About
A quiet approach to software.
I'm Rowan — a developer and interface designer based in Portland, Oregon. I work on small, opinionated products and the tooling that keeps them honest.
My focus is local-first software: applications that keep your data on your machine, treat your attention as a finite resource, and stay easy to understand long after they've shipped.
I care about defaults that are good enough to ship without configuration, interfaces that get out of the way, and code that someone else can read a year later.
Principles
- Defaults should be good enough to ship without configuration.
- Interfaces should be quiet — the work is the content, not the chrome.
- Local-first whenever the user's data is the user's business.
- Accessibility is a baseline, not a feature.
- Write less code; keep what you write easy to read a year later.
Experience
2023 — Now
Designer & Developer · Independent
Building small, opinionated products and tooling for teams that care about craft.
2020 — 2023
Senior Software Engineer · Lumen Labs
Led the design systems team; shipped the component library used across five products.
2018 — 2020
Software Engineer · Northbound
Worked across the stack on a local-first productivity suite; owned the editor.
Toolkit
Languages
Interface
Systems
Practice
Get in touch
Available for new work — late 2026. Email is the fastest way to reach me.
hello@rowanhale.dev