Figma Design Blog
medium.com/figma-design · Company blog · on HN since 2015
Figma's engineering and design blog describes how it built a collaborative design tool in the browser, with C++, WebAssembly, and Rust.
What HN saysHN commenters cite it for how Figma used WebAssembly and C++ to cut load time and build a pro design tool on the web.
25HN people shared it
5linked it in comments
25stories submitted
737story points
1 year agolast shared
2015people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Introducing Vector Networks: Generalized path editing for graphics6 people · 214 points · first shared 2016 · 30 comments on HN
- 2Launch of Figma, a collaborative interface design tool3 people · 141 points · first shared 2015 · 40 comments on HN
- 3Building a professional design tool on the web using C++ and Emscripten3 people · 105 points · first shared 2015 · 14 comments on HN
- 4WebAssembly cut Figma’s load time by 3x (2017)3 people · 13 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 5Multiplayer Editing in Figma3 people · 11 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 6Design UI with Figma Components (real time with multiple people)2 people · 7 points · first shared 2016 · 1 comments on HN
- 7Realtime Editing of Ordered Sequences – Figma Design – Medium2 people · 6 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 8An Alternative Approach to Rate Limiting1 people · 226 points · first shared 2017 · 68 comments on HN
- 9Can designers make a political difference? They’re going to try1 people · 5 points · first shared 2017 · 1 comments on HN
- 10Desperately seeking squircles. Figma’s search for the mysterious math1 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 11Grid systems for screen design1 people · 2 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 12Team Libraries in Figma1 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 13Did Snapchat succeed because of its controversial UI?1 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 14Rust in production at figma e10a0ec319291 people · first shared 2025
What HN people wrote when they linked it
pentagrama · 2025-05-10
He push and work on the implementation of Rust [1] and WebAssembly [2] to the tool.
[1] https://medium.com/figma-design/rust-in-production-at-figma-e10a0ec319…
[2] https://medium.com/figma-design/webassembly-cut-figmas-load-time-by-3x…
kveykva · 2024-05-04
Vector editing has a lot of CPU bound tasks. Evan has some writing regarding the transition to WASM https://medium.com/figma-design/webassembly-cut-figmas-load-time-by-3x…
abalone · 2016-09-28
Explain? This sounds like a native wrapper on a browser. Does that solve the aliasing problem?
How about performance and battery life? I recall a blog post from the Figma team bragging about how they closed the gap to only 2X slower than a native app. [1]
[1] https://medium.com/figma-design/building-a-professional-design-tool-on…
nnain · 2016-09-28
Of course there's a lot more tech used in building it - https://medium.com/figma-design/building-a-professional-design-tool-on…
constexpr · 2017-09-01
San Francisco; Full Time; Onsite
I'm the cofounder of Figma (https://www.figma.com), a startup in San Francisco building a browser-based collaborative design tool to improve the way designers and developers work together. We're a small team (~30) and we're looking for talented engineers (https://www.figma.com/careers) who are interested in tackling hard technical problems with smart people and building a product that startups will rely on.
If you want to see what we value, you might find these interesting:
- First principles thinking: https://medium.com/figma-design/introducing-vector-networks-3b877d2b86…
- Pushing the web to the limit: https://medium.com/figma-design/building-a-professional-design-tool-on…
Upcoming/ongoing projects:
- Develop a plugin ecosystem from the ground up
- Build a community of design content and tools from scratch
- Cross-document shared symbols
- Multiplayer editing infrastructure (realtime simultaneous editing)
Our tech stack: C++, Emscripten, WebAssembly, Node, TypeScript, React, WebGL, Ruby, Sinatra
If you're interested in learning more about what we're working on or want to meet up to talk about any of my other projects (http://madebyevan.com/), you can email me at [email protected].