Hi, I'm
Tristan Russell.
Product manager by day.
Builder of honest software by night.
I work at Expedia Group leading platform product strategy, and I run Tristan Builds — an independent studio making apps that respect the people using them.
About
A bit about me
I'm a product manager and software engineer based in London. I studied Computer Science at the University of Bath, and I've spent the last few years figuring out how to make travel better at Expedia Group — from making our apps faster to rethinking how people discover destinations.
Outside of my day job, I build apps under my own brand, Tristan Builds. The short version: I got tired of apps that treat users like revenue streams, so I started making ones that don't.
When I'm not at a screen, you'll find me travelling, exploring new food spots, or trying to convince myself that a 7am gym session is a good idea.
Day job
Product Manager III, Platform
Expedia Group, London
Side project
Tristan Builds
Independent software studio
Education
BSc Computer Science
University of Bath
Focus areas
Performance, AI, Dev Experience
Web vitals, A/B testing, product strategy
Want to chat about product, software, or anything in between?
Career
Where I've worked
Product Manager III, Platform
Expedia Group / London
Driving product strategy for the UI platform behind 100M+ monthly visitors across Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo — from configurable components and design tokens to end-to-end web performance and AI enablement.
Product Manager II, Shopping
Expedia Group / London
Drove product strategy for Expedia's property and packages pages, delivering a major app re-architecture with double-digit performance improvements. Pioneered configurable UI frameworks and AI-driven destination content.
Product Manager I
Expedia Group / London
Joined through the competitive graduate programme. Optimised the travel agent shopping experience on Expedia's TAAP platform and executed 10+ experiments in the consumer shopping funnel.
Software Development Placement
DoodleLearning / Bath
Full-stack web development placement building educational technology products with modern web frameworks and cloud infrastructure.
Education
University of Bath
BSc Computer Science
2017 - 2022Tristan Builds
Honest software from a real person.
Tristan Builds is a one-person independent software studio making apps that respect the people using them. In a market saturated with apps designed to manipulate attention and extract money through friction, I occupy the opposite position.
Others
"Free to download, monetised through friction. Ads between rounds, lives systems, subscription walls."
Tristan Builds
"Free at the core, honest about what costs money. The basics are always free. Premium features are worth paying for."
Values that ship
These aren't aspirational statements. They're constraints.
Honesty
We say what things cost before you commit. No hidden limits, no bait-and-switch.
Respect
Users give us their time. We don't manufacture urgency or exploit loss aversion.
Restraint
We build what the product needs, not everything we could add.
Durability
Apps should improve over time, not degrade to extract more value.
The vision is simple: build software that people trust — because it earns it.
tristanbuilds.com →Projects
Things I've built
Just Sudoku
Sudoku the way it should be. No ads. No nonsense. Just the puzzle.
A clean, ad-free Sudoku app that proves honest software works. Classic and Killer Sudoku modes, built with care and shipped without dark patterns. The basics are free — forever. Premium features are genuine additions, not features held back to charge for later.
More projects on the way. Each one built with the same promise: honest, respectful, durable.
Connect
Let's connect.
Always happy to chat about product, software, or anything in between.