Refining Design Skills: Recognizing Growth and Detail

Mariana Castilho has one of the most impressive career trajectories of any designer I’ve ever met.

I first saw her while mentoring through Shift Nudge and within a few years she’s landed roles at Universe, Vercel, and most recently as the first designer at Pierre.

One of the keys to her growth has been investing in her skills as an engineer. So a big part of this interview is learning what it takes to transition from designer to builder.

Some highlights:

• The future of design engineering
• What makes designing dev tools unique
• How Mariana has grown as a visual designer
• What it’s like working with design celebrities
• What it means to care deeply about implementation
• How she finally succeeded her 3rd time learning to code
• How teams like Vercel consistently hit a high bar for craft
• a lot more

• Save $200 and join me in enrolling for UI Engineering 101 for designers
• Mariana’s component library UI Labs
• Mariana led the original design for v0 by Vercel
• Vercel’s Geist Design System