About
Half designer, half engineer, fully responsible for how it feels.
I’m Noa. I started out writing CSS for a design studio in Rotterdam and kept asking designers why the thing on screen didn’t feel like the thing in the file. Nine years later I do both halves myself.
These days I work from Lisbon with founders and small product teams who need someone to take an idea from a blank canvas to a merged pull request. In between, I build Relay, surf badly and print type specimens nobody asked for.
How I work
- 01
Prototype in the material
The browser and the phone are the canvas. A spring you can feel settles an argument a mockup can’t.
- 02
Fewer decisions for the user
Most of my work is deleting things: steps, options, props, screens. What remains should feel inevitable.
- 03
Details are the product
Focus rings, empty states, the 200 ms after a tap. People never name them, but they always notice.
- 04
Leave a system behind
Tokens, components and written rules, so the team keeps shipping at the same quality after I leave.
Experience
- 2024 — nowIndependent design engineerLisbonOne client at a time, plus Relay.
- 2021 — 2024Staff design engineerNorthbeam (payments)Led the design system used by 60 engineers.
- 2019 — 2021Product designerFieldnote (iOS)Shipped the editor and its widgets.
- 2017 — 2019Front-end developerStudio Oma, RotterdamMarketing sites that had to feel like products.
Daily tools
- Figma
- React
- Next.js
- TypeScript
- SwiftUI
- Motion
- Rust
- Postgres
- Linear
- Origami
Curious how I’d approach your product?