Staff Engineer · Sainsbury’s

Tom Dye leads teams building next-level front-end experiences.

Staff Engineer at Sainsbury’s, specialising in front-end development. I lead and upskill engineers to deliver next-level experiences across groceries and general merchandise with TypeScript, React and React Native.

Surrey, England, United Kingdom

About

I’m a Staff Engineer with 20 years in the field. Since graduating in 2006 with a first-class honours degree in Computer Science and completing the IBM graduate scheme, I’ve spent my career learning from the best and raising the bar for the teams around me.

Across that time I’ve worked the full project lifecycle — design, development and support — for clients including the BBC, TfL, Thomson Reuters and Raytheon. As a Staff Engineer my focus is on leading and upskilling engineers, setting the technical direction, and delivering next-level front-end experiences at scale.

I’m focused, ambitious and happiest with a hard problem in front of me and a team to solve it with.

Years experience
20
Class BSc (Hons) CS
1st
Companies & clients
9
Experience
  1. May 2023 — Present

    Staff Engineer

    Current

    Sainsbury’s Digital, Tech & Data · London, UK

    Working across teams leading development of next-level experiences across groceries and general merchandise.

    • TypeScript
    • Next.js
    • React
    • Node.js
    • Leadership
  2. Feb 2016 — Apr 2023

    Senior Software Engineer

    SitePen · Remote

    Tech Lead on client projects and open-source work, delivering Dojo 2.0 and shipping apps with React, React Native, TypeScript and Node.js.

    • React
    • TypeScript
    • Node.js
    • React Native
    • Dojo
    • Open source
  3. Jun 2012 — Dec 2015

    Senior Engineer

    Thomson Reuters · London, UK

    Senior Engineer working across a range of projects with Dojo, Less, Node and Sinon.

    • Dojo
    • Node.js
    • Less
  4. Jul 2013 — Jul 2015

    Technical Lead & Founder

    Energy Cycle Ltd

    Co-founder. Built the entire front end and a large part of the Node.js layer for an energy-control platform.

    • Dojo
    • Node.js
    • Founder
  5. Apr 2011 — Jul 2011

    UI Technical Lead

    Raytheon

    Delivered a high-end Dojo UI over JSPs and REST services, set up best-practice methods and trained the team on the Dijit framework.

    • Dojo
    • REST
    • Dijit
  6. Feb 2007 — Apr 2011

    IT Consultant

    IBM Global Business Services · London, UK

    Worked across a wide range of projects for clients including the BBC, TfL and Co-operative Financial Services. Final role delivered the BBC EM3 media-cataloguing application.

    • Dojo
    • Full lifecycle
    • BBC
Skills

Languages

  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript
  • HTML
  • CSS

Frameworks & Libraries

  • React
  • Next.js
  • React Native
  • Node.js

Styling & Design Systems

  • Tailwind
  • CSS Modules
  • Design systems
  • Design tokens & theming
  • Component architecture

Accessibility & Performance

  • WCAG / accessibility
  • Core Web Vitals
  • Performance engineering
  • Progressive enhancement

Engineering Practice

  • Testing (Jest, Playwright)
  • CI/CD & DevOps
  • Cloud (AWS, Vercel, Cloudflare)
  • AI-assisted engineering

Leadership & Strategy

  • Technical strategy
  • Engineering mentorship
  • Cross-team influence
  • Design system stewardship
  • Requirements & UX
Recommendations
His knowledge of JavaScript & front-end development was fantastic. No issue was too difficult to fix — it would be a pleasure working with him again.
Ian HoughtonColleague, Asda Money
His eye for design and ability to reflect that in CSS was exceptional. He built significant new function in a short period of time. I would have him back on my team again.
Matthew PerrinsManager, BBC DMI EM3