Rich Tillman

About Rich Tillman

I\'m a Principal/Founding Frontend Engineer with 15+ years of experience building scalable web platforms, design systems, and developer tooling — primarily in React, TypeScript, and Nx monorepos.My work focuses on developer platforms and AI-assisted development, where I design systems that connect design tools, component libraries, and production code to accelerate how software is built.I\'m the creator of ForgeKit, an AI-driven developer platform that automates design-to-code workflows by integrating- Figma design systems- Storybook component libraries- React application scaffolding- Model Context Protocol (MCP) tooling for AI agentsForgeKit enables developers and AI coding systems to interact with design systems programmatically — generating applications, synchronizing tokens, and automating documentation, testing, and UI scaffolding.Throughout my career I\'ve led frontend architecture at companies like Redesign Health and Pineapple Corporation — building React design systems (50+ components), Nx monorepos (8+ apps), and cross-platform mobile architectures with React Native and Expo. Those systems reduced development time by 30%, cut rendering overhead by 40%, and supported production apps used by 500K+ monthly users.More recently I\'ve worked on AI model training and developer tooling, helping teams integrate AI coding agents and AI-assisted workflows into real-world engineering environments.I\'m especially interested in building- AI developer platforms- design-to-code systems- developer experience tooling- scalable frontend architecturesAlways interested in conversations around AI developer tools, frontend platforms, and design systems.

Experience

1. Company Owner

   Forgekit

   Jan 2026 — Present · US

Education

• Trident Technical College

  Web Page, Digital/Multimedia and Information Resources Design

• College of Charleston

  Bachelor's degree, Computer Science

  2003 — 2007

• The Art Institutes

  Web Page, Digital/Multimedia and Information Resources Design