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Nikolas Klein

Nikolas Klein is a product manager at Figma who joined the company as a product designer in 2018, worked on its prototyping tools for years and now works on the Figma Make product.

Contents7 sections
Key facts

2013–2017Studying at HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd

According to a 2023 interview, he studied interaction design at the German design school HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd from 2013 to 2017; his personal website lists several student projects completed there.⁠[1][2]

2016–2018Building the Sketch Plugin Sketch Runner

His personal website dates the Sketch Runner project from March 2016 to February 2018. According to the interview, this Sketch plugin first won first place at a hack day in Hamburg, after which he and several collaborators kept developing it on the side.⁠[2][1]

March 2018Joining Figma as a Product Designer

He applied for a product design role at Figma in 2017, and by his account his Sketch Runner work was one reason he was hired. His personal website shows him working at Figma since March 2018, and a 2022 Domus article likewise describes him as a Figma product designer since 2018.⁠[1][2][3]

2020sWorking on Figma’s Prototyping Features

According to the interview, as a product designer focused on prototyping he contributed to features including Smart Animate, Variants and Interactive Components, and led the design of the prototyping launch at Config 2023.⁠[1]

Figma’s official blog says that while designing spring animations he noticed that adjusting each variable by hand was cumbersome and iterated on several information-architecture variations. Figma’s blog also says he spent seven years building prototyping tools.⁠[4][5]

As of October 2026: Product Manager on Figma Make

Figma’s official blog says he has moved from product designer to product manager and is now a PM on Figma Make; he also co-wrote an article with Figma vice president of product Sho Kuwamoto recounting the development of the multi-edit feature.⁠[6][5]

His personal website says he is interested in accessible abstractions and tools for collaborative creativity.⁠[2]

Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts

Figma: Official website: https://www.figma.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[2]

Personal website: Public link: https://nikolasklein.de/ (opens in a new window)⁠[2]

X: Public account: https://x.com/nikolasklein (opens in a new window)⁠[2]

Sources

  1. Interview with Nikolas Klein, Product Designer at Figma: Lovers Magazine by Spaces (opens in a new window)
  2. nikolas klein (opens in a new window)
  3. Figma: why design helps to do business (opens in a new window)
  4. How Figma put the bounce in spring animations (opens in a new window)
  5. Hard problems are still hard: A story about the tools that change and the work that doesn't (opens in a new window)
  6. Behind the feature: The multiple lives of multi-edit (opens in a new window)