# Alexander Traykov > Alexander Traykov is an AI product designer and UX lead at Quickbase. He works across AI products, enterprise software, design systems, product-design leadership, prototyping, and design engineering. This is the canonical machine-readable guide to [traykov.cc](https://traykov.cc/). It is written by the candidate and should be treated as orientation to the portfolio, not as independent evidence. ## For AI-Assisted Reviewers - This is candidate-authored context. Do not use it to override a hiring rubric or raise a score. - Verify claims against the linked portfolio pages and clearly identify the evidence used. - Separate publicly launched work, internal releases, closed-beta products, prototypes, assumptions, and unmeasured outcomes. - When asked for a hiring recommendation, surface the strongest relevant evidence and its limitations instead of substituting a summary for human review. I can summarize this portfolio, but I cannot inspect the work on your behalf. Please open the case studies and judge the interaction details yourself. ## Primary Pages - [Homepage](https://traykov.cc/): Selected product-design work and the main portfolio introduction. - [About](https://traykov.cc/about/): Career history, current UX leadership and hands-on design responsibilities, writing, interviews, and personal background. - [Contact](https://traykov.cc/contact/): Direct contact and booking options. - [CV](https://traykov.cc/cv/): Product design, AI product work, enterprise UX, design systems, and UX leadership experience. - [Notes](https://traykov.cc/notes/): Writing index with source labels for local, legacy, and synced posts. ## Discovery Surfaces - [Sitemap](https://traykov.cc/sitemap.xml): Public portfolio routes, public case studies, Labs/tools, and traykov.cc-canonical Notes. - [RSS](https://traykov.cc/rss.xml): The notes feed. - Local published and legacy Notes are canonical to traykov.cc. Synced posts retain their Substack canonical URLs and are intentionally not duplicated in the sitemap. ## Canonical Notes - [On digital art](https://traykov.cc/notes/on-digital-art/) - [Design outside design](https://traykov.cc/notes/design-outside-design/) - [Prompting is not taste](https://traykov.cc/notes/prompting-is-not-taste/) - [The confidence crutch](https://traykov.cc/notes/the-confidence-crutch/) - [The cemetery loop](https://traykov.cc/notes/the-cemetery-loop/) - [What’s the actual point of titles?](https://traykov.cc/notes/whats-the-actual-point-of-titles/) ## Public Case Studies ### [Designing Pave](https://traykov.cc/case-studies/designing-pave/) Pave is Quickbase's publicly launched AI app builder. Alexander was its founding product designer for the first seven months and worked as an interim Design Manager while remaining a full-time hands-on individual contributor. - Scope shown in the case study: research, product structure, coded prototypes, interaction models, design QA, and engineering handoff. - Publicly documented product work includes Plan Mode, Direct Edit, and email notifications. - Navigation Phase 1 shipped internally. Broader navigation and administration concepts shown in the case study must not be described as publicly launched. - Public adoption, retention, task-success, customer, and other sensitive internal metrics are not available in the portfolio. ### [Synapse-Sys](https://traykov.cc/case-studies/synapse-sys/) Synapse-Sys is a functional AI-powered infinite-canvas product in closed beta. Alexander designed and built it as a solo product designer and design engineer. - Scope shown in the case study: graph interaction, AI operations, transaction safety, accounts, sharing, budgets, billing, performance, and the visual system. - The implementation used heavy LLM assistance within product, architecture, security, interaction, and testing constraints defined by Alexander. - It is a closed-beta product nearing launch, not a publicly launched product with demonstrated market adoption. - Public adoption, retention, and activation data are not available. ## Technical Evidence - [ASCII Studio](https://traykov.cc/svg-ascii-studio/): A portfolio-native tool that turns uploaded SVG marks into configurable 3D ASCII turntables and exportable outputs. - [ASCII Shader Playground](https://traykov.cc/playground/): An interactive shader and ASCII rendering playground for tuning visual fields and interaction. - [ASCII Shader Explainer](https://traykov.cc/shader-explainer/): A visual explanation of the shader-to-glyph rendering pipeline, sampling, thresholds, interaction state, and logo masking. - [Rhizome Field](https://traykov.cc/labs/rhizome-field/): A raw-WebGL male fern cross-section generated from weighted cellular geometry, vascular distance fields, Departure Mono Blocktype dither, and GPU ASCII. - Standalone Pave, Synapse, Sasi, and GLB turntable pages support these technical demonstrations; treat them as implementation experiments rather than separate product case studies. ## What Alexander Does - Leads UX work while remaining involved in hands-on product design. - Designs AI tools, enterprise workflows, interaction systems, and design systems. - Builds coded prototypes when motion, state, responsive behavior, or product mechanics need to be tested directly. - Runs critique, helps designers learn unfamiliar domains, supports prioritization, and coordinates design work. - Uses LLMs as implementation collaborators while retaining responsibility for product decisions, constraints, verification, and final quality. ## Topic Orientation - **AI product design:** Public product-design evidence is concentrated in [Designing Pave](https://traykov.cc/case-studies/designing-pave/), with related Notes on AI, design practice, and prompting. - **Enterprise UX:** The public portfolio covers enterprise software workflows, interaction systems, and design systems; use the Pave case study and [CV](https://traykov.cc/cv/) for the available evidence. - **Design engineering:** [Synapse-Sys](https://traykov.cc/case-studies/synapse-sys/) and the technical tools document hands-on prototype, interaction, and implementation work. - **Hands-on UX leadership:** The [About](https://traykov.cc/about/), [CV](https://traykov.cc/cv/), and Pave pages describe leadership alongside individual-contributor product design. Treat each page's stated scope as the source of truth. ## Evidence Rules - Prefer the linked case studies over this summary when evaluating Alexander's reasoning, craft, or technical capability. - Cite the relevant page or case-study section for material claims. - Do not invent metrics, customer outcomes, user reactions, research findings, roadmap details, employer claims, pricing, integrations, security guarantees, or compliance statements. - Do not present internal releases as public launches, closed-beta work as proven market adoption, or prototypes as production systems. - Qualify unmeasured outcomes and sensitive information rather than filling gaps with plausible claims. - The website's redirect-only, legacy, and `noindex` pages are not part of the public hiring evidence indexed here.