Hi, I'm Rotem. I design products and ship them to production myself.
Design engineer in San Jose. My token pipeline at LexisNexis Risk Solutions took a palette update from a full day of three-person work down to thirty seconds. Then Surface Labs (YC). 17 pages designed and shipped to production as reviewed PRs on withsurface.com.
How I got here
I started at LexisNexis Risk Solutions in December 2024, the month I finished my degree, working on the ThreatMetrix fraud detection product. By the seventh month I'd shipped the Figma-to-Storybook token pipeline behind that thirty seconds. The thing I learned there that I keep using: design infrastructure compounds. A good token system doesn't just make designs consistent, it makes everyone on the team faster.
I came to product design from Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts at UC San Diego, a program that mixed code, visual design, sound, and interaction. It taught me that the most interesting design problems sit between disciplines, and that the best way to learn a new tool is to build something hard with it.
What I'm building now
This summer I was at Surface Labs, a YC company, designing pages in Claude and merging each one myself once a reviewer cleared it. Alongside client work I built Pulse and Ghost, two self-initiated AI products built in code, plus a VR golf game, a daily art practice, and my apparel brand.
Looking for a team to bring this pace into.
Currently building
Rotems Adventures
An outdoor channel about road biking, mountain biking, snowboarding, and hiking with my dog Bear around Northern California.
GoteFigure
A daily art channel where I post one timelapse drawing every day. Same hand that draws the apparel brand.
Gote Golf VR
A first-person golf game I'm building in Unity with OpenXR for the Meta Quest 3S. Teaching myself C#, physics, and how to make a putter feel like a putter.
Outside design
I road bike, mountain bike, snowboard, golf, and hike with Bear around the Bay Area and the Sierras. The bike rides are usually long enough that the day's design problem solves itself by the time I'm back. The most reliable process I have, even if it won't show up in a case study.
Skills
- Design
- Design systems, design tokens, interaction design, information architecture, accessibility (WCAG)
- Research
- User interviews, usability testing, heuristic evaluation
- Tools
- Figma, Storybook, Claude Code
- Code
- React, Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind, Framer Motion
Experience
Surface Labs (YC)
Design Engineer (Contract)
2026
17 pages designed and shipped to production as reviewed PRs on withsurface.com. Designed each page in Claude and merged it to the production Next.js repo myself. Built a Remotion motion system that renders on-brand films from typed data files.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions (ThreatMetrix)
Product Designer & Researcher
December 2024 to July 2025
Shipped the Figma-to-Storybook token pipeline used across two design systems. Synthesized user research with fraud analysts that shaped the Custom Layouts roadmap. Built AA-compliant component libraries.
Redis
Product Design Intern (Contract)
July 2022 to September 2022
Audited and streamlined the e-book download flow, designed a refreshed icon set used on the main landing page, and partnered with developers and marketing on handoff specs.
WellSpoken
UX Designer (Contract)
November 2021 to February 2022
Tested and improved virtual-assistant response flows, contributed to a website refresh focused on inclusive design and clear hierarchy, and ran user and competitor research to tailor the site to its audience.
GoteFigure
Founder & Product Designer
March 2020 to July 2022 (brand still active)
Built the brand end-to-end: branding, logos, color system, storefront UX, product illustration, photography, fulfillment. Everything shipped on a lightweight design system I built in Illustrator.
Reach me
The fastest way to get in touch is email: rotem.gotlieb@gmail.com. I'm also on LinkedIn. For work-in-progress, I post daily art at @gotefigure and outdoor videos at @RotemsAdventures.
About this site
Built in vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. No framework, no build tools, no site builder. The intro animation (name reveal, orbiting tool icons, cursor glide to Figma) uses trigonometric orbit math to position eight icons around an ellipse. Hosted on Vercel, deployed from the command line. I wrote every line.