# Alex Carpenter

Staff UI Engineer at Clerk

Grand Rapids, MI.

## Steward of the web Building composable interfaces for humans and agents.

Currently on the SDK team at Clerk, I work on UI components and theming infrastructure-building systems for customization, improving component APIs, and creating developer tooling that makes authentication interfaces more flexible and accessible.

I do my best work on small, highly collaborative teams that ship often and embrace the convergence of human craftsmanship with AI tooling. I care deeply about design and believe the best interfaces emerge when designers, engineers, and intelligent systems work together.

## Projects

### [I Brew My Own Coffee](https://ibrewmyown.coffee)

A curated collection of home coffee setups. Built with Astro, Tailwind CSS, and Base UI.

### [Curated](https://curated.alexcarpenter.me)

Weekly curated items including design inspiration, tools, and resources. Built with Astro.

### [RESILIENT—UI](https://resilient-ui.com)

Resources for building resilient user interfaces. Built with Next.js, Tailwind CSS, Base UI, shadcn/ui, and Fumadocs.

## Experience

### Clerk

**Staff UI Engineer** · Jan 2024–Now

UI Engineer apart of the SDK team, working on UI Components and Dashboard UI.

Tools: Next.js, Tailwind CSS, React Aria Components, TypeScript, Motion, and Floating UI.

### Watershed

**Lead Web Engineer** · Aug 2023–Dec 2023

Web Engineer apart of the marketing department, built and maintained everything across watershed.com.

Tools: Next.js, Sanity CMS, CSS Modules, and Framer Motion.

### HashiCorp

**Senior Lead Web Engineer** · Jul 2021–Jul 2023

Lead Web Engineer on the core web team, helped build and maintain public-facing HashiCorp websites and web applications with Next.js.

Tools: Next.js, Dato CMS, Reach UI, TypeScript, CSS modules, and Framer Motion.

### NationBuilder

**UI Engineer** · Nov 2018–Jul 2021

UI Engineer working on the design team, collaborating closely with engineers implementing new features and building out our design system Radius.

Tools: React, Rails, and Bootstrap.

### Mighty in the Midwest

**Senior Web Engineer** · Aug 2015–Nov 2018

Senior Developer building and maintaining client websites built with Craft CMS, ExpressionEngine, and Shopify. Lead front-end initiatives to improve CSS and JavaScript architecture and implement an atomic deployment pipeline for our projects.

Tools: Craft CMS, Shopify, SCSS, and jQuery.

### Masuga Design

**Front-end Developer** · Feb 2012–Aug 2015

Front-end Developer building user interfaces for clients like A&E Networks, Image Comics, and Fox Networks Info with ExpressionEngine.

Tools: ExpressionEngine, Craft CMS, SCSS, and jQuery.

## Recommendations

> If you are seeking someone with **deep expertise in web development, particularly with React, accessibility, animations, and a keen eye for design**, then Alex is the perfect teammate. During my time at Clerk, I had the pleasure of working closely with Alex, and **I can confidently say that he is an exceptional collaborator**. His frontend web UI engineering skills are top-notch, and he is a fantastic human being.

— David Mosher, Staff Software Engineer, Clerk

> Alex is an excellent teammate and an exceptionally talented web developer. When he joined the team we gained an **incredibly strong collaborator**. His thoughtful approach to both producing work and **actively reviewing code instantly improved the entire teams workflow**. It is clear that Alex is a life long learner and therefore is always sure to bring a new, novel approach to solve a problem.

— Jimmy Merritello, Web Engineer, HashiCorp

> Alex and I worked together on the design team at NationBuilder. Alex is a natural problem solver, and a talented visual designer. That combination makes him an excellent front-end engineer. We worked together on a new feature with a complex UI and **he was able to interpret the designs with a care and detail that is rare, while also making thoughtful UX suggestions**. Not to mention Alex is just a great person, easy to talk to and lovely to work with.

— Amy Stuart, Senior Designer, NationBuilder

> I worked with Alex on a variety of different projects. He is excellent at his craft and a pleasure to collaborate with. **His attention to detail always resulted in an extremely polished final product**.

