# Jim Nielsen

> Jim Nielsen is a design engineer, writer, and curator with 20+ years at the intersection of design and code on the web. He writes the popular Jim Nielsen's Blog covering web development philosophy, design thinking, and the craft of building for the web. He's the founding engineer at Quadratic, co-creator of The iOS App Icon Book (€136K Kickstarter), and maintains the beloved iOS/macOS/watchOS icon gallery sites. A champion of the open web, HTML-first thinking, and the emerging 'design engineer' role, Nielsen bridges the gap between visual design and front-end engineering with rare fluency.

- **Role:** Founding Engineer at Quadratic
- **Organizations:** Quadratic HQ, Remix Run (acquired by Shopify)
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies (Visual Technologies and Spanish), Unknown University
- **Known for:** Co-created The iOS App Icon Book with Michael Flarup - Kickstarter raised €136,420 from 1,450 backers, Co-created The macOS App Icon Book - Kickstarter raised €112,139 from 982 backers, Maintains iosicongallery.com, macosicongallery.com, and watchosicongallery.com with 1,000+ curated icons each

## Career timeline

- **~2004** — Began career in web design and front-end development
- **2012** — Started blogging and curating web/design content professionally
- **2014** — Launched Logo Integrity project
- **2015** — Launched iOS Icon Gallery (iosicongallery.com)
- **2018** — Created Netlibox project
- **2021** — Co-created The iOS App Icon Book Kickstarter with Michael Flarup, raising €136,420
- **2021** — Launched 'Can I Still Use?' project
- **2022** — Joined Remix Run as engineer (May 2022)
- **2022** — Co-created The macOS App Icon Book Kickstarter, raising €112,139
- **2023** — Remix Run acquired by Shopify
- **2023** — Joined Quadratic HQ as Founding Engineer
- **2023** — Published influential 'HTML Web Components' blog post
- **2025** — Published 'The Case for Design Engineers' series (Parts I, II, III)
- **2026** — Continues blogging, writing 'New Year, New Website - Same Old Me'

## Achievements

- Co-created The iOS App Icon Book with Michael Flarup - Kickstarter raised €136,420 from 1,450 backers
- Co-created The macOS App Icon Book - Kickstarter raised €112,139 from 982 backers
- Maintains iosicongallery.com, macosicongallery.com, and watchosicongallery.com with 1,000+ curated icons each
- 20+ years at the intersection of web design and front-end engineering
- Founding Engineer at Quadratic, a next-gen spreadsheet application
- Active blogger since ~2012 with widely-read posts on web development and design thinking
- Appeared on ShopTalk Show (episodes #504 and #605) discussing web development and design philosophy
- Appeared on Postlight Podcast discussing app icon design
- Created influential blog series 'The Case for Design Engineers'
- Described by peers as someone who 'crosses the boundary between designer/developer better than anyone'

## Latest updates

- **2026-01** — Published 'New Year, New Website - Same Old Me' and 'Creating Edit Links That Open Plain-Text Source Files in a Native App'
- **2025-12** — Published 'To Make Software Is To Translate Human Intent Into Computational Precision' and critique of AI browsers
- **2025** — Published influential 'The Case for Design Engineers' multi-part series
- **2025** — Published 'The Tumultuous Evolution of the Design Profession'
- **2025** — Building polished interface improvements at Quadratic including refined iconography, fuzzy-search command palettes, and zoom shortcuts
- **2023** — Joined Quadratic HQ as Founding Engineer after Remix's acquisition by Shopify

## Links

- Website: https://www.jim-nielsen.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-nielsen-b17b3816/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/jimniels
- GitHub: https://github.com/jimniels

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/jim-nielsen
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-21