Summary

As the CTO and COO of SweetBeasts Inc., a company I co-founded, I lead a team of three in the development and testing of our custom e-commerce admin panel. I oversee all technical and operational aspects of the platform, ensuring it aligns with our strategic vision. You can learn about the storefront here. While the admin panel is not publicly accessible, the source code is available on GitHub for those interested in our backend architecture.

Key Features

I take pride in the progress we have made on the admin panel, which has been built on a solid foundation for the plethora of features that still need to be added.

• Role-Based Authentication and Authorization: Implemented using Auth.js, featuring two-factor authentication and email verification to secure user access.
• Robust CMS: Utilizes Next.js server actions for real-time product creation and editing, ensuring instant updates on the client-side.
• Performance Dashboard and Customer Service Portal: Tools for monitoring business metrics and providing efficient customer support.

The Tech Stack

• TypeScript - Ensures type safety, which enhances the developer experience and application reliability

• Next.js - A full-stack React framework for building server-side rendered applications
• React - A library for building dynamic user interfaces
• Tailwind CSS - Known for its ease of customization and utility-first approach
• shadcn/ui - A collection of accessible and fully customizable React components designed with TailwindCSS.

• PostgreSQL - Celebrated for its reliability, scalability, and flexibility
• Prisma - Simplifies database operations, making them more reliable and maintainable with an ORM

• Authentication: Auth.js - provides an open-source, customizable and self-hosted authentication solution
• Payment Gateway: Stripe - Securely processes online payments
• Email Client: Resend - When paired with React Email, simplifies designing and sending emails
• Server: Neon - Offers a serverless platform for PostgreSQL, ensuring scalability and easy management
• Deployment and Analytics: Vercel - Known for its seamless integration with GitHub, hosts and deploys our application
• Version Control: GitHub - Facilitates version control and integration with our development process

Takeaways

Developing the admin panel has been a profound learning experience, particularly in the areas of security and authorization:

• Security Implementation: Through Auth.js, I spearheaded the setup of a robust, user-friendly authentication system. Enforcing two-factor authentication and role-based authorization was challenging but highly educational.
• Scalable CMS Design: The database schema for the CMS was intentionally designed to be intuitive and scalable, anticipating future expansions and increased demand.

The Current State

The admin panel is a focal point for further development, especially compared to the more mature state of the storefront. My backend expertise boosts my confidence in accomplishing these upcoming tasks efficiently:

• Shipping API Integration: Plans to integrate Shippo for streamlined shipping operations.
• Enhanced Order Management: Improvements to handle orders more robustly.
• Performance Analytics: Adding charts to the dashboard for better visibility into performance metrics.
• File Upload System: Implementing Vercel Blob for managing file uploads.
• Content Centralization: Moving all hard-coded text, like the Mission Statement and About Us, from the storefront to the admin panel for better manageability.