About me:

Hey, I'm Dana. I'm a Senior UX Engineer from New Zealand.

I work across UX, frontend engineering, and product. I like taking messy ideas and turning them into real products, simplifying complicated problems, and figuring out why people do the things they do.

Most days I'm building web apps, designing interfaces, improving developer experience, and helping teams make better product decisions. I enjoy working across the whole process, from understanding the problem through to shipping the solution.

Lately I've been spending a lot of time with AI-assisted development, product discovery, accessibility, design systems, and finding ways to move faster without creating a pile of technical debt six months later.

I'm a big believer that good products come from understanding people, not just writing code.

Outside of work you'll usually find me lifting weights, writing songs, playing guitar or piano, tinkering with electronics, building side projects, learning something new, or disappearing into a book I probably bought because someone on the internet recommended it.

Technical skills:

Frontend: Next.js, React, TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML, CSS

UI Libraries: Tailwind CSS

Backend: Node.js, Supabase, PostgreSQL, Edge Functions, Python

Auth: Supabase Auth (magic links, RLS, JWTs)

AI: OpenAI API, Anthropic API, Vector Databases, RAG

State Management: Zustand, TanStack Query

Payments: Stripe

Validation: Zod

Deploy: Railway, Vercel, GitHub Actions

Design: Figma

Other: Git, GraphQL

OSS favorites:

• 🌐 Next.js – full-stack React framework that just works
• 🧙‍♂️ Supabase – open-source backend with excellent developer experience
• 🚂 Railway – quick deploys without the DevOps headaches
• ▲ Vercel – seamless deployments and edge functions
• 🎨 Tailwind CSS – utility-first styling that makes sense
• 📦 TanStack Query – data fetching that handles the messy bits
• 🔍 Zod – runtime validation that catches issues early

🧪 Currently exploring AI-assisted development, product discovery, local-first software, SwiftUI, design systems, accessibility, electronics, and IoT.

📚 Recommended reading

• 🚀 Product

  • Escaping the Build Trap by Melissa Perri (actively reading)
  • Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres (actively reading)
  • Build Better Products by Laura Klein
  • The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

• 🧠 Thinking

  • The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef (actively reading)
  • Design for How People Think by John Whalen

• 🎨 Design

  • The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
  • Articulating Design Decisions by Tom Greever
  • Laws of UX by Jon Yablonski

• 👩🏻‍💻 Engineering

  • The Software Engineer's Guidebook by Gergely Orosz
  • The Effective Engineer by Edmond Lau
  • Clean Code by Robert C. Martin
  • Refactoring UI by Tailwind Labs

• 🏗️ Systems & Architecture

  • Design That Scales by Dan Mall
  • Frontend Architecture for Design Systems by Micah Godbolt

📺 Worth watching

• Severance
• From (could proabably skip season 4 though ha).