Summary
James Greenaway is a hybrid design and engineering leader with 13 years of experience crafting user-centred web products and design systems, now directing Friendly Computer from London. Trained as a graphic and interaction designer, he taught himself to code and has since led frontend architecture, product engineering, and design strategy across startups and scaleups—shipping everything from broadcaster tools to anti-financial-crime platforms. He excels at translating complex domains into clear mental models and pragmatic primitives, facilitating design sprints, refactors, and co-creation workshops that speed learning without sacrificing meaning. A hands-on mentor and systems thinker, James pairs award-winning interaction design (D&AD Yellow Pencil) and festival installations with modern engineering practices like composability, testing, and iterative delivery. Notably, he’s built products that bridge developer workflows and user experience—such as VSCode and Jira integrations—demonstrating a rare fluency across UX, product, and code.
13 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
BA (Hons) Graphic Design, BA (Hons) Graphic Design at Ravensbourne University London
BND Graphic Design, BND Graphic Design at South Essex College of Further and Higher Education