Developer
experience is a
design problem.
Most AI dev tool startups underinvest in design at exactly the moment it matters most — when developers are deciding whether your tool is worth adopting.
Your tool works.
Developers still
aren't adopting it.
The barrier is rarely capability. It's clarity. It's the onboarding that assumes too much. The error message that explains nothing. The docs that read like they were written for the team that built the thing.
Developers are the most demanding audience in software. They evaluate tools by reading source code, pasting errors into chat, and checking whether the README answers real questions. They notice when something feels half-finished.
Design is the layer between what your tool can do and what developers believe it can do. That gap costs you adoption every day.
The environment where your tool earns — or loses — trust.
What we do
Focused engagements for AI-focused dev tool companies at every stage.
01
DX Audit
A structured review of your tool's onboarding, API surface, docs, and UI against developer-specific heuristics. You'll know exactly where you're losing people and why.
1–2 weeks02
Product Design
Interface and interaction design for developer tools, CLI tools, dashboards, and SDKs. Built around how developers actually think — not how marketing wants to present the product.
Ongoing engagement03
Brand & Positioning
Visual identity and messaging that signals quality to technical audiences. The kind of brand that makes developers feel like the product was made for them specifically.
3–4 weeks04
Design Sprint
Five focused days on one specific design challenge. Onboarding, activation, CLI interface, docs structure — pick the problem that matters most right now and go deep on it.
5 days
"Design isn't decoration.
For developer tools,
it's documentation."
Design that
speaks developer.
Most designers make products beautiful. We make them credible.
Developers are skeptical buyers. They read documentation before marketing copy. They notice inconsistency between the README and the UI. They talk — a lot — about tools that respect their intelligence. And they quietly avoid the ones that don't.
We design from that perspective. Because we've spent years studying how developers discover, evaluate, and trust the tools they reach for.
- Deep fluency in developer mental models and real-world workflows
- Experience across CLI tools, SDKs, dashboards, and API products
- Design that earns trust in the first three minutes of onboarding
- You won't have to explain what a git hook is before the engagement starts
For AI startups building
the tools developers
will reach for first.
01
You've shipped something real. Now it needs to feel worth paying for — not just work.
02
You're pre-Series A and want to punch above your weight against better-funded competitors.
03
You're seeing churn and suspect onboarding and UX friction is the real reason more often than the product.
04
You need a design partner who gets developer culture and won't need two weeks of onboarding to start contributing.
Ready to close
the design gap?
Tell us about your tool and where you think design is costing you adoption or activation. No pitch deck required — just a conversation.