- Name
- Mark Hobbs
- Role
- Design Engineer
- Experience
- 20+ years
- Based
- Akron, Ohio
Mark Hobbs
I'm a designer and builder. I work where design systems meet the code that builds them.
I've spent twenty years in product design. For the last five, my job has been keeping the system in Figma and the system in the repo the same. I design it, then I build it.
- Focus
- Design systems
- Design tokens
- Design to code
- Works in
- Figma
- HTML, CSS and SCSS
- JavaScript and Git
The problem I keep getting hired to fix.
Design and code drift apart. The Figma file says one thing, the codebase says another, and after a year nobody trusts either.
Most teams I join already have a system. Design describes it one way and engineering describes it another.
Bullhorn is the clearest example.
Bullhorn had no Figma library. The code was the only record of what anything was supposed to look like. I proposed a token system, got engineering on board, and built more than 500 components on top of it.
Five developers now build from it instead of working it out.
I started in print and editorial, then moved into product.
I built my first website in HTML frames. Then I built one with CSS, and I was hooked.
Most systems designers came up through product. I came up through print and a newsroom, and it shows in the work.
Where I've worked.
2006 to 2011, Professional Photographers of America
Senior designer, in print and digital. Membership grew 20%, to more than 20,000.
2011 to 2018, CBS Interactive
Lead UX/UI designer and art director on CNET News. Seven years of editorial design, including the reusable components its pages were built from.
2018, OZY Media
Design director for a year. I ran design for the site and the iOS app, and partnered with the ad team on integrated brand experiences.
2018 to 2024, fintech, lending and education
Product design at Robots & Pencils, Union Home Mortgage and McGraw Hill. At McGraw Hill the content was all there. Teachers couldn't see where it lived, so the work was navigation.
2020 to now, independent
Bullhorn's design system, Terafina's onboarding, a real-estate startup I co-founded, and software, the token system this site is built on.
Why that mix makes a difference.
Each job left me with a habit I still use.
What carried over.
I learned craft as an art director
Seven years on CNET meant type, hierarchy and pace every day, on deadline. It's why my systems still look designed.
Editorial taught me to write it down
A newsroom runs on shared rules. Naming tokens and writing usage guidance is the same habit.
I build what I design
I read the repo before I redesign anything, so a proposal is already something engineering can ship.
How I work.
I help a team settle what it disagrees about. Then I build the answer into the system, so nobody has to settle it again.
Four rules I try not to break.
Build systems that hold up
At Bullhorn, 889 of 903 component tokens point at a name instead of a value.
Build accessibility in from the first draft
In software, every color pair is checked in five brand and theme combinations on every pull request. A contrast failure fails the build.
Let the constraints shape the work
Union Home Mortgage had backend engineers and no designer in the room, so I built components they could implement without one.
Say what isn't finished
Fourteen Bullhorn tokens still hold raw values. The case study says so, because I'd rather name a gap than have someone find it.
What I'm looking for next.
A design engineer or design systems role, on a team that wants design and code to stay in step.
I live in Akron, Ohio, and I'm looking for remote work.