Modern CSS at Scale with Bramus (Chrome Developer Relations Engineer ,CSS and Web UI, at Google)

In this episode of Señors @ Scale, Dan sits down with Bramus Van Damme, Chrome Developer Relations Engineer at Google, and one of the driving forces behind View Transitions, Scroll-Driven Animations, Anchor Positioning, and CSS Custom Functions.Bramus brings a rare perspective from inside the browser engine itself. From helping shape CSS specs at the standards level to building the demos and tooling that developers rely on every day, he has a front-row seat to how modern UI engineering is evolving.We go deep into how the new CSS works in practice — beyond the marketing, straight into the mechanics of performance, rendering, and real-world API design.We break down how these capabilities actually work:How View Transitions calculate DOM deltas and morph shared elements across pages,How Scroll-Driven Animations run on the compositor instead of the main thread,How Anchor Positioning finally fixes popovers, tooltips, and dropdowns without JavaScript,and how CSS Custom Functions and Mixins push the language closer to a full programming environment.Bramus also explains the browser-internals most teams never see — interop, working with the CSS Working Group, and the engineering cost behind features that take 5 to 10 years to land across engines.The conversation goes beyond features into the realities of framework timing, React’s virtual DOM, when animations fall back to the main thread, and why modern CSS is becoming the foundation for UI systems at scale.If you’re building modern frontends, maintaining a design system, or leading platform engineering for UI, this episode is a masterclass in what the next generation of the web actually looks like.Chapters00:00 The Journey into Web Development01:02 Best Practices for View Transitions07:46 What Chrome DevRel Actually Does10:33 How Browser Features Get Prioritized13:38 Why Styling Forms Has Been Broken for Years17:18 Inside View Transitions and Cross-Document Animations22:11 Motion, Accessibility, and Reducing Overuse23:44 Integrating Browser Features with React, Vue, and Frameworks27:46 The Popover API and Pattern-Driven Standards30:48 How React and Chrome Collaborated on View Transitions31:46 The State of Scroll-Driven Animations34:25 Triggered Animations and What’s Coming Next35:50 Why JS Scroll Handlers Cause Jank37:17 GPU-Accelerated vs Main-Thread Animations40:10 The Coolest Demo: Scroll-Driven View Transitions44:24 Anchor Positioning and De-JSifying UI Patterns48:23 Developer Feedback, Interop, and Spec Evolution51:19 Custom Functions and the Future of CSS as a Language54:58 Mixins, Preprocessors, and Platform Evolution56:43 Books, Blogs, and Where Bramus Learns58:11 Closing Thoughts and Call for FeedbackFollow & 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/Additional Resources🌐 Bramus’ Blog: https://www.bram.us🌐 View Transitions Demos: https://view-transitions.chrome.dev🌐 Scroll-Driven Animations Course: https://scroll-driven-animations.style/🌐 Anchor-Tool by Una: https://anchor-tool.com#css #webdevelopment #frontend #javascript #chrome #softwareengineering #uiux #devtools #animations #react #performance #softwarearchitecture #señorsatscaleDon’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more engineering stories from the front lines.