Accessibility at Scale with Kateryna Porshnieva, Engineering at Buffer

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Señors at Scale

Dan Neciu

16 episodes

3 days ago

Welcome to Señors at Scale, the podcast where seasoned engineers spill the secrets, successes, and facepalms of building and maintaining software at scale. Join host Neciu Dan as we sit down with Staff Engineers, Principal Engineers, and other senior technologists to dive deep into the hard-won lessons of distributed systems, technical leadership, and scaling products that refuse to stay small. From war stories in incident response to behind-the-scenes architecture decisions, each episode brings a mix of practical insights, hard truths, and a healthy dose of dev humor. If you’ve ever wrang

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Accessibility at Scale with Kateryna Porshnieva, Engineering at Buffer

Señors at Scale

39 minutes 27 seconds

1 month ago

Accessibility at Scale with Kateryna Porshnieva, Engineering at Buffer

In this episode of Señors @ Scale, Kateryna Porchienova, Senior Engineering Manager at Buffer, joins Dan to talk about her journey into programming, the craft of UI animation, and why accessibility should be a standard — not an afterthought.Kateryna shares how her very first app, built in high school, ended up helping children with disabilities learn from home — sparking a lifelong commitment to inclusion in tech. She walks us through best practices for accessibility, from learning to use a screen reader to understanding semantic HTML and ARIA roles.We also dive into the tooling side — from React Aria and Radix to Storybook and Lighthouse — and discuss how AI can both help and hurt accessibility efforts. Kateryna explains the most common mistakes developers make (like overusing ARIA labels), why animation and motion preferences matter for users’ health, and how to advocate for accessibility within engineering teams and company culture.The episode closes with her favorite book recommendations on product development and communication, underscoring how great engineering is as much about people as it is about code.🎯 Whether you’re a frontend developer, design system engineer, or tech lead, this episode is packed with real stories, practical takeaways, and thoughtful lessons from years of building inclusive products at scale.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Katarina Porchienova02:40 The Importance of Animation in UI Design05:23 Katarina's Journey into Programming09:02 Exploring Accessibility in Development11:43 Best Practices for Accessibility14:18 Tools and Libraries for Accessibility Testing17:09 The Role of AI in Accessibility20:44 Common Mistakes in Accessibility Implementation24:14 Advocating for Accessibility in Companies30:37 Recommended Books and Closing Thoughts---Follow & Subscribe:📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/senorsatscale/📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neciudev🎙 Podcast URL: https://neciudan.dev/senors-at-scale📬 Newsletter: https://neciudan.dev/subscribe💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neciudan💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/se%C3%B1ors-scale/---Here are some additional resources to dive deeper into the topic and learn more:- If you are just starting with accessibility, this free course on Udacity is awesome: 🔗 [Web Accessibility Course / Udacity](https://www.udacity.com/course/web-accessibility--ud891)- A11ycasts series on YouTube is great for bite-sized content on accessibility and screen-reader tutorials🔗 [A11ycasts with Rob Dodson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtTyRajRuyY&list=PLNYkxOF6rcICWx0C9LVWWVqvHlYJyqw7g)- [Adrian Roselli blog](https://adrianroselli.com/posts) is an awesome resource for deep dives on specific topics and details- [Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1](https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/)- [ARIA Authoring Practices Guide (APG)](https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/) is super useful for developing different widgets- [HTML Accessibility API Mappings](https://www.w3.org/TR/html-aam/) to see how native HTML elements map to accessibility tree- [Aria Live Regions documentation](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/ARIA_Live_Regions) to learn more about announcements and live regions- [A11Y support](https://a11ysupport.io/) shows support for various ARIA attributes across different screen readers#accessibility #webdevelopment #frontend #uiux #animation #buffer #reactaria #softwareengineering #a11y #engineeringculture #señorsatscaleDon’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more engineering stories from the front lines.How is your team building accessibility into your workflow? Share below 👇