— Andrew Possehl, Senior Designer, NationBuilder

> Alex is **incredibly skilled, efficient, and thorough in his work**. Perhaps more than any other co-worker I have had, Alex possesses a deep and wide understanding of modern web technologies, while his steady passion for **producing best-of-class work inspires his peers** to write cleaner, simpler, and more elegant code.

— Kyle Luck, Developer, Mighty in the Midwest

> Alex is incredibly thorough and thoughtful with his work and is always seeking out improving in his craft. He’s **conscious of meeting deadlines and communicates concerns early** so that project teams can be proactive in problem solving.

— Danielle Dunn, Project Manager, Mighty in the Midwest

> I would recommend Alex to any forward-thinking web team. **His passion for web standards along with his friendly attitude** made him an invaluable part of our development team. I`m always especially impressed with his commitment to continuous learning and I hope to have the chance to work with him again!

— Melissa Taylor, Director Client Services, Mighty in the Midwest

## OSS Contributions

- [jovidecroock/pracht](https://github.com/JoviDeCroock/pracht/pull/167) — improve text wrapping and add color-scheme usage (open)
- [developit/kinu](https://github.com/developit/kinu/pull/102) — Allow clicking between radio/checkbox and labels (closed)
- [anomalyco/opencode](https://github.com/anomalyco/opencode/pull/13987) — Fix homepage video layout shift (merged)
- [benjitaylor/agentation](https://github.com/benjitaylor/agentation/pull/102) — Fix keyboard interactions when collapsed, allow toggling via keyboard (closed)
- [tanstack/tanstack.com](https://github.com/TanStack/tanstack.com/pull/712) — Fix docs feature grid alignment and icon sizing (merged)
- [cloudflare/kumo](https://github.com/cloudflare/kumo/pull/19) — Wrap pagination counts with tabular-nums to avoid shifts (merged)
- [vercel/next.js](https://github.com/vercel/next.js/pull/89245) — Improve templates layout flexibility (merged)
- [facebook/stylex](https://github.com/facebook/stylex/pull/1439) — Fix confirm dialog closing when clicking inside. (merged)
- [facebook/stylex](https://github.com/facebook/stylex/pull/1433) — Align docs callout component icon to the first line of text. (merged)
- [facebook/stylex](https://github.com/facebook/stylex/pull/1434) — Fixes issues in docs codeblock component where the icons were not rendering properly before the title, causing the title to not be properly aligned with the code, but also just not rendering the icon visibly. (merged)
- [fuma-nama/fumadocs](https://github.com/fuma-nama/fumadocs/pull/2416) — Add missing ring classes for buttonVariants to ensure focus states are visible for buttons. (merged)
- [vercel/ai-chatbot](https://github.com/vercel/ai-chatbot/pull/1252) — Ensure both PureModelSelectorCompact and VisibilitySelector have visible outlines when focus visible. (merged)
- [haydenbleasel/kibo](https://github.com/haydenbleasel/kibo/pull/266) — Fixes icon shrinking and alignment within pricing block when the feature text wraps to two lines. (merged)
- [fuma-nama/fumadocs](https://github.com/fuma-nama/fumadocs/pull/2399) — Updates copy button to preserve the active state while in checked state. (merged)
- [midday-ai/midday](https://github.com/midday-ai/midday/pull/606) — Ensure icons are aligned on the first line vs being vertically centered within the whole item. (merged)
- [dodopayments/billingsdk](https://github.com/dodopayments/billingsdk/pull/144) — Fix icon alignment within pricing-table-one (merged)
- [shadcn-ui/ui](https://github.com/shadcn-ui/ui/pull/7944) — Add support for css imports (closed)
- [rauchg/blog](https://github.com/rauchg/blog/pull/133) — Defines color scheme when in light/dark modes. (merged)

## Connect

- [GitHub](https://github.com/alexcarpenter)
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/alexcarp_me)
- [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/alexcarpenter.me)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/imalexcarpenter/)