About

Biography

Matt Castillo

Matt Castillo is a designer and developer based in Brooklyn. Since 2012, he’s led design teams and shipped experiences at companies like Iru (formerly Kandji), Shippo, and Lyft. He currently partners with companies as a freelance designer & developer, helping them achieve their vision with both speed and quality.

As a creative technologist, Matt often spends his free time tinkering with software and hardware. His favorite genres of media are drama, thriller, and science fiction. He enjoys listening to albums (not playlists).

Born and raised in Texas, Matt has since lived in Chicago, the Bay Area, and now resides in Brooklyn with his wife Emily and cat Morty.

Experience

2024–

Self-Employed

  • Freelance Designer & Developer

    Partnering with clients to deliver engaging experiences with both speed and quality

2021–24

Iru (formerly Kandji)

  • Director of Product Design

    Led a team of 8 designers and UX researchers

  • Principal Product Designer

    Designed for multiple products across IT and InfoSec

  • Staff Product Designer

    Native apps for IT admins and end-users

2019-21

Shippo

  • Lead Product Designer

    Automated shipping tools for online merchants

2018–19

Lyft

  • Product Designer

    Safety and insurance features for riders and drivers

2017–18

Popular Pays

  • Product Designer

    Content workflows for creators

2015–17

Yello

  • Product Designer

    Interview tools for recruiters and staff

Education

2020–21

Thinkful

  • Full-stack web development

    Certified in React, RESTful APIs, and Node.js

2010–14

Texas State University

  • BFA in Communication Design

About this site (2026 edition)

In this current age of tech,

  • When artificial intelligence is given more value than human intelligence...
  • When oligarch CEOs wield power over our government and institutions...
  • When Silicon Valley profits from surveillance, misinformation, and genocide...

As a designer, developer, and tech worker, I've been grappling with questions:

What is my place in all this? What do I do when empathy, diversity, equity — values I hold dear — are no longer welcome? What does it mean to build software at the whim of a growth-at-all-costs investor class? How do I talk about my work and express myself when I no longer recognize the industry I built a career in?

This version of my website is my attempt to answer these questions. Aside from being a freelance portfolio, this site also serves as my digital garden — a collection of imperfect notes and ideas to expand on slowly over time.

It’s a place where I can not only reflect on my work, but also exercise my rights to free speech and self-expression, which are critical to a democracy. And who knows, maybe it can be a place to connect with others who feel the same way...

Thank you for visiting, and stay safe.

– Matt

Colophon

This site was designed and developed by me, Matt Castillo. Designs were created in Figma. Typography was set using Bootzy Condensed TM from Type Mania, Arial Narrow from Microsoft, and Roboto Mono from Google Fonts and served on Adobe Fonts. Icons are from Carbon (IBM). This site was built in Cursor, styled with TailwindCSS, served on Astro, and deployed on Github and Cloudflare Pages.