I have been writing React since class components were the only option, which mostly means I have seen every way an application becomes unmaintainable. The pattern is always the same: state scattered across contexts nobody can trace, components that do four things, effects firing in orders nobody intended. I build React applications that a different developer can pick up in a week — clear component boundaries, state kept as close to where it is used as possible, and TypeScript doing real work instead of decorating the code with `any`.
Not every application needs a global store. Most need server state handled properly, a small amount of URL state, and local component state for the rest. I pick the lightest tool that solves your actual problem, and I will tell you when the answer is that you do not need another dependency.
Retrofitting accessibility costs several times what building it in costs. Focus traps in modals, keyboard paths through every interactive element, form labels that screen readers announce correctly — these are decisions made when the component is written, not in an audit six months later.
A lot of my React work starts with an application that shipped fast, grew, and is now expensive to change. I audit it, quantify what is actually hurting — render cascades and wasted re-renders, duplicated logic, untyped boundaries — and then refactor in slices that ship independently, each one landing behind tests that catch the regression. No three-month rewrite where nothing is released.
Both, and honestly most of my work is existing codebases. Joining a running product, auditing it, fixing what hurts and modernizing gradually is a large part of what fifteen years gets you.
It depends on what the state is. Server data belongs in a data-fetching layer, not a global store. Navigation state often belongs in the URL. For genuinely global client state I keep it minimal. I would rather explain the tradeoff than hand you a default answer.
Yes — Node.js and Express, or PHP and Laravel, plus REST and GraphQL APIs. Being full-stack means fewer handoffs and no arguments about where a bug lives.