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Portrait of Maxwell Young

Maxwell Young

Design Engineer

Design engineer who led Silk's React Native app from its first build through launch and now leads ongoing mobile delivery. I also ship independent products from interaction design through architecture, accessibility, performance, and release.

Experience

Mobile Design EngineerSep 2025 – Present
Silk

Silk is a platform for blogging, private archives, and multimedia moodboards. Led its React Native app from initial build through launch and now lead ongoing delivery.

  • Built the initial mobile foundation and turned early product direction into production architecture, interface systems, and media-heavy flows.
  • Continue to own performance, accessibility, regression coverage, and real-device reliability across iOS and Android releases.
Software Research AssistantApr 2026 – Present
University of Auckland

Own end-to-end software delivery across two medicines-safety research applications: Rx-Opt clinician decision-support and MRB-QoL 2.0 patient-reported outcomes.

  • Built Python ingestion and matching that turns six stages of spreadsheet-authored rules into traceable Next.js review workflows while preserving source provenance and ambiguity.
  • Shipped role-aware surveys, researcher dashboards, protected review tooling, server-backed persistence, and approval-gated rule promotion with privacy and end-to-end validation built in.
Design EngineerApr 2023 – Present
ninetynine.digital

Independent product and client studio for mobile apps, web products, and CMS-backed portfolio work.

  • Take independent mobile and web products from interaction design through implementation, release, and iteration.
  • Delivered client sites with Next.js and Sanity for Ch'lita Collins (Fashion Editor-at-Large at i-D) and artist Dayle Palfreyman, plus Shopify performance and layout stability work for Goodness Gracious.
Software Research AssistantNov 2025 – Jan 2026
Auckland University of Technology

Mobile research tooling for sleep-session analysis and review.

  • Built a React Native and Expo app for session review, questionnaires, and sleep-stage visualization.
  • Integrated mobile, backend, and model-inference workflows for research use.
Data Intelligence UI DeveloperNov 2022 – Apr 2023
Spark New Zealand

Internal analytics dashboard work for Spark's data intelligence team.

  • Helped replace Power BI workflows with a React and Next.js dashboard.
  • Built interface patterns and design system components for the team.

Selected Work

Vape Quit Coach · Solo iOS product

Live

Designed, built, and shipped a React Native and Expo behavior-change app with recovery milestones, coaching flows, and relapse support.

Afterlight · Independent mobile product

In development

Designed and built a local-first React Native concert diary with a Recovery Desk that turns ticket files, shares, calendars, photos, Gmail receipts, and listening history into reviewable on-device candidates; nothing enters the diary without confirmation.

T3 Code · Open-source contributor

Ongoing

Contributed upstream fixes across mobile input and server data integrity, including multiline composition, runtime-safe message IDs, and reliable cross-device conversation ordering.

Education

Skills

Frontend & Mobile

TypeScript, React, React Native, Next.js, Expo, SwiftUI, Tailwind CSS, Framer Motion

Backend & Data

Node.js, PostgreSQL, Convex, Supabase, Prisma, Python

Design

Figma, Design Systems, Interaction Design, Prototyping

Systems & Tools

Three.js / WebGL, Accessibility (WCAG), Performance (Core Web Vitals), Claude / OpenAI APIs