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Modular, on-demand fixes for an AI email QA platform
Ryan Magalhaes · Boston, MA
Senior product designer with 10+ years across product, brand and web. I lead 0-to-1 work on complex, technical products.
Side projects, mostly to learn a new tool by building with it.
A small browser game starring Sage, my one-ear-up island dog, who will chase a tennis ball until the sun goes down.
A working drum machine in the browser, modeled on classic hardware like the 808. I grew up playing drums.
A tool for logging design decisions as they happen and sharing them with a link. Since retired, but worth the lessons.
I'm a senior product designer with more than 10 years of experience, most of it spent making complicated things clear. Today that means 0-to-1 product work on an AI platform at Validity. Before that, I designed developer onboarding at Akoya and led brand and web projects at agencies.
That range is how I work. I can run the research, set up the design system, prototype in code, and design the identity and website that carry a product to market. Alongside full-time work, I still take on brand, web and product projects.
A working drum machine in the browser, modeled on classic hardware like the 808. I grew up playing drums.
Play OctapadIt started with a YouTube video where someone used a real synthesizer manual as the blueprint for a working digital synth, built with AI. I grew up playing drums, so a drum machine was my equivalent. Early 808s and the Behringer RD-8 MKII were the visual target from the start.
Purely for fun: something creative I'd love to play with. It worked. If I have five minutes before a meeting, I open Octapad and mess around with the sequencer.
I started in Warp with Claude Code and moved to Cursor partway through. The workflow was the one I'd settled into on earlier projects: be specific up front, describe behavior in plain language, iterate.
Given reference images of the 808 and RD-8 MKII, Cursor captured the hardware look better than I expected. I was happy with a dark version until I prompted a light one on a whim and preferred it. That's the one that exists now.

The sequencer. A friend helped brainstorm its enhancements. Keys 1 through 8 trigger the pads, which makes it surprisingly playful.