Practice
I'm a design engineer who builds design systems in code, and makes them readable by AI coding tools.
I work with product teams, agencies and hiring desks, remotely from South Africa (UTC+2), within two hours of UK and European working time. Find the one that sounds like you.
// Which of these is you?
Product team
We have a design system. Cursor, Copilot or Claude now writes a growing share of our components, and what it ships drifts from the system.
I turn the system into data your agents can read: tokens as structured source, a CI check that fails on hardcoded colours and pixel values, and a contract file for what each component takes.
Agency or consultancy
We've won the work, but nobody on our bench covers design systems in code or interfaces that coding agents can work with.
I come in as a specialist vendor: one point of contact, scoped by deliverable, and no bench time billed.
Contract design engineer
We need a design engineer on the team for a few days a week, or for one fixed project, without a full-time hire.
I work as a contract design engineer, embedded with your team or on a fixed scope. The work is design systems, multi-tenant interfaces and production front end in React, TypeScript and Next.js, plus zero-to-one product design.
Recruiter or hiring desk
I'm hiring, or placing, for a design engineer or design systems role and want to know quickly whether you might be a fit.
Roles I fit: senior product designer on systems-heavy work, design systems engineer, design engineer, or a developer-experience seat on a developer-tooling team.
Available now. Fully remote contractor, South Africa (UTC+2), within two hours of UK and European working time.
Happy to send my resume as a PDF.
// The sprint
Agent-ready design system
South African teams: ask for local pricing.
The problem
Your team has a design system, and Cursor, Copilot or Claude is writing a growing share of your components. An agent can't query a design system that exists only as CSS. It guesses at spacing, invents props, and ships code that compiles, passes review and quietly drifts.
What you get
- A structured token source: JSON as the source of truth, CSS generated from it, both committed.
- Validation in CI that fails the build on a hardcoded hex or a raw px.
- Component contracts in an AGENTS.md layer: what exists, what it takes, what's off-limits.
- Tested primitives, with tests beside the components.
- Handover: the repo, a written architecture doc and a walkthrough of what was built.
How long
Two weeks from kickoff.
Getting started
Access to your repository and design files from the first day lets us make full use of the two weeks.
For teams that already have a design system and already use AI to write code. Starting a design system from scratch? Get in touch.
Happy to talk through whether it fits.
// How the sprint runs
01
Getting in touch
A short note about your system and how your team uses AI, so we can see if the sprint fits.
02
Kickoff
We agree the scope together, confirm access and decide what done looks like.
03
The build
I work through the sprint and send written updates along the way.
04
Handover
A walkthrough, the repo and the architecture doc.
Hours
Fully remote, from South Africa (UTC+2), within two hours of UK and European working time. I prefer async, and I'm happy to call when it helps.
// Selected proof
The Mothership
Design-ops console that compiles design-system state into structured, paste-ready agent instructions.
DX Spatial Grid
Open-source harness to inspect layout nodes and calibrate spatial tokens in the browser.
Old Mutual
Multi-tenant logic layer and 5-group template anatomy for a 48-site estate, architected in four weeks.
Fanblock
Seed-funded multi-tenant Web3 platform; AC Milan beta in 120 days from first line of code.
Not sure which one is you?
We can work out together where I can help.