Hello! I'm James Rothen, a Design Engineer who loves to build
Interfaces, Systems & Interactivity
Selected Work
Products I helped design, build, and ship
Experiments
Personal projects I build for fun, or to learn something new
James Rothen
Design Engineer — Interfaces / Systems / Interactivity
01 / The Drive
Started back in 2013 as a graphic designer, discovered UX/UI design and development along the way. Never looked back.
Nice to meet you! I'm a Phoenix-based designer with over 10 years in the design world across multiple industries. Good design can be difficult to achieve, and I live to solve difficult problems.
Working at the intersection of design and code is where I strive to be. Design often stops once everything looks good, but I go beyond that. I build things to have purpose, every pixel intentional.
02 / The Process
Design is shared early, questioned often, and never precious.
I'd rather share something unfinished and get real feedback than sit on it until it's polished and wrong. The process bends when it needs to.
Context & Research
Before I open Figma, I get oriented: where the project stands, what the brief is actually asking, what's already been tried. Context shapes every decision that follows.
Options & Trade-offs
Every problem gets a few real answers, not one polished one. I lay out the trade-offs, pick the one I'd bet on, and say why in the same breath.
Decisions & Ownership
I pick, I own it, I fix it if it's wrong. Ownership doesn't come with an asterisk.
03 / Wired This Way
I live to problem-solve. It's part of everything I do.
Outside of work, I chase the same thing: a problem with real depth, a skill ceiling you don't reach in a weekend. That instinct didn't start in a job. It's just always been there, whether I'm fly fishing, flying a Cessna, designing a weirdly specific tool, or trying my hand at game development.