Steve Ruiz
Founder at tldraw
London, England, United Kingdom
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolSteve Ruiz is a London-based founder and front-end specialist with nine years of experience crafting intuitive, canvas-first design tools and UIs. As Founder & CEO of tldraw and an active contributor to notable open-source projects like Excalidraw and perfect-freehand, he blends product design instincts with hands-on React development to improve drawing, export, and interaction experiences. His work frequently focuses on polishing UX details—exporting, touch handling, theming, and visual affordances—that make complex infinite-canvas interactions feel delightfully simple. With a background in fine arts (MFA) and roles across product and design at companies like Framer and ClearScore, he brings a rare mix of visual craft and engineering rigor to developer-facing design tools.
9 years of coding experience
3 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Fine Arts - BFA, VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS, Bachelor of Fine Arts - BFA, VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS at Northern Illinois UniversityMaster of Fine Arts - MFA, Visual Art, Master of Fine Arts - MFA, Visual Art at University of Chicago
Github Skills (18)
javascript10
ui-components10
canvas10
css10
typescript10
ui-design10
drawing10
uid10
svg10
tailwindcss10
front-end-development10
typescript-types10
html10
typescripts10
react10
Programming languages (14)
Github contributions (5)
tldraw/make-real
Nov 2023 - Nov 2025
Draw a ui and make it real
Role in this project:
Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:45 PRs, 139 pushes, 42 branches in 2 years
Contributions summary:Steve primarily contributed to the front-end development of the project, focusing on the implementation of UI components. Their work involved significant modifications to the `ExportButton.tsx` and `PreviewShape/PreviewShape.tsx` files. They added new UI elements like the dropdown menu, incorporated styling with Tailwind CSS, implemented features to interact with the content and manage UI state, and integrated functionalities such as image exporting and copying the HTML code to the clipboard, while also incorporating a modal/preview functionality.
steveruizok/perfect-freehand
Feb 2021 - Sep 2022
Draw perfect pressure-sensitive freehand lines.
Role in this project:Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:4 reviews, 244 commits, 27 PRs in 1 year 7 months
Contributions summary:Steve primarily contributed to the example application within the repository, focusing on user interface (UI) enhancements and bug fixes. Their work involved modifying React components and integrating functionality for controlling the drawing, including implementing pen mode, adding a copy to clipboard feature, and incorporating styling and theming. They also improved the handling of touch events and the overall responsiveness of the drawing experience.
linessvgdrawdartperfect
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