Work/03 · Featured

Wastern.

Construction waste management SaaS for the French BTP industry. Apprenticeship as product designer + front-end developer.

Year
2022 — 2024
Duration
Apprenticeship · 2 years
Client
Wastern
Sector
BTP · Waste management
Role
Product Designer · Front-End
01Brief

A regulated industry, an analog workflow.

Since 2022, French construction sites must digitally track every type of waste they produce. Most still do it on paper.

Wastern is the SaaS that closes the gap: order skips, track flows, generate compliant BSD documents, access a supplier directory. Three personas served — promoters, BTP companies, waste collectors.

I joined as an apprentice for two years, wearing two hats: product designer and front-end developer.

02The double role

Designer in the morning, dev in the afternoon.

The boundary between design and code didn't exist on this team. By the end, I could go from a user interview to a shipped feature without changing toolkits.

Apprenticeship
2y
DESIGNER + DEV · FULL-TIME · PARIS
Roles
2
DESIGNER · FRONT-END
Surfaces
App + Web
REACT · WEBFLOW
Compliance
BSD
TRACKDÉCHETS
03Design

Designed for hard hats, not designers.

Wastern users wear gloves. They use the app on a job site, in bright sunlight, often with concrete dust on their phone.

The constraints were unforgiving:

  • Tap targets at 56px+ (gloves don't have fingertips)
  • High contrast everywhere (sunlight kills greys)
  • Number-first hierarchy (operators care about cubic meters)
  • Single-tap actions for the 80% workflow

I built a utilitarian design system in Figma — tokens, components, BSD documents, status pills. Every screen got the gloves test.

04Front-end

React app + Webflow site, one brand.

Same brand assets, two ecosystems — kept in sync by treating the design system as the source of truth.

Stack & Architecture
App
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind
  • shadcn/ui
Site
  • Webflow
  • HubSpot CMS
  • Forms API
Compliance
  • TrackDéchets API
  • BSD generator
  • PDF export
Design
  • Figma
  • Design tokens
  • Brand kit
05Results

What shipped.

Personas served
3
PROMOTERS · BTP · COLLECTORS
Compliance
BSD
DIGITAL TRACKDÉCHETS
Touchpoints
2
REACT APP · WEBFLOW SITE
Apprenticeship
2y
DESIGNER + DEV
06What I learned

Where design stops, code starts. Then everything blurs.

Two years as an apprentice gave me what no senior role would: the time to mess up, iterate, and rebuild things from scratch — multiple times. If I'm a hybrid designer-developer today, it's because Wastern let me become one.

The artificial line between design and code is just a job description. When you own both, the feedback loop tightens and the product gets better.

↳ Wastern · 2022 — 2024