Alex Kibeom HongAlex Kibeom Hong

I like creating things — whether it’s designing an interface, building a component, prototyping an idea, making digital artwork, or even turning an idea for a spill-proof coffee lid into a patented product.

Professionally, I have spent the past 9 years working on applications for the U.S. Census Bureau. For the first six years, I was deeply focused on front-end engineering obsessed with how users perceive interfaces visually and to optimize integration of interfaces to services.

Over the past three years, my role has evolved into leading development, maintaining design systems, prototyping new experiences, and mentoring engineers through complex technical challenges.

Outside of work I’m usually experimenting with ideas and building things of my own. I enjoy the process of making an idea come to life in its best way possible.

Here are some of the core skills I’ve built along the way.

Design

  • End-to-end product thinking — from problem framing to polished, shippable UI.
  • Design Thinking
  • Built and evolved a shared component system supporting 10+ Census applications.
  • Interaction Design
  • Functional Prototyping
  • Due to software restrictions in the government environment, I adapted PowerPoint into a high-fidelity design and prototyping tool, creating detailed interface concepts and interaction flows before implementation.
  • Daily design tool for specs, prototypes, and design-system source of truth.
  • Wireframing
  • Visual Design
  • Digital Illustration
  • Procreate

Engineering

  • Primary framework used across years of production Census applications.
  • Vuetify
  • Nuxt
  • Default language for building maintainable, type-safe front ends.
  • JavaScript
  • HTML/CSS/SCSS
  • Comfortable building in React; used on side projects and prototypes.
  • React Native
  • Angular
  • Tailwind
  • Python
  • Component Architecture
  • AI-Assisted Development

Building / Delivery

  • GitHub
  • API Integration
  • Authentication / RBAC
  • Supabase
  • PostgreSQL
  • Stripe
  • Resend
  • Cypress, Playwright, Selenium, Jest
  • Storybook
  • WCAG-minded from the start — semantics, keyboard flows, and screen-reader support.
  • Jenkins
  • Sonatype/Nexus IQ
  • CI/CD
  • Netlify

Leadership

  • Technical Leadership
  • Team Management
  • Project Planning
  • Design Critique
  • Mentoring
  • Stakeholder Demos

Things I’ve designed and built.

U.S. Census Bureau

Enterprise applications & design systems

For the past nine years, I’ve led the design and front-end development of enterprise applications supporting a range of U.S. Census Bureau operations. I designed application interfaces, features, and reusable components, while building and evolving a shared design system across 10+ production applications. Working closely with product owners, business analysts, QA, and engineers, I translated complex operational requirements into accessible, scalable experiences.

Due to the sensitive nature of this work, production applications and complex application screens are not shown publicly. Instead, the examples here focus on supporting tools and systems I built around the application ecosystem, including the design system and application builder, with only limited, non-sensitive functionality shown. I'm happy to walk through the broader work, design decisions, and technical challenges in person.

Role
Product Design · Design Engineering · Front-End Lead · Design Systems
Tools
Nuxt · Vue · Vuetify · Angular · TypeScript · JavaScript · Cypress · Jest · SASS · PowerPoint Wireframing · MSW · Jenkins · Nexus IQ

C3 AI — Department of Justice

AI-powered enterprise application

Designed the mobile UX, functional prototypes, and production-ready interfaces for a C3 AI-powered Department of Justice iOS application. Translated complex investigative workflows into intuitive mobile experiences and worked closely with product managers and engineers to iterate on concepts, validate interactions, and support implementation.

Role
UX/UI Design · Design Engineering · Functional Prototyping
Tools
React Native · TypeScript · JavaScript · CSS/SCSS · PowerPoint Wireframing

Hands2Hands

Home services marketplace

Founded, designed, and independently built a two-sided marketplace connecting homeowners with local contractors. I took the product from concept to production, creating the complete user experience and application—including role-based onboarding, authentication, contractor workflows, messaging, in-app and email notifications, payments, and deployment—while using AI-assisted development for implementation, debugging, and code review.

Hands2Hands is officially launched and currently serves homeowners and contractors across Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Feel free to explore and try the service at hands2hands.com.

Visit hands2hands.com ↗
Role
Founder · Product Design · Full-Stack Development
Tools
Nuxt · Vue · Supabase · PostgreSQL · Stripe · Resend · TypeScript · Tailwind · Netlify · AI-Assisted Development

UiPool

Design system analytics platform

Designed and built UiPool, a design-system analytics platform that helps teams define patterns, map them to components, and measure adoption and drift across a codebase. I created the accompanying npm package and CLI so developers can scan repositories and generate reports on usage, coverage, health, and deprecations.

Visit uipool.com ↗ NPM package ↗
Role
Product Design · Full-Stack Development
Tools
Nuxt · Vue · TypeScript · npm · Tailwind · Supabase · Netlify · AI-Assisted Development

TiltyTurtles

Digital art collection & blockchain project

Created TiltyTurtles, a digital art collection and blockchain project inspired by sea turtle conservation. The project was created with the goal of using proceeds to support nonprofit organizations dedicated to cleaning oceans and protecting marine ecosystems.

I personally illustrated every character, visual trait, and website asset by hand in Procreate, then implemented the smart contracts and built the platform for users to explore, purchase, and trade the collection on the blockchain.

Visit tiltyturtles.com ↗ Opensea collection ↗
Role
Founder · Digital Illustration · Product Design · Full-Stack Development
Tools
Vue · Procreate · Blockchain · JavaScript · CSS/SCSS · Tailwind · Metamask · Netlify · Opensea

Slid

Patented Consumer Product Invention - Spill-proof Hot Lid

Created SLID, a patented sliding coffee lid designed to reduce spills. I invented and brought the product from initial concept to commercialization through user research, patent research, physical prototyping, vacuum forming, 3D printing, fundraising, team building, and overseas manufacturing.

The product reached commercial production, secured a U.S. utility patent, and generated interest from national coffee brands and regional coffee chains.

Visit slid.io ↗ U.S. Utility Patent ↗
Role
Founder · Inventor · Product Design · Hardware Prototyping
Tools
3D Printing · Vacuum Forming · Product Prototyping · User Research · Patent Research · Manufacturing

OSoMe: the observatory on social media

Large-Scale Social Media Visualization & Research Platform

Designed and developed an interactive geographic visualization tool for Indiana University's Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe), enabling researchers to search and visualize billions of geotagged tweets by hashtag and time period across the United States. I built features for querying large-scale social media datasets and rendering dynamic heatmaps that revealed geographic patterns during major events and public conversations. The work contributed to a peer-reviewed publication in PeerJ Computer Science and became part of OSoMe's public research platform.

Visit OSoMe ↗ PeerJ Computer Science Publication ↗
Role
Research Assistant · Data Visualization Engineer
Tools
Python · D3.js · JavaScript · Google Maps API · User Research · Data Analysis

Let’s connect.

Whether you’d like to discuss product design, design engineering, or a potential opportunity, feel free to reach out.

© 2026 Alex Kibeom Hong.