Micka Touillaud
Product Design Engineer
San Francisco, California
About
Product designer and design engineer with a decade of experience across AI software and connected products. I work from interaction design through production React, partnering closely with engineers. My focus is reusable UI, purposeful motion, and interfaces that help people understand and control AI workflows. I currently build internal AI tooling at Airbnb.
Design System
- Built an open-source React component library on shadcn/ui and Radix, with documentation and CLI installation.
- Built interactive playgrounds that turn component configurations into shareable, installable code.
- Developed contextual elevation for nested menus, dialogs, and popovers across light and dark themes.
- Ships with an AI agent skill that guides component selection, installation, and consistent use of the system.
Experience
Product Design Engineer (Contract)
Employee Experience · San Francisco
2026 – Present
- Design and build Airbnb's internal AI adoption tooling, from concept to production code.
- Build the platform that helps teams move thousands of internal prototypes into production.
- Partner with teams as a fractional Staff design engineer, taking AI product experiences from design and prototyping into production React.
- Led the design system for 25M users under strict accessibility requirements.
- Designed AI workflows, streaming responses, and citations for Fortune 100 security teams.
- Built and managed the design team across product squads.
- Employee #2; built product foundations, research, and a shared design system as the team grew to 50+.
- Shipped async coaching: 88% of goals achieved, 4.7/5 client satisfaction.
- Designed with several YC companies: Bayes Impact, Plato (acquired by Coda), Actiondesk (acquired by Datadog), and Hiresweet.
Founding Product Designer
Smart home · San Francisco & Paris
2016 – 2019
- Led Smart Remote UX/UI, branding, iOS & Android apps, and packaging.
- Ran testing with 300+ people; Kickstarter raised $1M+ from 6,000+ preorders in 30 days.
- Shipped worldwide and featured in the MoMA Design Store.
Side projects
Flashcards written by your AI agent.
One timeline and a few art movements.
A curation elevating 7 masters of Minimalism.
A monthly newsletter on product judgment.
Recognition
Awards
Winner of the IF Design, Red Dot, and CSS Design awards. CES Best of Innovation honoree and W3 Gold recipient.
Patents
Inventor on 4 design patents spanning product design, interaction, and ultra-wideband (UWB) technology.
Education
Strate, School of Design
Master's, Interaction Design — highest honours
Paris · 2011 – 2016
GEM, Grenoble École de Management
Technology Management & Innovation
Grenoble · 2014 – 2015
Tools — Figma, React, TypeScript, Next.js, Tailwind, Radix & Base UI, Motion, design tokens, WCAG, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor