There's a shift happening in how products get built. The best teams I've seen don't have a clean handoff between "the designer" and "the developer." Instead, they have people who think in systems and pixels.

The convergence

Tools like Figma, Framer, and even CSS itself have evolved to the point where the gap between designing something and building it is razor thin. A Product Engineer lives in that gap.

The best interface is one that was designed and built by the same mind.

This isn't about being a unicorn. It's about having enough fluency in both worlds to make better decisions faster.

What this looks like in practice

When I'm building a feature, I don't start with a mockup or a spec. I start with a question: what does the user need to feel? Then I move between code and design fluidly:

• Prototype in code to test interactions
• Adjust visual details in the browser, not in Figma
• Ship something real, not a screenshot

The tools that changed my mind

Some products showed me what's possible when design and engineering merge:

• Raycast — every interaction feels intentional, fast, crafted
• Arc — rethought what a browser could feel like
• Linear — proved that B2B software can be beautiful

These products didn't happen because a designer threw a mockup over the wall. They happened because the people building them cared about both sides.

---

I'm still early in this journey. But I know the direction is right.