About

I'm Rafael Mendiola. I'm a product engineer who builds cross-platform applications. I work at the intersection of design and development, with a focus on operational excellence.

Experience

• Hinge Health (2023-Present): Staff Engineer since March 2024. Evolving home screen architecture and app startup flow for better performance. Driving AI adoption across engineering teams. Previously Senior Design Systems Engineer, where I built a visual codebase analysis tool and migrated thousands of legacy components to achieve 90% design system adoption.
• HubSpot (2019-2022): Tech Lead for React Native Foundations team. Designed integration architecture for React Native modules on native apps. Relaunched mobile Conversations feature achieving 24% month-over-month growth.
• Mobile Consultant (2016-2019): Shipped React Native apps for three startups. Built Android apps for EverTrue and Lola Travel. Revitalized Outcomes4Me's codebase to get them to market.
• Lola Travel (2017-2018): Mobile Development Lead. Relaunched their iOS concierge app as a cross-platform business travel app. Introduced design system and modern development practices.

I started coding with QBasic as a kid. My first professional role was building Flash applications, which taught me to blend engineering with visual design. That foundation shapes how I approach software today: products should work well and feel good to use.

I studied Computer Science at MIT. I grew up in Miami and now live in Boston. I visit Tokyo frequently. When I'm not writing code, I'm studying Japanese, prototyping product ideas, or exploring new cities.

My recent focus is on AI-assisted development workflows, codebase modularization, and building tools that help engineers ship faster. I've built visual analysis tools for large codebases and led design system migrations affecting thousands of components. I write about practical patterns I've tested in production. No theory, just what works.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.