Design, code, and the space in between.
I'm Sam McCown — an independent product engineer & designer in Portland, Oregon. I take honest ideas and turn them into considered, shipped software. Nine years, forty-odd launches, zero templates.
Selected work
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A field research platform for ecologists working days from the nearest signal. Offline-first sync, tagging, and mapping — designed alongside thirty working scientists across three continents, then rebuilt twice based on what their gloves let them tap.
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Hyperlocal frost and irrigation alerts built on county-scale weather models. I designed the system, built the dashboard, and stayed on through two growing seasons — because agriculture software is judged in October, not in the demo.
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Brand, marketing site, and the client-facing layer of a bookkeeping product for independent studios. Plain-language invoices, an onboarding flow that reads like a friendly letter — boring on purpose, because trust is the feature.
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A typography-first reader for long-form essays, with offline queues and marginalia that sync across devices. Shipped in five months with a two-person team; 4.8 stars across both stores and a small, stubbornly loyal readership.
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Multiplayer loop sketches with sub-40ms sync over WebRTC. Started as a weekend experiment, outgrew the weekend — twelve thousand musicians made something in it during the first year.
About
I've spent nine years turning vague briefs into shipped products — inside startups, alongside studios, and for my own ideas.
Most of my work lives in the gap between a design file and something people rely on. I care about the unglamorous middle: the data layer nobody demos, the empty states nobody specs, the two hundred milliseconds that decide whether a tool feels alive or merely loads.
Forty-some launches. Nine years. Zero templates.
- Currently
- Independent — two or three teams a year
- Previously
- Design lead, Hollow (acquired 2022) · Engineer, Field Systems Co.
- Tools
- TypeScript · React · Swift · Figma · Postgres
- Speaking
- "The Unglamorous Middle" — Push UX, 2023
What I do
Research, flows, prototypes, and interfaces with a point of view. I design in systems rather than screens, so what ships stays coherent long after the engagement ends.
- Research & audits
- Design systems
- Prototypes that behave like the real thing
- Handoff engineers thank you for
Design-faithful, fast, accessible builds. TypeScript, React, and the boring discipline of good architecture — measured in real-user metrics, not lab numbers.
- Web apps & marketing sites
- Performance & a11y passes
- iOS when it earns its keep
- CI, testing, documentation
Scoping, architecture reviews, and honest advice about what to build — and, more often, what to skip. Most useful right before a hire, a raise, or a rewrite.
- Product & technical audits
- Roadmaps with prices attached
- Hiring help & team design
- Ongoing advisory