About | Alex Andrade

👋 Hi, I'm Alex Andrade

Senior Design Engineer | Systems Architect | Community Builder

I’m a Senior Design Engineer currently living in Saskatoon, Canada - the land of living skies. Originally from Brazil, I moved here in 2019 to join the mission at 7shifts, where we build team management software that empower restaurant managers to reclaim their time.

Me at the heart of Saskatoon

🏗️ What I Do

I sit at the intersection of high-fidelity UI/UX and scalable frontend architecture. I don't just build features; I build the systems that make building features effortless.

Design Systems: I am the founding architect of Sous Chef, a comprehensive Design System that unified design and engineering at 7shifts.
Developer Experience (DX): I’m obsessed with creating pit of success workflows. If a tool or component isn't intuitive, accessible, and high-performance, it isn't finished.
Quality & Confidence: I am a staunch advocate for the Testing Trophy. I believe tests should reflect how users interact with your code, not how you implemented it.

📈 My Journey

My career spans over 15 years, taking me from the massive enterprise ERP landscapes of Latin America to the fast-paced world of Canadian startups.

The Enterprise Era: Before Canada, I spent 4 years at TOTVS, the largest tech company in Latin America. There, I learned the discipline required to maintain massive software used by thousands of global customers.
The Startup Pivot: At 7shifts and Living Skies Technologies, I transitioned into a frontend specialist, leading core migrations from legacy PHP to modern React SPAs and rescuing architectures from technical debt.
Today: I now lead a dedicated Design System team, focusing on the future of UI—from semantic color tokens and dark mode to AI-driven automation.

🛠️ Developer Experience & Design Systems

In 2022, I joined a newly formed Developer Experience (DX) team at 7shifts with a clear mission: to remove friction from the frontend development lifecycle. My primary focus was the architecture and maturity of our internal Design System, Sous Chef.

Sous Chef is the single source of truth for our UI/UX, transforming a fragmented set of components into a scalable, themeable ecosystem.

Foundational Architecture: I led the planning and execution of the system from the ground up, establishing the core infrastructure using React, TypeScript, and Storybook.
Visual Confidence: I integrated Chromatic into our CI/CD pipelines to automate visual regression testing, ensuring that every change across our 100+ components was intentional and bug-free.
Systemic Impact: My work on the DX team was so foundational that it eventually led to the creation of a dedicated Design System team, where I now focus on high-fidelity craft and system evolution.

🤝 Community & Mentorship

I believe that a successful career is hollow if you don't level up the people around you.

Saskatoon React Meetup: I founded the first official React meetup in the prairies to foster a local hub for frontend innovation.
Internal Guilds: I lead frontend learning groups and Guilds to share best practices in React, TypeScript, and accessibility.

🏔️ Beyond the Code

While I’m passionate about my craft, my greatest project is my family. I’m a proud husband and a father to four children - Theo, Helena, Sarah, and Leticia.

In my spare time, you’ll find us:

⛺ Camping across the Canadian prairies.
🌲 Exploring new trails and breathing fresh mountain air in places like Banff.
🪵 Woodworking and building custom projects for our home.

The cuttingboard I made

📫 Let's Connect

Whether you want to talk about design tokens, testing strategies, or the best camping spots in Saskatchewan, I'd love to hear from you.