Hi! I’m Leonardo Almeida

Front-end developer at Rabobank

WhatI do

I’m a front-end developer focused on UX, UI and accessibility. Most of my work is bringing things together: the complexity of several programming teams on one side, design on the other, and one product that still feels like one thing to the person using it.

I champion accessibility across my department, and I write about all of it on the blog.

How Igot here

  1. Age 9

    Recife, Brazil

    Press, and something answers

    I was nine, playing Sonic the Hedgehog on a Master System, and I was mesmerized: I moved the joystick and a character on the screen answered. It was my first ‘wow’ moment with an interface.

    That feeling, an input and an instant answer, is still what I judge every interface by.

  2. 2007–2010

    Faculdade Maurício de Nassau

    Systems for Internet

    I studied Systems for Internet at Faculdade Maurício de Nassau (Uninassau): the foundations of computer science, programming for the web, and the excitement of watching a career take shape.

  3. 2008–2014

    Recife, Brazil

    Every screen is an interface

    In Recife I worked mostly at web agencies and at a games company, making interfaces for the web, video games, TVs and smartphones, until 2014, when I left for Barcelona.

  4. 2014–2015

    Barcelona, Spain

    Europe, in a second language

    In Barcelona I worked for Altran, a consultancy, where I had my first contact with enterprise companies in Europe, and learned Spanish.

  5. 2015–2018

    Recife and Belo Horizonte, Brazil

    What a great team feels like

    I came back to Recife with a sense of mission accomplished. After that I moved to Belo Horizonte and its vibrant startup scene, San Pedro Valley, where I worked with very talented and engaged people.

  6. 2018–2021

    Amsterdam and Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Learning the Dutch way

    I gave a talk at Front in Campinas, “There’s nothing new under the sun”, on why the fundamentals (the web platform, design patterns, SOLID) matter more than any framework. Afterwards a consultancy in the Netherlands approached me, and I said yes to the challenge.

    Those years were about learning Dutch culture and settling for good in Europe.

  7. 2021–now

    Rabobank, the Netherlands

    Accessibility at scale

    I’ve worked at Rabobank since 2021, on several projects. In 2023 I became the accessibility person, improving the interfaces that business clients use every day.

    Now I work for Rabobank’s retail customers, creating experiences that are meaningful, seamless, accessible and fast.

How this siteis built

No framework, and no build step beyond one CSS minifier. A small Node server with no dependencies sends each page with its styles and scripts inlined, so nothing else has to load before it shows. The paintings on the posts are drawn by a script, and the drawing at the end of each post is seeded by its address, so it never changes.

Every page works with a keyboard, a screen reader and reduced motion, in six themes. Its parts are collected in De Stijl, the design system it uses.

npm dependencies
0
on all four Lighthouse categories
100
themes, every one with AAA contrast
6
extra requests for CSS or JavaScript
0