Drew Hamlin🇺🇸

About Drew Hamlin

Director, Product Design at Meta

Hi! 👋 I’m Drew and I’m a software designer and manager.

I’ve worked on software in some form or another for the last 2+ decades in a wide variety of roles ranging from QA to Co-Founder, from Software Engineer to Product Design Director.

As a kid, I started drawing user interfaces on paper and taught myself to program when I was 11. In high school, I started my own shareware company and later joined a startup called Delicious Monster and worked on a Mac app called Delicious Library.

In college, I studied Visual Communication Design and over the summers, interned at Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook. After graduating, I joined Facebook full-time as its 7th Product Designer. I helped recruit and build the design team there and switched into management after a couple of years. I worked on a variety of products there ranging from Messages to Photos to Search as well as more experimental projects like Paper and Slingshot. I also co-created Origami, a prototyping tool that Facebook continues to grow.

After 6 years at Facebook, in 2015, I left to start my own company with a friend. I spent most days writing code. We created an iOS game then started work on a productivity product. In an unexpected turn of events, we sold our company to Salesforce to join Quip and continue our work there. I worked at Quip for nearly 5 years, as a Product Designer and a Product Design Director. Now, still at Salesforce, I’m a Product Design Director at Slack.

In my career, I’ve managed Product Designers at essentially every seniority level, ranging from interns and new grads to world-class (“IC8” in Facebook terms) incredibly talented senior designers. I’ve worked at companies big and small in various roles that have given me valuable insight into different aspects of software development.

I’m happy to talk with you about your career in software design and try to help answer any questions or provide additional helpful perspective!

Expertise

Sessions with Drew Hamlin

• Mentorship Session (25 min): General mentorship

What mentees say

“Drew was really helpful in encouraging me to keep iterating on my portfolio and getting me to focus on little details that would make me stand out during the job application process.”

“Drew is very knowledgeable, experienced and kind, I felt like I was talking to a friend. He took the time to hear my struggles and generously shared his opinions and experiences. I felt heard and got many great insights from him. Definitely recommend him as a mentor and will get in touch again in the future :) thanks for all, Drew!”

“Drew was so approachable, encouraging, and honest. He spent some time getting to know my background and where I am at the current stage and then provided very tailored feedback to me. Highly recommend him as a mentor!”