from all over the world.

Tactile doesn’t just hire for skills – we hire for culture fit, and we really mean it. We even have a culture book. From day one, everyone – not just my own team, but people on my floor and even across the whole building – has been incredibly welcoming. It really rubs off on you and creates an atmosphere where you actually want to collaborate, ask questions, and help each other improve.

The learning curve has been (and still is!) a bit steep when diving into data science related topics like dimensions, measures, aggregators, granularities, and data marts – but it’s incredibly rewarding to see how our frontend tools can help make that complexity more approachable.

💪 Having an impact

Within Core, we have different sub-teams. I am on the Data and Marketing team focusing on tools for these two teams.

My main gig is a major redesign of our Data Dashboard – the tool which our analysts use to reveal insights into player behavior across our games, and make data driven decisions. The original dashboard was developed years ago, mainly by backend engineers, and most frontend work since then has focused on the LiveOps Dashboard – so the Data Dashboard was definitely ready for some love

Before I joined, our product designers had created a completely new design that makes the process easier to follow and aligns with the LiveOps dashboard — and my job has been to bring that design to life.

Even though I work closely with the other frontend engineers on shared systems, code reviews etc. the Data Dashboard has become my project in a way. I really enjoy that sense of ownership, especially when I see how it can help others. Tactile is an extremely data-driven company, so it’s rewarding to know that the tools I build play a part in the insights that shape our games. But honestly? The best part is working with people who care as much about doing things well as getting them done.

📚 The keys to success

Hmm, stay curious and keep building things, even small projects. The best way to learn is by experimenting, breaking stuff (yes, we all make bugs!), and figuring out why it broke.

Don’t get too hung up on using the “perfect” tech stack or chasing every new trend. No codebase is perfect. There’s always legacy code, trade-offs, and things you’d love to refactor. At Tactile, we focus on improving things gradually; upgrading, cleaning up, and maintaining while still moving forward. You simply cannot be on the cutting edge all the time, especially in frontend, where sometimes it seems that what’s “in” last week might be deprecated today. What matters is writing solid, maintainable, clean code and keeping a steady pace of improvement.

Lastly, don’t underestimate the importance of communication. Writing good code is one thing, but explaining your ideas clearly, arguing for your choices, and collaborating with others is just as valuable – at Tactile, this matters just as much as your technical skills. The people who grow fastest are often those who ask questions and aren’t afraid to admit when they don’t know something. Find a place where that’s celebrated – it makes all the difference.