Est. 2013
Portrait of Paul Sabandal

Paul Sabandal

Design engineer · Makati, Philippines

I design and I code. I’ve worked at two YC-funded startups, Rally Video and now Hotglue, where I design and build the product. On the side, I’m on a mission with Jarvisa to help Filipinos with their visa applications.

Email me · LinkedIn

What I launched recently

  • Jarvisa

    Visa prep for Filipino travelers: a Japan visa form wizard, cover letters and 396 guides. Peerlist Project of the Week.

    Live

  • Subwise

    Track renewals and monthly spend, with reminders before each charge. On iPhone and iPad.

    App Store

Experience

Thirteen years in, ten of them in product design, mostly as the first or only designer.

  1. Jan 2026 – Now

    Design engineer at HotglueS21

    Designing and building the product in React, from the integrations dashboard to the embeddable connector widget.

  2. Feb 2022 – Jan 2026

    Product designer at HotglueS21

    Only product designer for three years. Owned the core dashboard design, redesigned the website, and made the visuals for launches, blog posts, demos and investor decks.

  3. Jun 2021 – Jan 2022

    Product designer / front-end engineer at Rally VideoS20

    Designed event creation, hosting and attendee flows, working directly with the CEO and iterating on user feedback.

  4. Dec 2020 – Jul 2021

    Head of product design at 4Gives

    Ran design sprints, research and testing for underserved markets, and set up a modular design system.

  5. Nov 2018 – Jul 2021

    Head of product design at Qwikwire

    Led a team of designers and interns. Built and rolled out the AQWIRE design system with marketing and engineering.

Short bio

Paul Sabandal smiling outside 焼肉 多平, a small yakiniku restaurant on a side street in Japan, under its green noren curtain
Outside 焼肉 多平, Japan

Paul Sabandal is a design engineer in Makati, Philippines who designs and builds software, from product design to React front-ends. Paul is a design engineer at Hotglue (Y Combinator S21), a platform for embedding native SaaS integrations, after three years there as the only product designer. Before that: product designer and front-end engineer at Rally Video (Y Combinator S20), head of product design at 4Gives, and first designer, then head of product design, at Qwikwire, where Paul built the AQWIRE design system. It all started in 2013 with a front-end internship, then two years writing Ruby on Rails. On the side, Paul builds Subwise, an iOS subscription tracker, and Jarvisa, a visa prep tool that gets Filipinos past the paperwork and into places like a back-alley yakiniku spot in Japan. Paul studied at Quezon City University. Focus areas: product design, design systems, React front-ends, marketing sites and launch visuals.

Contact

Email is the fastest way to reach me.

Email me

I’m also on LinkedIn.