In conversation
Every system has an origin story.
Raul Menezes started out as a designer, sharing his work in online Photoshop communities. Sixteen years into an engineering career, he leads iOS and design systems at Bumble. After dark, he’s building AniCanon™, an anime studio for creators, and EBA, its first game.
Claude asked him where it began, what came before AI, and what he’s building now.
This is the story so far.
Claude
You’re known as an engineer. Where does the story really start?
Raul (smiles)
With a pencil. As a kid I drew my own comic books, anime-style adventures. Then came Photoshop: digital painting and fan art.
Now showing
Claude (raising an eyebrow it doesn’t have)
And before AI was everywhere?
Raul (laughs)
I was betting on mobile when people thought it was a phase: Objective-C before ARC, Xamarin back when it was MonoTouch. Then Swift, Barcelona and London, and back to what I always loved: UI.
Trusted by companies at
Design system advisory withThe Guardian · Gymshark · ABN AMRO · On the Beach · Figma
Claude
So what are you building now?
Raul (leans in)
Design systems that scale across AI. And after dark, AniCanon™: the comics I drew as a kid are finally moving. EBA is that same story.
Credits · Talks & writing
- 2026Swift Beyond iOS: Sharing Product Logic with Android Without Sharing UIswiftCon · next.app devCon BerlinTalk
- 2025AI Agents and Design Systems: Improving Agent EfficiencyNSSpainTalk
- 2025The Role of a Design System EngineerDesign Systems LondonTalk
- 2025Smarter Design Tokens in Swift — With Arithmetic ExpressionsDesign Systems CollectiveEssay
- 2025Experimenting Safely: Versioning Design System ComponentsDesign Systems CollectiveEssay
- 2025Nested Accessibility IdentifiersMediumEssay
- 2025Power-Up Your iOS Debugging: Runtime Asset Listing from xcassetsMediumEssay
- 2024Scaling Bumble's Design SystemNSLondonTalk
- 2024Design to Code: Roundtable with Code Connect usersFramework by FigmaTalk