Staff Design Technologist · Design Systems Thinker · Creating custom tools for Designers and Developers
Over the past decade, I’ve helped teams at eBay, Microsoft, Nike, Venmo, and others solve large-scale design system and product design challenges. My work bridges the gap between design and engineering—with a focus on building scalable systems, developer/designer tooling, and interaction-rich experiences that teach as much as they execute.
Lately, I’ve been creating tools and documentation to help teams think more clearly about their systems—from design tokens to typography anatomy to Radix-style component libraries across Web, iOS, and Android. I believe design systems should not only scale, but teach—and that documentation should be interactive, accessible, and deeply composable.
I’m not actively job seeking, but I’m always excited to connect with folks working on challenging design infrastructure, interaction design tooling, or cross-functional education. If you're solving deep product or systems problems and need someone who designs with engineers and codes with designers—I’m your person.
You can explore some of my work, writing, and projects at darianrosebrook.com.
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Cross-Platform Design Systems Architecture Helping teams build resilient design foundations that scale across Web, iOS, and Android with consistency and flexibility.
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Design-to-Code Pipelines and Token Synchronization Automating the connection between design and engineering through token sync tools, implementation-ready component libraries, and developer-aligned design specs.
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Tooling that Empowers, Not Just Enables Building plugins, internal tools, and interaction models that reduce friction and teach the thinking behind the system.
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Interactive Documentation and Blueprint-Based Learning Designing documentation experiences that grow with your team—replacing static specs with hands-on guidance, visual scaffolds, and in-context insights.
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Accessibility, Color Contrast, and Type Fidelity Working at the intersection of aesthetics and inclusivity—leveraging modern models like APCA, variable fonts, and type tooling to create accessible, expressive systems.
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Typographic Tooling and Visual Infrastructure Developing canvas-based inspection tools and font metric analyzers to help designers and developers reason about type anatomy with clarity.
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Mentorship Through Systems and Language Whether through writing, plugins, or pattern documentation, I aim to build systems that coach and scale shared understanding.
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Cut implementation times from weeks to hours Built tools at eBay and Nike that connected design and engineering, reducing component release time by over 90% and eliminating key friction in naming, theming, and token sync.
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Created and scaled foundational libraries Co-led Nike’s Podium Foundations Library and eBay’s token/component architecture, feeding multiple teams across enterprise and consumer-facing products.
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Built dashboards that reveal the health of your design system At Verizon, I designed and built a real-time analytics platform for Figma and GitLab that helped design leadership monitor adoption, gaps, and investment priorities across the organization.
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Taught systems through tools Developed plugins like “Designer’s Definition of Done” and interactive component blueprints that guide designers as they work, raising system literacy and confidence across teams.
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Improved developer tooling UX for Microsoft Edge Created debugging tools for web developers, including 3D DOM inspection and font diagnostic features, helping elevate Edge's utility for a core technical audience.
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Led from within cross-functional squads I don’t just “hand off” to devs—I embed, align, and scale. My hybrid background allows me to function as both product designer and design systems engineer, depending on what’s needed most.
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Recognized voice in design education and community Through podcasts, long-form articles, and design communities, I’ve mentored, taught, and influenced thousands of designers navigating the transition to systems thinking and design ops roles.
Explore my writing, tools, and interviews via: LinkedIn · Twitter · YouTube · Articles Or reach out: [email protected]
Design Principle 4: Typefaces and how to use them | Compass of Design Community
The secret heroes of UX Design
Using Color in UI design | Compass of Design Community
Design Principle: Guides, Gutters, and Grids
- Been interviewed by Chris Green on This Design Life about how to get started in brand identity design
- Been interviewed by Tommy Mason on Scamp Chats about how to get started in product design
- Been interviewed by Connor Fowler on The Fowler Hour's Podcast about building a design community from scratch
- Been a top writer for design on Medium.com by writing over 100,000 helpful words on design and consistently get more than 6000 views a month on my articles
- Been featured in the Spotlight on Design for Seattle on Dribbble
- Article: What Problems Should We Choose to Solve
- Article: The Anatomy of a Perfect Portfolio Website to Showcase Your Work: A resource citing my previous case studies page as a good use of a portfolio site
- Article: What's on your hard drive: A post about how to earn money with unused design concepts or ideas
- Article: UX Link Roundup - Using my article as an example to help people with color in UI design
- Video: "What not to do in a layout design" — Offering one of my poster designs for critique on The Futur's site where Chris Do attempts to give a new spin on my layout. We talk about this one together a lot in how maybe it shouldn't have been changed.
- Article: How I concluded my portfolio design – my portfolio design being used again as an example of how someone should model their portfolio site
- Article: A collection of resources and tools about the ethics of design — A citing of my article about how overthinking can lead to poor design
