Cristina Silva

Senior UX Engineer

june 2021 — present

As the lead developer for our design system, I make sure that our components not only match up with what our design team has created, but that they’re also accessible, and easy for our engineering team to use.

responsibilities

• Build new, reusable components for the design system in a React + Typescript codebase with a focus on finding the right balance between structure and flexibility as well as developer experience
• Refactor existing components to be in line with design system standards and meet accessibility requirements
• Advocate for frontend standards and best practices by writing documentation, running frontend retrospectives and knowledge sharing via tech talks
• Maintain Storybook for component usage and documentation as it relates to developer experience and the design system guidelines
• Collaborate closely with the UX team by attending design critiques, ensuring alignment with the design system guidelines in place, and assisting in the creating of components and their states
• Determined and implemented design tokens for color, typography, spacing and more in both our Figma library and the web codebase
• Consult with different product squads to help build out needed components or assist with frontend projects

I've been known to freelance from time to time and have worked with a variety of clients on web design and development projects.

client project highlights

• Designing and implementing marketing pages for GitHub
• Building a documentation site for an IoT startup
• Perfecting the pixels and interactions of a d2c Shopify site
• Iteratively designing and building UI in code for a startup on a mission to enable fulfilling careers
• Updating a component library and implementing frontend UI for Vestaboard

At BevSpot, I was involved in every step of the design process, starting with user research and following through all the way to frontend implementation details. Eventually, I officially made the jump from "Product Designer Who Codes" to "Frontend Developer" after realizing that several months had gone by and I had been exclusively working on implementing frontend components and UI details.

responsibilities

• Implemented components and views for new features and refactored existing ones using React & Typescript
• Created best practices for collaboration between designers and engineers and aligned team members by creating a shared design system
• Advised designers working on projects by leveraging technical and product knowledge

responsibilities

• Designed the ux and ui of new features by leverage conversations with customers and usability testing
• Consolidated duplicate components, colors, typography styles and more to achieve a more cohesive UI for the web application and the beginnings of a design system
• Collaborated with other designers and developers on the team to implement UI details in code

I only taught for two semesters, but it was some of the most rewarding work of my career and also forced me to become an expert in HTML & CSS

responsibilities

• Designed and created a curriculum for 5D Tools – an Introduction to HTML & CSS
• Demonstrated adding and styling content with HTML & CSS, hosting a website using AWS, and how to debug common web development problems by creating a series of small websites and demos with students over the course of the semester

thoughtbot taught me everything I know about product design and development and I was lucky enough that it was my first job out of college.

responsibilities

• Collaborated with developers to help build and design user-centered and successful products for a variety of clients
• Executed on the entire design process from strategy and prototyping to designing and implementing features
• Led and participated in Product Design Sprints to determine the best solutions for digital products