Apex Semi (now Cadence)
Dashboard for Batch Computing Software
Role
Full Stack Software Engineer
Year
2022–2024
Disciplines
Tech Stack
- Django
- LDAP
- SQL
- datatables
App Features
- LDAP authentication and verification
- Django full stack web application
- Datatables UI integration
- jQuerie for complex SQL searches
Responsibilities
- Lead user interviews to drive new features
- Design UI/UX flows
- Develop front and back end features
Enterprise licensing dashboards were built for IT teams, not chip engineers.
Apex Semi's customers — engineers at major semiconductor companies — needed access to complex licensing and analytics data. The existing tooling was either too generic or too opaque. Trust is hard to build when the interface doesn't speak your users' language.
How do you design for engineers who understand the system better than you do?
Chip engineers are precise, skeptical of unnecessary UI chrome, and accustomed to dense data. The question wasn't 'how do we make this approachable?' — it was 'how do we make this credible and efficient for people who will notice every wrong decision?'
The data model and the design co-evolved.
I worked closely with the backend team from day one — not after the API was built. By understanding the licensing data model as it was being designed, I could make UI decisions that made sense for how the data actually behaved, not how I wished it would.
Match the density of the data with the precision of the interface.
The design language was deliberate and restrained: no unnecessary visual decoration, clear information hierarchy, and role-based views that surface only what each user type needs. Security wasn't bolted on — it was woven into every interaction through the LDAP integration.
Secure, precise, and proven — acquired by Cadence.
The dashboard shipped with enterprise-grade LDAP authentication, giving clients role-based access to their licensing and analytics data. Apex Semi was acquired by Cadence Design Systems in 2024, validating the product's technical foundation and the quality of the work that went into it.