nahiyan khan
tldr
I’m a principal design engineer focused on agentic products. I shape how people work with agents and build the interfaces, tools, and backend systems behind those experiences.
today
At Block, I work on agent environments, tools for guiding model behavior, and prototypes that connect generated interfaces to actions. My work spans product exploration, systems architecture, and implementation.
yesterday
At Cash App, I stood up its design systems practice, architecting a code-first system that drives 95% of its surfaces for 60 million users.
about
how I work
I develop ideas through working prototypes and stay involved through production. Depending on the problem, that means tuning a drag interaction, building the backend behind an interface, or designing a system other teams can build on.
For agentic products, I work through when an agent should act, what it’s allowed to do, and how someone can understand and steer the result.
Agents are part of my daily practice. I put care into their context, tools, and constraints, then review the architecture, behavior, and details of what we build. I’m responsible for those decisions and for checking the result.
what I do
- design
- Product direction · Visual design · Interaction and motion
- build
- Agent tools · Generated interfaces · Backend integrations · Shared systems
- work with
- TypeScript · React · Node.js · Python · Rust · Electron · Tauri
outside of work
I like building small, powerful computers. I enjoy the challenge of fitting everything into less space and making it beautiful.
I obsess over interior design, take photographs, and climb to blow off steam. I read a lot of science fiction and dabble in writing it.
My partner and I want to buy land with a stream someday.