Redux RTK Architecture at Scale

The Challenge

As the product grew, state management became the primary source of complexity and bugs. Different teams had adopted different patterns — some using local state, others using older Redux patterns with hand-written action creators and reducers. The inconsistency made cross-team collaboration difficult and onboarding slow.

The Approach

I led the design of a standardized Redux RTK architecture that balanced flexibility with consistency:

• Slice-per-domain pattern — each feature domain owns a well-defined slice with typed state, reducers, and selectors
• RTK Query for API layer — replaced dozens of custom fetch hooks with a declarative, cache-aware API layer
• Typed hooks — custom useAppSelector and useAppDispatch hooks that enforce type safety throughout the codebase
• Middleware for side effects — listener middleware for complex flows (auth, WebSocket sync) instead of scattered useEffect chains

Execution

Rolling out a new state management architecture across an active codebase required careful coordination:

• Created a migration guide with before/after examples for every pattern
• Paired with each feature team during their first slice migration
• Built ESLint rules to enforce the new patterns and catch drift
• Ran architecture office hours for questions and pattern reviews

The migration was incremental — no big-bang rewrite. Teams adopted the new patterns as they touched existing code or built new features.

Results

• Developer onboarding time dropped by 3x — new engineers could understand the data flow within days instead of weeks
• State-related bugs decreased by 80% — predictable patterns and typed selectors caught issues at compile time
• API boilerplate reduced by 60% — RTK Query replaced hundreds of lines of custom fetch, loading, and error handling code
• Cross-team collaboration improved — shared conventions meant engineers could contribute to any domain confidently