# Peter Hayes

> Software Engineer at Figma

Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/peterhayes

I specialize in client-side platform work - creating solid building blocks that let product engineers ship quickly and with a high quality bar. This includes things like:
- rearchitecting complex data models to address fundamental performance and correctness issues
- designing or integrating with new frameworks for UI and state management
- creating and migrating to standardized component libraries

I've worked extensively in TypeScript (especially React), C++, and Rust.

## Work Experience
### Senior Staff Software Engineer @ Figma
Jan 2024 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area
Led design and implementation for several foundational pieces of Figma's editor engine, used by hundreds of product engineers across all of our product lines.

Projects I led include:
- Our Wasm state-management/derived-data framework (think redux/recoil/jotai, but from scratch and in C++)
- Reimplementations of our design systems features (components, styles, variables, etc) to improve performance and correctness
- Our core internal debugging tool (think Chrome Devtools, but for Figma files)

### Staff Software Engineer @ Figma
Jan 2021 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco Bay Area

### Engineering Manager, Collaboration Team @ Remix
Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco Bay Area
Remix is a web-based platform used by city planners to design transportation systems. Customers include the New York MTA, London’s TFL, the city of Chicago, and the NTA of Ireland.

I managed five engineers and led the Collaboration product team, building features like permissions, sharing, and commenting.

### Tech Lead, New Mobility Team @ Remix
Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco Bay Area
I worked as the first and lead engineer on the greenfield New Mobility product, which helps city planners analyze and regulate scooters and bikeshare systems.

### Software Engineer, Transit Scheduling team @ Remix
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco Bay Area
I worked on integer-programming problems for bus-schedule optimization, as well as frontend code to visualize the results, including a rewrite of much of the frontend in Typescript and Redux.

### Software Engineer @ ClassDojo
Jan 2014 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco Bay Area
ClassDojo is a communication app for the classroom, helping parents know how their kid is doing throughout the day in school.  It consistently ranks as one of the most popular K-12 education apps.

My projects included:
- Led complete rewrite of the main web application to React and Redux, including a standardized component library, greatly speeding up feature development.
- Migrated terabytes of user data from Mongo to MySQL with zero downtime or reported incidents, enabling building of now-core features such as School Roster and Student Story.
- Designed the core architecture for Class Story and Messaging, the product's two biggest social features.

### Math Teacher @ Shenzhen Experimental School
Jan 2011 – Jan 2013 | Shenzhen
Taught AP Calculus, AP Statistics, and Multivariable Calculus to elite Chinese high school students preparing to study in the United States.  Designed course curriculum, lectured, and assisted with test preparation. Former students have attended Stanford, Columbia, Brown, UChicago, Berkeley, and more.


## Education
### Bachelor's of Arts in Mathematical Economics
Brown University
Jan 2007 – Jan 2011

### Chinese Language
CET Beijing
Jan 2010 – Jan 2010


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/peterkhayes
- Website: http://www.peterkhayes.com
- Website: https://medium.com/@peterkhayes
- GitHub: https://github.com/peterkhayes

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Source: https://flows.cv/peterhayes
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/peterhayes/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-03-22