About

I’m Matthew Curtin, the founding product designer at Drafter, where we build software for mechanical engineers.

On this page

What I care about

When you press a button, you should know what’s going to happen. That sounds simple, and it gets harder as software does more of the work for us. It also matters more.

Most of my work has been in that space, between what a product says it will do and what it actually does.

  • At American Express, admins were emailing card numbers to the suppliers they paid, because the product gave them no safer way. We gave every card an owner and a secure way to reach them.
  • At Drafter, engineers sign the drawings our software helps make. So it tells them what’s ready, what needs review, and what it couldn’t do.
  • In my own time, I’m building Pare, an IDE whose agents report what they did, with a screenshot to prove it.

What I want to work on next

As AI does more on people’s behalf, making it trustworthy is one of the most important problems in technology. It needs careful, thoughtful design, and it’s the most exciting problem I can think of. I believe I have something to contribute, from the work above and from how much I care about it.

How I work

I design in code. At Drafter, I moved our design work out of Figma and into the codebase with Claude Code, and the coded product became the company’s source of truth. Engineers review my changes before they ship. This site was built the same way; the colophon has the details.

I stay close to the people using what I make. I run demos, onboard customers, and answer support questions, because that’s where I hear what’s working.

I also write. I write and design every issue of Drafter’s newsletter, and I’ve written a few essays about how I work.

Experience

  • Drafter, founding product designer, 2024–now. The product end to end, the marketing site, Drafter Toolbox, and the newsletter.
  • American Express, senior product designer, 2022–2024. Virtual cards for One AP on the New Product Development team.
  • Nate, lead product designer, 2021–2022. Payments and onboarding UX, and the design system.

Where I started

I studied biomedical engineering at Santa Clara University. In college, I also started Bird Rock Sunglasses. I designed custom sunglasses with overseas suppliers and sold them online. It’s where I first saw a small change to a website change what people did, and that’s what drew me to product design.

Outside work

I like endurance training, ceramics, and reading. A few of those are on the laptop on the home page.

Elsewhere