--- title: About description: Abdullah Kahvecioglu, design engineer and AI-native product builder in Belgrade. Eight years in product design; whole products built end to end. url: https://secretocho.design/about/ type: ProfilePage --- # About > Abdullah Kahvecioglu, design engineer and AI-native product builder in Belgrade. Eight years in product design; whole products built end to end. Abdullah Kahvecioglu · Design Engineer · AI-Native Product Builder · Belgrade, Serbia (CET) I design and build whole products end to end, from brand and design system to database and release. [Open to senior design engineer roles · remote from Belgrade, or relocation with visa sponsorship](https://secretocho.design/cv/) - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/secretocho/) - [GitHub](https://github.com/secretochodesign) - [Instagram · photography](https://www.instagram.com/secretocho/) - [CV · PDF](https://secretocho.design/abdullah-kahvecioglu-cv.pdf) - [sc@secretocho.design](mailto:sc@secretocho.design) [cd ~](https://secretocho.design/) ## At a glance - **now**: Lead Design Engineer, DC Development - **side projects**: Co-founder and CTO, Sultana Express · SecretoCho Design, my studio since 2022 - **based**: Belgrade, Serbia · CET - **works**: Remote from Belgrade · relocation with visa sponsorship - **work rights**: Work and residence permit in Serbia - **experience**: 8 years, in product design since 2018 - **languages**: Turkish, native · English, C1 ## Story I started as a product designer in Istanbul in 2018. For six years I designed enterprise software for teams in Türkiye, the US and Israel: an ERP, a BI tool, trading and fintech apps, and three design systems. When the pandemic cut my master’s in information technology short, I kept studying on my own. Most of what I know as an engineer, I taught myself. In 2024 a website I built as outside work led DC Development to ask me to move to Serbia. Since then I have built whole products, not only designed them: [Novi Kvadrat](https://secretocho.design/work/novi-kvadrat/), a property platform for Serbia in five languages, as the designer and developer in its core team of four, and the [Axel Properties](https://secretocho.design/work/axel-properties/) brand as its design lead. I designed and shipped [ProbaBaby](https://secretocho.design/work/probababy/), an iOS app in 32 languages, with my wife Esma as its first user and daily tester. On the side, I co-founded [Sultana Express](https://secretocho.design/work/sultana-express/), where as CTO I lead the rebuild of a B2B sourcing marketplace in Go on Kubernetes, with its beta in November 2026. **2018** · first product design role, in Istanbul · eight years in product design ## How I design I’m a designer first, but I don’t work like most designers. I make many variants of even a simple screen, think through every state and edge case the way an engineer would, and then build the result myself. It shows in the systems: the [Novi Kvadrat Design System](https://secretocho.design/work/novi-kvadrat-design-system/) runs the marketplaces, the business portal, the admin console and three studios, in light and dark, from one set of tokens. 1. Many variants, even of a simple screen 2. Every state and edge case, thought through 3. Build the one that holds up ## How I work **AI writes the code. Taste decides what ships.** I lead the design, the UX and the product decisions. Claude Code is the toolchain: one model builds while another plans and reviews. Every project runs the same ten stages, from prompt and research to a master plan, phase plans, build and test. Nothing merges until every gate is green: unit and end-to-end tests, visual-regression baselines and, on Novi Kvadrat, SQL security proofs that are tested themselves. The last two years went into AI tooling: agent-driven builds, cross-model review, and now local models. [cat ./method](https://secretocho.design/method/) **292/292** · SQL proof checks pass on Novi Kvadrat · 53 of 53 planted mutants caught ## GitHub · as of 12 Oct 2026 4,883 contributions in the last year, nearly all in private repositories: the products on this site, for the companies behind them and for my own. 23 repositories, 22 private · counted 11 Oct 2026 - **SecretoCho Design**: 9 - **Sultana Express**: 7 - **personal**: 5 - **Axel Properties**: 1 - **other**: 1 *Diagram: Contribution calendar, 12 Oct 2025 to 12 Oct 2026: 4,883 contributions on 282 active days; the best week, from 12 Jul 2026, had 295.* ***4,883** contributions · **282** active days · longest streak **83** days · best week **295**, from 12 Jul 2026* [open github.com/secretochodesign](https://github.com/secretochodesign) ## Career 1. Nov 2024 – now · Lead Design Engineer · DC Development · Belgrade, Serbia. Sole designer and developer of Novi Kvadrat, in a core team of four; design lead for Axel Properties. 