4 Years with Angular: What I’ve Learned Building Financial Applications

When I started working with Angular four years ago, I had no idea how much I would grow to love this powerful framework. Coming from a background of building financial applications, Angular's structured approach and built-in features made it the perfect fit. In this post, I want to share my journey — what makes Angular click for me, the challenges I faced early on, and how those same challenges helped me grow into a better developer.

Why Angular Just Works for Me?

One of the main reasons I enjoy working with Angular is its structure. It’s not just a library — it’s a full-fledged framework. That means many essential features like routing, form validation, HTTP handling, and dependency injection are already built in. I don’t have to rely heavily on third-party packages just to get a basic app running, which is especially important when you're working on enterprise-level projects where consistency and maintainability matter.

While many developers say Angular is tough compared to libraries like React, I’d argue that once you get the hang of it, Angular is actually one of the best environments to work in. It provides a clear path and guidelines, which is something I value, especially when collaborating with large teams or working on complex apps.

The Real Challenge — Project Architecture

That said, my Angular journey wasn’t without hurdles. The biggest challenge I initially faced was understanding how to structure large-scale Angular projects — especially dashboard-style applications with multiple modules, lazy loading, and shared components. It was easy to get lost in the folder structure or end up with tightly coupled services.

Over time, and with a lot of reading and hands-on practice, I started recognizing the patterns that made things more manageable: feature modules, core/shared modules, service isolation, and smart vs. dumb components. Once I understood how to break down the project architecture cleanly, building and maintaining applications became significantly easier.

Unit Testing: A Skill That Took Time

Another tough area for me was unit testing. In the beginning, writing tests with Jasmine and Karma felt unnecessary and even a bit frustrating — especially when deadlines loomed. But working in financial applications, where every bit of logic matters, I quickly realized the importance of having solid tests in place.

It took time, but once I got used to writing unit tests for components and services, I began to appreciate the peace of mind they offered. Not only did they help me catch regressions early, but they also made me a more thoughtful developer. Today, testing is an essential part of my workflow, not an afterthought.

Where I’m Headed

Lately, I’ve been focusing on backend development, especially using Go (Golang). I’m diving into how APIs work, how databases are structured, and how the backend logic connects to the frontend UI.

Interestingly, my experience with Angular has helped me understand the full-stack perspective better. Knowing how frontend apps consume data, manage state, and handle errors gives me a unique angle when designing backend APIs.

My goal is to grow into a more well-rounded developer — someone who can build scalable systems end-to-end, not just the UI.

Conclusion: Angular Isn’t Hard — It’s Deep

Angular has taught me that complexity isn't something to shy away from. Sure, it has a steeper learning curve than some libraries, but that complexity also enables you to build powerful, scalable applications out of the box.

To any developer who finds Angular “too much” — I’d say give it time. Once you understand the rhythm and philosophy behind the framework, it becomes a joy to work with.

If you’re someone just starting out with Angular or considering it for your next project — embrace the learning curve. It’s worth it.