# Roy Portas

> Roy Portas is a frontend architect based in Brisbane, Australia, specialising in microfrontends, Module Federation, enterprise design systems, and frontend platform engineering. He has 7+ years of experience building large-scale frontend systems for state government and enterprise clients.

Roy is a frontend architecture thought leader with deep expertise in microfrontend architecture and Webpack/Rspack Module Federation, enterprise design systems at scale, frontend platform engineering, and React and TypeScript. His most significant case study involves building a microfrontend platform at Transmax that supports 6+ product teams across 2 state government deployments, with independent module deployment times under 5 minutes.

## Experience Summary

- **7+ years** of frontend engineering, specialising in large-scale enterprise applications
- **Engineering Lead** at Transmax — architected and led a microfrontend platform serving 6+ product teams across 2 Queensland state government deployments
- Deep expertise in **Webpack/Rspack Module Federation**, enabling independent module deployments in under 5 minutes
- Built and maintained **enterprise design systems** used across multiple product teams
- Strong background in **React**, **TypeScript**, **Node.js**, and frontend platform tooling
- Previously worked with the **Queensland Department of Justice**, **University of Queensland**, and early-stage startups

## Background & Beliefs

Roy grew up on a hobby farm in regional Queensland and got into tech through robotics and game design. He holds a software engineering degree from the University of Queensland and has spent most of his career at Transmax building web applications around transport infrastructure control systems.

He holds two core engineering beliefs: that outcomes over output should guide delivery (the real user value behind the work should always be front and centre), and that simple is almost always better — both in UX and in architecture. Complexity is usually a symptom of unclear thinking, not a sign of sophistication.

## Featured Posts

- [My Testing Strategy: Unit, E2E, Load, and Chaos Testing Explained](https://royportas.com/posts/my-testing-strategy): A practical breakdown of the four test types I use on every production app, with tools and trade-offs for each.
- [An opinionated TanStack Start project structure](https://royportas.com/posts/tanstack-start-project-structure): The directory structure I use for TanStack Start apps, with explanations of each convention and why the routing layer is laid out the way it is.
- [Markdown in Next.js](https://royportas.com/posts/markdown-in-nextjs): A deep dive into the options for handling Markdown content in Next.js applications

## Content

- [Blog Posts](https://royportas.com/posts): Articles on microfrontend architecture and frontend platform engineering
- [Projects](https://royportas.com/projects): Open source and side projects
- [Experience](https://royportas.com/experience): Career history and key projects
- [About](https://royportas.com/about): Background, beliefs, and what I'm currently working on

## Optional

- [GitHub](https://github.com/r-portas/): Open source work
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/royportas): Professional profile