I’m a design engineer — which means I design products and build them. Not as two separate activities but as one continuous act of thinking. After [X] years doing both, I’m convinced the best product interfaces come from someone who can hold the design decision and the engineering constraint in the same mind at the same time. I’m Australian, based in Berlin. I make techno music, grow things in my garden, and watch more films than is probably reasonable.

I think the handoff is where most product quality dies. By the time a design has been through review, translated into a spec, handed to an engineer, built under time pressure, and QA’d against a screenshot, it’s a different thing. The intention survives but the feeling doesn’t. I think design systems are not about consistency — they’re about compressing the distance between a decision and its implementation. A good design system means the right thing is also the easy thing to build. I think most products are over-designed at the surface and under-designed in the behaviour. The screen looks considered. The way it responds to real use — edge cases, slow connections, unexpected input — usually doesn’t.

I’ve had the wonderful privilege of working closely with Ryen for almost five years. He’s an exceptional engineer with a sharp sense for UX challenges. He was instrumental in shaping ResearchGate’s Design System from the ground up. Through his role in our UX Engineering team, Ryen has left a distinct mark on how over 20M scientists interact with Open Science every day. I particularly enjoyed observing Ryen’s steep growth over the years that we worked together. Ultimately, Ryen was responsible for managing a number of complex projects that required deep technical expertise, problem-first design thinking, and skillful stakeholder management. Overall, I can’t recommend working with Ryen highly enough. He’s incredible to work with — and I’ll find a way to work with him again at some point.