design engineer ✨ | design systems | soft eng 👩🏻💻👩🎨📝 she/her
San Francisco, CA
Joined February 2009
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Apartment hunting is my whole personality now. Please send any SF or Oakland leads my way! 🙏
Amy Lam retweeted
In all of this, let’s not forget the Democrats who ran before. Especially Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Beto O’Rourke in Texas. They laid the groundwork, and when they lost, they stayed and helped build the infrastructure for the next person. You have to invest in these states, even when you lose. And thank God for that investment.
Amy Lam retweeted
The country saw nyc living its best Mamdani life & said we'll have what they're having
Amy Lam retweeted
well, i guess i get to find out if it's the best time in history to be unemployed
last day at tallo today. the whole marketing team got cut, halfway through my design garden fall sprint
so i kept building. the crew kept trading portfolio notes and cheering each other on, and i made more progress on my portfolio in one month than in the last two years
quick lore if you're new to my orbit:
🌸 film school → cinematics for bioware
🌸 brand systems for 1,000+ retail stores before ppl stopped going to the mall
🌸 learning design at ut austin
🌸 gave life to cal, a mascot whose career quiz 9,400+ people finished
🌸 built the design garden app at night with claude code
im open to remote or hybrid in austin, on a team that likes to tinker, appreciate any leads here 🌱
something i heard on @joindiveclub “it’s the best time in history to be unemployed”
this gives me so much confidence and drive to make good design choices at my day job
when you know there are options out there, you aren’t tip toeing 🫡
Amy Lam retweeted
When it comes to hiring, it’s easier to tame a reckless hustler than it is to instill that dawg in someone
Amy Lam retweeted
As you get older you need hobbies that don't make sense to anyone but you.
For me, it's surfing, shell hunting, and being a Toronto Raptors fan. For others, it could be bird watching.
Who cares. If you like it, lean into it.
Life's too short to fit into these tiny little boxes. You love things because you love them. Embrace your hobbies.
Amy Lam retweeted
I’m convinced that most stress isn’t from the hard things you’re doing, but from the hard things you’re avoiding. A good life is built by simply doing uncomfortable things sooner. The delayed conversation gets harder. The ignored problem gets bigger. The small repair gets more expensive. Peace is found through direct early action.
Amy Lam retweeted
I’ll say it again and again, we are entering an era that will reward systems thinkers.
Systems thinking is the ability to understand how the parts of a broader system connect and influence one another over time. It means recognizing feedback loops, anticipating consequences, and understanding how a decision in one area can create trade-offs in another.
The boundaries of our professions have always been narrower than the consequences of our work. As AI begins to blur these boundaries, and as our world becomes increasingly interconnected in non-linear ways, systems thinking will become essential.
I don’t think this signals the end of expertise, as some people proclaim. But the ability to zoom out and make connections across a broader system will be crucial.
Read my latest Substack on systems thinking (link in comments)
Amy Lam retweeted
I'm starting to sense a divide in the tech industry:
- People thriving on autonomy who are reinventing how they work and what tools they use with AI: LOTS of work, but they're enjoying it and getting very efficient
- People used to being mentored / trained / or simply told what to do and how. Frustrated with the lack of guidance from management on what to do with AI; also frustrated by seeing some of their peers thriving; increasingly bitter about AI and the state of the industry, as a whole
Neither group seems to be aware that there's another group, or have empathy for the other group
Amy Lam retweeted
The coding interview is dead, at least for my team at Anthropic. I've seen enough to know that it no longer provides signal. I removed it from loops this month.
I have a spicy, optimistic take - I think there's an opportunity for junior engineers: felixrieseberg.com/hunger-be…
Amy Lam retweeted
The ability to build anything has come with a critical lesson:
Engineers have really, really bad ideas.
Amy Lam retweeted
The best player in the world.
Our 2026 #BallonDor winner: HARRY KANE! 🏴🏆
ALT Harry Kane wins the Ballon D'or
Amy Lam retweeted
went to visit a friend who’s a ceramicist and works in a studio with no phone signal in a tiny yorkshire village. he doesn’t listen to podcasts or music, only occasionally uses the radio, and when I asked him what he thinks about all day he just said “well, pots mostly”
Amy Lam retweeted
Most people who dream of a quiet life without work are just exhausted from work they hate. The reason you get bored on vacation after a week is that you are meant to move, pursue something exciting, and engage your body and mind in something useful. Do whatever it takes to find work that energizes you. It may take years, but it will have the most meaningful effect on your quality of life.
