Design debt makes everything take longer than it should.
It leads to inconsistent UIs, bloated codebases, and expensive rebuilds. We've lived it—and we're building the fix. Recode is a CI/CD solution for design systems: it continuously inspects, aligns, and upgrades your production UI to reduce design debt at the source.
Recode isn't another design tool. It's being built for a different job: tackling design debt at scale—without redesigns, delays, or drama. Here's what we're aiming for:
Why Design Debt Still Happens—Even with a Design System
A design system is necessary—but not sufficient. Over time, as teams ship fast and priorities shift, your production UI drifts away from the system. That gap is design debt: misalignment that slows teams down and compounds silently.
Recode brings CI/CD thinking to design—actively maintaining consistency, cleaning up legacy UI, and restoring alignment between code and system with every deploy.
It's where design systems meet engineering reality.
We're looking for Pilot Partners
We're partnering with enterprise and growth-stage teams who are ready to fix legacy UI—for good.
Shape the product. Get early access. Help define the next era of design infrastructure.
Email us at jeff@recode.ink
Who we are
Jeff Mahacek
Founder & CEODesign exec with 25+ years in tech (Intel, NerdWallet, Redfin). Built design systems and platforms used by millions. Now making scalable design possible through AI.
Sean Byrnes
Venture PartnerFounder of Outlier and Flurry. Raised $100M+, scaled to hundreds of thousands of users. Brings startup wisdom and technical scale to Recode.ink.
Mark Jacobstein
Venture Partner3x founder and veteran operator (loopt, iSkeet, Guardant Health, Immunai). Expert in go-to-market and scaling deep tech companies.
Dr. Michael Kim
Venture PartnerML expert with a Ph.D. from UCSF. Co-founded Outlier, led AI at Google, Aardvark, and AltSchool. Architecting the systems behind Recode.ink.