Mygiene is building what founder Darrin describes as the "Duolingo for food safety", combining digital training, compliance management, certification, and machine learning for restaurants and food businesses in Ireland.
To support product development and improve the platform’s user experience, Mygiene partnered with Index.dev to bring in an experienced front-end engineer who could contribute quickly and work closely with the founder’s vision.
Specialization: Food safety certification and training platform
Headquarters: Ireland, Dublin
Website: https://www.mygiene.ie/
Founded: 2024
Technology stack
- Frontend: React, Vite, Tailwind CSS
- UI Components: Radix UI
- Backend: Supabase
- Hosting / deployment: Vercel
The Project
Food safety compliance is a legal requirement for every food business in Ireland, but the existing processes are slow, paper-heavy, and easy to get wrong.
Built around HACCP+, Ireland’s standard framework for food safety management, Mygiene simplifies this process through a cloud-based platform. It helps companies complete training, track compliance requirements, monitor food safety activities, and achieve certification digitally.
The goal is simple: make food safety easier to understand, easier to manage, and easier to maintain.
The Challenge
Darrin is a founder who wears many hats: product thinker, UX designer, and the person ultimately responsible for getting Mygiene to market. What he needed was a senior front-end developer who could understand product design and user experience, and translate UI designs into a working product fast.
As an early-stage startup moving toward a major funding round, the team needed a highly polished, intuitive interface to demonstrate product value to early users and investors. The priorities were clear: speed, front-end quality, and a developer pragmatic enough to propose a roadmap that worked within a tight budget.
“When you are trying to close a funding round, speed and presentation are everything. Every development decision matters at this stage. We needed someone who could turn design into a working product without endless back-and-forth,” added Darrin O'Toole, founder of Mygiene.
The team also needed a hiring process that was fast and flexible, adapting to the changing needs of a startup in progress, including flexibility around timelines and payment terms.
The Solution
Index.dev worked closely with Mygiene to understand the project requirements and quickly identified a strong match.
Renan, a senior front-end developer based in Spain, was presented on the same day the role went live. His background aligned closely with both the technical stack and the product's needs. Renan brought deep front-end expertise, along with experience leading small front-end teams, building user-facing products, and delivering high-quality applications across industries including fintech, healthcare, and agritech.
"Index.dev introduced Renan just hours after our first call," says Darrin. "He quickly understood what we were trying to build, helped remove front-end bottlenecks, and brought a practical approach to getting things done."
Before development began, Renan proposed a realistic roadmap that balanced feature scope with the client’s budget, then took ownership of the pending tasks and design handoff.
About the talent
Renan | Front-End Developer | 7 Years Experience | Based in Spain
Renan is a front-end focused full stack developer with more than seven years of experience building web and mobile applications.
His background includes React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Vite, Next.js, Supabase, Node.js, and PostgreSQL. He has worked with startups and established companies across healthcare, fintech, AI, and enterprise software.
Prior to joining Mygiene, Renan led front-end initiatives for international products, including large-scale platform localization projects serving thousands of users across Latin America. He has contributed to investor-facing products, AI-powered applications, healthcare platforms, and complex business systems requiring both strong technical execution and thoughtful UX.
His ability to combine engineering expertise with product thinking made him a strong fit for Mygiene.
What made the fit strong
- Same-day candidate presentation accelerated the hiring process.
- Strong hands-on experience with React, Vite, Tailwind CSS, and modern front-end development.
- Product-minded approach with a focus on practical delivery.
- Clear communication and close collaboration with the founder.
- Flexibility around project timelines and changing business needs.
Throughout the engagement, Index.dev remained flexible around timelines and operational requirements, helping the collaboration adapt as business priorities evolved.
"The flexibility Index.dev offered was a big part of why this worked," says Darrin. "As a founder, you're constantly balancing timelines, priorities, and cash flow. They understood that. Nothing felt rigid, and that gave us the space to focus on building the product."
The Impact
Renan's front-end expertise allowed Mygiene to clear its backlog and deliver its first major product milestone. His experience with complex web layouts translated directly into an interface that's clean, high-performing, and ready to put in front of users and investors.
The engagement established a strong foundation for the next phase of development and showed how the right engineering talent can have an immediate impact, even within a relatively short collaboration.
While the second phase is tied to funding timelines, both teams remain in close contact and expect development to pick up as Mygiene moves into its next stage of growth.
Key outcomes
- Senior front-end developer presented on the same day the role opened
- Fast, low-friction interview and hiring process
- All planned tasks for the first milestone completed successfully
- Strong alignment between technical execution, design, and product goals
- Flexible engagement model suited to the needs of an early-stage startup
