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Joshua Briley.
About · Product Engineer

I build the whole product, and I sweat the parts most engineers skip.

I'm a design- and front-end-focused product engineer with 20 years in production UI. The interface is where I bring the most value: design-grade, accessible, with the judgment most teams have to hire a separate designer to get.

The part I care about most is the part most engineers leave blank: the empty states, the keyboard paths, the screen that shows when there's nothing to show yet, the details that decide whether a product feels finished.

  • Design-grade front-end
  • React · TypeScript
  • Accessibility
  • Full-stack capable
Joshua Briley, product engineer

The standard

Most engineers ship the screen. I ship the empty state, the keyboard path, and the screen that shows when there's nothing to show yet.

The last 10% is the point

How I work

Three things I hold on to.

01

The UI is where the value is

The interface is my strongest work: type, spacing, motion, the empty and error states most engineers leave blank. I build it design-grade myself, instead of handing a spec to someone who will approximate it.

02

Design and accessibility, built in

Not an audit at the end. Not a ticket for later. The keyboard paths, focus states, and empty screens are part of how I build, which is why the things I ship work for everyone and feel finished.

03

Directness over diplomacy

If a product is in trouble, I'll tell you exactly where and why. Kindly, but without hedging. Then we'll map the shortest honest path forward. You're hiring me for the truth, not the comfort.

Products in production, not slideware.

The work shows up in places where the details carry weight: across frameworks, across brands, and under regulatory scrutiny.

  • Web Components · React Travelers Accessible product UI that crosses framework boundaries: built so the right markup is the only markup you can ship.
  • Vue.js · Nuxt.js Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Product surfaces for an insurance platform where consistency isn't aesthetic: it's regulatory.
  • React · Next.js America's Test Kitchen When a product needs a real design system, I build that too: one shared library unifying three editorial brands.

Always learning

Twenty years in, still reading the spec drafts.

I stay close to the sources: WAI-ARIA working drafts, the Design Tokens Community Group, CSS Working Group proposals. The platform moves. The best systems move with it.

I also maintain Rudiment UI, an open-source library where I sharpen ideas in public before they land in production systems.

What I follow

  • 01

    WAI-ARIA & APG

    Authoring practices for patterns that truly work for assistive tech.

  • 02

    Design Tokens CG

    The emerging standard for portable, multi-platform design decisions.

  • 03

    CSS Working Group

    Container queries, anchor positioning, cascade layers (the good stuff).

  • 04

    Rudiment UI

    My open-source sandbox for accessible component primitives.

Think we'd work well together?

If you're hiring a product engineer who builds the whole thing and sweats the finish, send a note. I'll tell you honestly whether I'm the right fit, and if not, I probably know who is.