Portfolio of

Maxim Aleksa

Maxim works at the intersection
of design and engineering,
creating delightful experiences
on web and native platforms.

Building productivity apps at Apple.

Apple

Some of the work I’ve designed, built and shipped.

UI Redesign

I led the redesign of the UI across the Keynote, Pages and Numbers web apps — from design through implementation.

  • icloud.com
    The redesigned Text inspector in Pages on iCloud.com — paragraph styles, font and spacing

    Text Inspector

  • icloud.com
    The Page inspector in Pages on iCloud.com — background, headers and footers, and page numbering

    Page Inspector

  • icloud.com
    The redesigned Cell inspector in Numbers on iCloud.com — font, alignment and border controls

    Cell Inspector

  • icloud.com
    Keynote on iCloud.com with the shape library open and the Arrange inspector

    Arrange Inspector and Shape Library

Keynote Player

Designed and implemented multi-window Keynote player on web. Improved rendering of animations.

Users can now see next slide and presenter notes while presenting on web.

iCloud.com UI Components

I worked on the library of modern UI components shared across the iCloud.com apps, as well as web version of SF Symbols.

The iCloud.com sidebar — Recents, Browse, Shared and Recently Deleted — built from the shared UI component library and SF Symbols

AI in Productivity Apps

Contributed to shared AI features in Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Freeform and Pixelmator.

Everything shown here has shipped publicly.
Some of my favorite work hasn’t.
Happy to walk through it, and the released work in far more depth, in person.

Other Projects

Some of the side projects I have worked on.

Kotoba

Language learning app.

  • Kotoba app screenshot
  • Kotoba app screenshot
  • Kotoba app screenshot

maximal.photos

Photography website.

  • maximal.photos
    maximal.photos photo grid
  • maximal.photos
    maximal.photos umbrellas photo page

Photography

  • The Golden Gate Bridge’s north tower rising above the fog at sunrise

Events

I’ve photographed events and conferences at organizations such as Apple, Harvard, and Yale. My photos have been featured on various pages on apple.com and in Apple presentations.

  • Maxim presenting a CS50 lecture on stage at Harvard
  • Maxim presenting a CS50 lecture on stage at Harvard
  • Maxim presenting a CS50 lecture on stage at Harvard
  • developer.apple.com
    Apple.com webpage featuring Maxim’s photo

Languages

Each one is a new way of seeing the world, and of thinking differently.

Fluent in
English, French, Italian, Russian and Spanish
Conversational knowledge of
Catalan and Japanese
Past studies of
Dutch, German, Korean, Portuguese and Romanian
Maxim teaching a programming lecture to a class, C++ code projected on the screen behind him

Teaching

CS50 at Harvard

Teaching fellow at Harvard University from 2020 until 2022.

University of Michigan

Taught Introduction to Computer Science and Data Structures and Algorithms courses from 2014 until 2017.
Maxim teaching a class as students hold up large playing cards to demonstrate a sorting algorithm
Teaching sorting algorithms with large playing cards.

Résumé

Download PDF

Experience

Apple2017–Present

Senior Software Engineer

Productivity applications (Keynote, Pages, Numbers) on web, macOS and iOS. Contributions to Freeform, Pixelmator and iCloud.com.

Lead UI prototyping and development of web apps.

Implement and support features such as real-time collaboration, Keynote playback and AI image generation.

Migrate legacy frameworks to modern, open-source technologies.

Harvard University2020–2022

Teaching Fellow

CS50, Introduction to Computer Science.

Certificate of Distinction in Teaching
University of Michigan2013–2017

Teaching Assistant

EECS 183, Introduction to Computer Science.
EECS 281, Data Structures and Algorithms.

Outstanding Student Instructor Award

Research Assistant

Research in Spanish linguistics (phonetics and phonology).

Vivergy2015

Product Design & Engineering Intern

Designed and built parts of the frontend platform.

Created animations and graphics, and conducted user testing.

Education

University of Michigan2013–2017

Bachelor of Science

Studies in Romance languages and literatures, computer science and business administration.

Get in Touch

maximal@umich.edu
MailGmail
linkedin.com/in/maximaleksa