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Chris Barnes

Design engineer working at the seam between design and engineering. I build the platforms behind AI products — design systems, pattern libraries, code-generation tools, and agents that turn Figma designs into production UX. I make myself the bridge that lets designers and engineers move faster together.

Career Experience

Staff Product Experience Engineer·OpenGov, Remote
2024 — 2026
  • Unified a fragmented design system on a single MUI and React theming foundation
  • Built a pattern and layout library and trained 20+ designers and engineering teams
  • Pioneered company-wide adoption of Anthropic and Claude Code
  • Shipped a prototyping agent. 200+ prototypes in two months, mostly by designers and PMs
  • Created a Claude agent that creates production-level frontend code with OpenGov packages
Product Designer·Consultant, Atlanta, GA
2020 — 2024
  • Led AI-powered product design, collaborating with ML experts on business solutions
  • Designed self-serve AI platform for world's largest food re-distributor
  • Built multi-site publishing system for Southern Company Gas territory sites
Lead Designer·CallRail, Atlanta, GA
2018 — 2020
  • Led teams in creating a scalable design architecture to support rapid company growth
  • Produced a comprehensive pattern library that reduced time from design to deploy by over 90%
  • Integrated CMS systems to enhance and streamline content delivery workflows
Product Designer, Co-Founder·Daniel, Atlanta, GA
2010 — 2018
  • Created full-stack applications across iOS, Android, and web for 10+ tech startups
  • Architected and shipped production-ready platforms with fully secure, authenticated backends

Areas of Expertise

  • Design Systems
  • Design Tokens & Theming
  • UX & Interaction Design
  • React & TypeScript
  • Front-End Architecture
  • Full-Stack Development
  • AI Agents & Tooling
  • Figma-to-Code Pipelines
  • Design–Engineering Bridging

Education

Bachelor of Arts in Communications Georgia Southern University