Problem
The design team of five is juggling a growing lineup—Basecamp, HEY, new products brewing for 2025—and the weight of shipping is piling up. The need for a sixth designer who's not just sketching ideas but building and deploying them is ongoing.
Someone who can build and write the front end, along with Rails familiarity rings true here. This isn't about hand-offs—it's about seamlessly integrating a talented individual who can enhance the products and strengthen the team.
Appetite
To familiarize myself with the products, crew, and codebase, I'm betting on a six-week appetite to ship my first impact.
Solution
Andy Leverenz
I'm Andy Leverenz—your potential sixth designer from St. Louis, Missouri: a builder with a good sense of humor who designs, codes production-ready front-end (HTML/CSS/JS), and writes copy that cuts through the noise. I've built for the web going on 10 years now, often with Ruby on Rails as the backbone. I love to write and teach and tinker on the side. It has become my favorite hobby.
I prefer working directly in the browser, pushing out code to validate ideas quickly. This approach lets me rapidly iterate until something proves valuable, or pivot early if it's not the right direction. When needed, I'll switch to Figma or similar tools to refine the details and polish the design.
As the sixth designer at 37signals, I aim to contribute meaningfully while learning from the incredible team that's shaped the industry.
I've turned absolutely messy ideas into usable tools and services. I once built a LinkedIn-like social network for a client in the oil and gas market, leveraging the new Hotwire native frameworks. Going from a web app to a native mobile app as one Rails monolith was thrilling, to say the least.
I'm comfortable working in a fast-paced environment and thrive as an autonomous player on smaller teams. I love to learn and consider it a daily ritual to do so. To refresh and stay sharp, I'll often hit the gym, a hiking trail, or explore a new park with my wife, three kids, and two dogs.
I feel strongly that if given a cycle I can deliver an impact the team can stand by.
Rabbit Holes
Early out of the gates, slotting me in as your sixth designer could trip over a few traps: I might overdesign features with unneeded gloss, slow cycles with missteps like communication errors, or fumble syncing across time zones. These will improve as I grow familiar with the role, processes, and team.
No Gos
In my life, if it's not a hell yes, it's a no. This role is the former for me so that's why I'm applying for it. I'm not here for politics, workplace drama, or ticket/pixel pushing. I'd prefer less over-the-shoulder work with expectations of delivering value without much handholding. I'll work sane hours without too much distraction. I've been remote-first for the majority of my career.