Sam Rose is a Senior Software Engineer with 11 years of experience specializing in design systems and component libraries that scale across hundreds of teams. At Shopify he helps evolve Polaris—the company’s widely used design system—to be accessible, token-driven, and LLM-friendly while accelerating adoption through tooling, documentation, and VS Code integrations. He has driven 90%+ adoption across Shopify Admin and previously built and maintained foundational systems at IBM and Indeed, bringing deep expertise in React, TypeScript, SCSS, and front-end architecture. Sam pairs a systems-thinking approach with hands-on implementation, from token refactors supporting major redesigns to stylelint plugins that improve token coverage. Outside work he pursues minimalist design, strength training, and deliberate habit-building, reflecting his focus on practical, long-term solutions.
10 years of coding experience
11 years of employment as a software developer
High School Diploma, 4.16, High School Diploma, 4.16 at Roane County High School
Bachelor’s Degree, Computer Engineering, 3.89, Bachelor’s Degree, Computer Engineering, 3.89 at University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Shopify’s design system to help us work together to build a great experience for all of our merchants.
Role in this project:
Front-end Developer
Contributions:532 reviews, 144 commits, 429 PRs in 11 months
Contributions summary:Sam primarily focused on enhancing the Shopify Polaris design system, making improvements to both the codebase and user interface. Their work involved refactoring CSS custom properties, creating and integrating stylelint plugins for token coverage, and updating components such as the `Text` component, and refactoring the codebase for easier use. They also contributed to the documentation site and the related VS Code extension. The user demonstrates skills in React, TypeScript, and SCSS.
Contributions:9 commits, 8 pushes, 1 branch in 1 year 4 months
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.