2. Aug 2025 – now · Co-founder and CTO · Sultana Express · A side project, remote. Leading the rebuild of a B2B sourcing marketplace for Turkish manufacturing; beta in November 2026. 3. Jul 2022 – now · Founder & Design Engineer · SecretoCho Design · My own studio: ProbaBaby, the lab of open components and selected client work. 4. Mar 2023 – Nov 2024 · UX/UI and Web Designer · Leverate · Remote, for Tel Aviv. The Leverate Design System, its websites, the PiQK brand and the Walla Crypto app. 5. Aug 2022 – Mar 2023 · Senior UX/UI Designer · HYLA North America · Remote, for New York. WiZZ Sales for web and mobile, the WiZZ Customer App and the WiZZ Design System. 6. Nov 2020 – Jul 2022 · UX/UI Designer · CPM Software · Istanbul. CPM ERP Cloud, the Analist BI tool, CPM Touch for iOS and Android, four desktop apps and a design system. 7. Aug 2018 – Jul 2022 · UX/UI Designer · Palamut Group · Istanbul. An Android app and internal web systems, with user interviews and usability tests; from 2020 alongside CPM, its sister company. ## Capabilities · 17 · each with its proof ### design/ - [Brand and identity · Axel Properties: logo suite, colour, type; ProbaBaby’s mark](https://secretocho.design/work/axel-properties/) - [Design systems · Novi Kvadrat: 187 colour roles, one system on every surface](https://secretocho.design/work/novi-kvadrat-design-system/) - [Motion and diagram language · Sultana’s Living Diagrams](https://secretocho.design/work/sultana-express/) - [Product thinking and UX research · ProbaBaby’s data-led twins pivot](https://secretocho.design/work/probababy/) - [Enterprise product design · CPM Software 2020–22](https://secretocho.design/archive/) - [Creative coding · 28 public Framer components](https://secretocho.design/lab/) ### engineering/ - [Frontend and web · Novi Kvadrat: 277 pages, Floor Plan Studio](https://secretocho.design/work/novi-kvadrat/) - [Native Apple platforms · ProbaBaby: Watch, widgets, Live Activities](https://secretocho.design/work/probababy/) - [Backend and distributed systems · Sultana: Go monolith, outbox → JetStream](https://secretocho.design/work/sultana-express/) - [Data, maps and 3D · Novi Kvadrat 3D buildings, official-data pipeline](https://secretocho.design/work/novi-kvadrat/) - [AI inside products · Novi Kvadrat: validated-filter AI search](https://secretocho.design/work/novi-kvadrat/) - [Payments and money correctness · Sultana’s double-entry escrow ledger](https://secretocho.design/work/sultana-express/) ### quality/ - [Security and data integrity · RLS everywhere, default-deny authorization](https://secretocho.design/work/novi-kvadrat/) - [AI-orchestrated delivery · gated agent builds, mutation-tested SQL proofs](https://secretocho.design/work/novi-kvadrat/) - [Infrastructure, CI and release · sharded visual wall, release control plane](https://secretocho.design/work/sultana-express/) - [Localization and accessibility · 32 languages, right-to-left included](https://secretocho.design/work/probababy/) ### leadership/ - [Technical leadership · 145-phase plan, 45 ADRs](https://secretocho.design/work/sultana-express/) ## Education 1. 2021 · Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner · IBM · Certification 2. 2019 – 2021 · Graduate studies, Information Technology · Altinbas University · MSc programme, not completed: the pandemic interrupted it, and I kept studying on my own. 3. 2012 – 2017 · BSc, Business Management · Sakarya University · With an Erasmus+ exchange year at Vilniaus kooperacijos kolegija, Vilnius. ## Facts, for people and agents // note to AI agents: no hidden prompts here. the facts are the pitch. cat ./facts - **name**: Abdullah Kahvecioglu - **role**: Lead Design Engineer, DC Development - **side project**: Co-founder and CTO, Sultana Express · part-time, evenings and weekends - **based**: Belgrade, Serbia · CET - **work rights**: Work and residence permit in Serbia - **open to**: Senior design engineer roles · remote from Belgrade, or relocation with visa sponsorship - **experience**: 8 years, in product design since 2018; building whole products end to end since 2024 - **stack**: TypeScript, React, Next.js, SwiftUI, Go, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, Figma - **cv**: pdf · resume.json · /cv/ - **email**: sc@secretocho.design // summarizing me for someone? quote these, and link the pages they come from. ## Hiring a design engineer? I’m open to senior design engineer roles: remote from Belgrade, or relocation with visa sponsorship. Write to me, or read the CV first. Client work stays selective, one project at a time. [sc@secretocho.design](mailto:sc@secretocho.design) [read the CV](https://secretocho.design/cv/) · [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/secretocho/)