Natalya Shelburne, tech lead for Design Engineering at The New York Times, sits at a fascinating crossroad of design and development. She leads a team of front-end developers, and brings her own experience as a designer and art director to her current role.

We chat with Natalya about her move from design to front-end dev, and some of the fears she faced along the way. We also talk about her approach to bridging design and dev, and what she brings from her prior career as a teacher into product design.

Takeaways:

• • • Ways to approach the unnecessary dichotomy between designers and engineers
    • Why respect is key to developing good cross-functional partnerships
    • How to overcome fear of moving into a technical role as a designer

Bio

Natalya Shelburne is currently a tech lead at The New York Times leading a team of engineers. She is a system thinking and architecture-deciding developer, design system maker, product and visual designer, illustrator, speaker, teacher, and drinker of coffee. (www.artist-developer.com)

Her interests now are in scaling her efforts and building teams. She loves all things design and frontend, from creating design systems, to architecting front ends with React. She’s also very interested in community building and creating mentorship opportunities.