Joel Lithgow

Dear Hiring Manager,

I am writing to express my interest in the Frontend Engineer position on Asana's Design System team. The phrase 'bridge design and engineering' describes my entire career trajectory—from QA Specialist to Interaction Designer to UX Designer/Developer. I've sat on both sides of the design-engineering handoff and understand why design systems matter: they encode shared understanding into reusable patterns that free teams to focus on what's unique about their problem.

I bring seven years of experience at California College of the Arts, where my progression through QA, design, and development gave me something valuable for this role: I understand design intent because I've been a designer, and I understand engineering constraints because I've been the one implementing designs. When the job description says 'move beyond traditional hand-offs by collaborating daily with designers,' I recognize that as how I already prefer to work.

Accessibility is central to how I approach design systems. At CCA, I led a systemic improvement when I identified that our brand's teal link color failed WCAG contrast requirements. I worked cross-functionally to establish new guidelines—navy for text and links, teal only for accent graphics—that scaled across all digital properties. This wasn't a one-off fix; it was establishing a pattern that other teams could follow. That's design systems thinking applied to accessibility.

The vision of 'product engineers rarely need to write CSS' resonates with me. I've experienced the friction of context-switching between layout problems and product problems. I understand why well-designed primitives like Stacks and Drawers matter—they let engineers stay focused on user value rather than pixel-pushing. I want to build the tools that give other developers that focus.

My QA background is relevant for shipping with confidence. I started my career testing software systematically, and I still think in terms of edge cases, stress testing, and incremental rollouts. I recently implemented Playwright-based automation for complex workflows, demonstrating my ability to ensure reliability at scale. Design systems need this mindset because changes compound across every product surface.

I'm based in Oakland and the hybrid schedule in San Francisco works well for me. The opportunity to deepen my frontend craft while having sweeping impact across the entire product is exactly the kind of role I'm seeking.

Thank you for considering my application. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss how my experience bridging design and engineering, particularly my focus on accessibility and systems thinking, could contribute to Asana's Design System team.