Who is Tom Smykowski, Your EU Remote Software Engineer?
Tom Smykowski is a senior software engineer based in Poland, specializing in remote product delivery for teams across the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. With nearly two decades of hands-on experience, he is the ideal hire for companies seeking a product-minded engineer who can take ownership from initial discovery through to production launch and scaling. His career is defined by partnering with founders, CTOs, and executives to solve complex problems, modernize systems, and build user-focused applications that drive business growth.
As a remote EU software engineer, Tom operates effectively within European time zones and maintains productive overlap with US East Coast teams, making him a seamless addition to distributed international teams. His approach combines deep technical expertise in modern stacks like Vue.js, TypeScript, and full-stack architectures with a strong focus on user experience, design systems, and product strategy. This blend ensures that engineering decisions always align with business objectives and user needs.
His proven track record includes staff and founding engineer roles for high-growth platforms, where he has been instrumental in driving compliance, collaboration, and technical excellence. Whether you need to build an MVP from scratch, scale an existing SaaS platform, integrate AI capabilities, or lead a frontend modernization project, Tom provides the senior-level engineering leadership and hands-on coding skills required for success in a remote-first environment.
Proven Impact with EU and Global Teams
Tom's portfolio demonstrates significant impact across a diverse range of industries and company sizes, all delivered remotely. As a Staff Software Engineer at Croissant, a workplace platform, he worked in close partnership with the CEO and CTO on critical areas including compliance and collaboration features, showcasing his ability to operate at a strategic level while delivering robust technical solutions. This role exemplifies his capacity to function as a trusted technical leader within a fully remote, product-focused team.
For Printify, a leading print-on-demand marketplace serving over 10 million merchants, Tom led the design system and rebranding initiative ahead of a major merger. In this capacity, he provided architectural guidance and foundational work for a frontend engineering organization of approximately 60 engineers. This project highlights his skill in creating scalable, maintainable systems that empower large, distributed engineering teams to move faster and with greater consistency, a critical capability for any EU remote software engineer.
Earlier in his career, Tom founded Websoul, a marketing automation platform that grew to serve over 32,000 businesses. He architected and built this fintech SaaS using Vue, TypeScript, Supabase, and AG Grid, taking it from concept to a sustainable product. This founder-level experience gives him unique insight into the pressures of building and scaling a product, making him an invaluable partner for startups and scale-ups. His work with other notable organizations like GE Healthcare, Unilever, Bunge, and various Polish governmental and academic institutions further underscores his versatility and ability to deliver in complex, regulated environments.
Technical Expertise for Modern Product Development
Tom's technical stack is centered around building high-quality, scalable web applications. He has extensive production experience with modern JavaScript frameworks, particularly Vue.js and the broader React ecosystem, alongside strong backend proficiency. His work is consistently built with TypeScript for type safety and maintainability, and he has deep hands-on experience with full-stack tools like Supabase for backend services and AG Grid for complex data presentations. This full-stack capability allows him to own features end-to-end, a major advantage for remote teams seeking to move quickly.
Beyond core development, he brings specialized expertise in areas critical to product success. This includes building and governing design systems to ensure UI consistency and accelerate development, as demonstrated at Printify and Fream. He also focuses on performance optimization, accessibility compliance, and API design. His engineering philosophy prioritizes clean, tested, and documented code that facilitates collaboration within distributed teams, ensuring that knowledge is shared and systems remain understandable by all engineers, regardless of location.
Increasingly, his work incorporates AI-assisted engineering workflows and AI-native development. He advises teams on setting up AI software factories, integrating tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot into the development lifecycle to boost productivity, improve code quality, and automate testing. This forward-looking expertise positions him to help EU-based teams not only solve today's challenges but also adopt the tools and practices that will define competitive software development tomorrow.
AI Integration and Engineering Leadership
As AI transforms the software landscape, Tom's role extends beyond traditional engineering into AI strategy and implementation. He helps companies integrate AI capabilities into their products and, just as importantly, into their engineering processes. This involves consulting on AI software factory setups, where agentic engineering and AI coding agents are leveraged to streamline the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC). For teams looking to maintain a competitive edge, his guidance on adopting AI-native practices is invaluable.
His leadership in this space includes conducting corporate AI training, engineering workshops, and executive briefings for CEOs and CTOs. He can upskill an entire development team on effective prompt engineering, AI-assisted testing, and building quality gates with AI tools. This focus on developer experience (DevEx) and productivity ensures that the adoption of AI leads to tangible gains in velocity and code quality, rather than becoming a distraction. For a remote EU software engineer, this ability to mentor and elevate a team's capabilities asynchronously and through structured sessions is a powerful asset.
This expertise complements his traditional technical leadership roles, such as Fractional CTO engagements, technical due diligence, and architecture reviews. He is adept at evaluating codebases, recommending refactoring paths, and designing systems for security and scalability. Whether guiding a startup on MVP architecture or helping a scale-up modernize a legacy Angular or React application, his approach is always holistic, considering the product, the team, and the long-term technical health of the business.
The Remote Collaboration Model from Poland
Operating remotely from Poland, Tom is expertly set up for successful collaboration with EU, UK, and US-based teams. His workday naturally aligns with Central European Time (CET), providing full overlap with teams across the EU and the UK, and significant overlap with US East Coast morning hours. This scheduling compatibility minimizes communication delays and facilitates real-time collaboration for stand-ups, pair programming sessions, and strategic meetings, making the distance feel negligible.
He is a seasoned practitioner of async communication, leveraging tools effectively to document decisions, progress, and context. This ensures that collaboration remains smooth across time zones, with clear handoffs and minimal blockers. Furthermore, he is available for occasional on-site workshops, client visits, and team offsites, understanding the value of periodic in-person connection for building trust and aligning on complex initiatives. This flexible, hybrid-ready model offers the best of both worlds: the efficiency and focus of remote work with the option for strategic face-to-face collaboration when needed.
His engagement models are equally flexible to suit different organizational needs. He is open to full-time employment, part-time arrangements, and B2B contracts for both short-term projects and long-term collaborations. This flexibility allows companies to engage his senior-level expertise in a way that matches their current stage and budget, whether they need a founding engineer for a new venture, a staff engineer to bolster an existing team, or a consultant for a specific technical audit or AI integration project.
When This is a Good Fit
Engaging Tom as your EU remote software engineer is an excellent fit if you are a founder, CTO, or technical leader seeking a senior product-minded engineer who can own complex challenges from conception to delivery. He is ideal for teams building or scaling SaaS products, modernizing frontend applications (especially in Angular or React), or integrating AI into their products and workflows. If you value a combination of hands-on coding, strategic technical leadership, and a relentless focus on user-centric outcomes within a remote or hybrid model, then this collaboration will drive significant value for your project and team.