Who understands the architecture of Shift better than most? Meet Kiana, a software engineer at Shift.
She started in QA before moving into engineering, so she’s seen the product from both the testing side and the building side. Her setup reflects that mindset: practical, controlled, and built to reduce friction.
Here’s how she designed a browser that supports how she codes, debugs, and ships features every day.
Kiana’s setup at a glance
Spaces: Work (Primary), Personal, Testing, Secondary email
Apps: Gmail, Calendar, ChatGPT, Jira, GitHub, Spotify
Template: Original Shiftie, customized
Favorite detail: Opening links directly in apps to prevent tab sprawl
Check out Kiana’s Shift browser walk-through below:
Starting simple, then shaping it
When Kiana first downloaded Shift, she began with the Original Shiftie template. She explored what was possible, then reconfigured her layout to feel more natural.
She moved her Spaces to the top left, beside the search bar.
Bookmarks sit below.
Extensions and controls stay visible.
Apps live across the top.
It’s a classic structure, just rebuilt around her preferences.
Instead of adjusting to a fixed browser layout, she adjusted the layout to match how she thinks.
One primary Space, zero chaos
Her Primary Space is her engineering hub. It houses:
- Gmail
- Calendar
- ChatGPT
- Jira
- GitHub
- Spotify
Everything she touches daily lives here. But instead of opening 30 to 40 browser tabs, she opens tabs inside apps.
In Chrome, she admits she regularly had dozens of tabs open at once. Now, Jira tickets stay inside Jira. GitHub stays inside GitHub. Email stays inside Gmail.
It keeps the top bar clean and her context intact.
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Read MoreChatGPT across Spaces, with different roles
ChatGPT appears in nearly every Space, but she uses it differently depending on the context.
In her Work Space:
- Debugging bugs
- Sanity-checking logic
- Asking whether she’s approaching a problem correctly
- Keeping technical conversations grouped together
In her Personal Space:
- Weekend plans
- Casual questions
- General curiosity
Same tool. Separate identities. No crossover.
That clean separation matters when you’re switching between professional and personal thinking throughout the day.
Fast profile switching without friction
Kiana regularly jumps between her work and personal profiles. What she values most is how quickly she can switch without losing her place.
She can:
- Check work ChatGPT conversations
- Flip to personal email
- Jump back into Jira
- Switch into her Testing Space
No signing in and out. No multiple browsers. No mental reset.
It’s immediate.
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Read MoreThe underrated feature she relies on
Her pick: opening links directly in apps.
If she clicks a Jira ticket from somewhere else, it opens inside the Jira app, not as a floating browser tab.
That keeps everything grouped where it belongs. No stray tabs. No duplicated environments.
She also routes the same Spotify account into multiple Spaces, work, personal, and testing. One account, accessible everywhere, without creating separate instances.
It’s subtle, but it keeps her workflow consistent.
A dedicated Testing Space
As someone who builds and tests features, Kiana keeps a separate Space just for experimentation.
She uses it to:
- Play around with new setups
- Test flows
- Add or remove apps
That separation ensures her Primary Space remains stable and predictable, even when she’s experimenting elsewhere.
Her tip for anyone switching to Shift
If you’re making the move, import your default browser during onboarding.
For Kiana, that one step made the transition seamless. Her passwords were already there. Her bookmarks carried over. She didn’t have to reconstruct her setup or pause her workflow. She just opened Shift and kept working.
Built for builders
Kiana’s setup isn’t about aesthetics. It’s about control.
She replaced 40 scattered tabs with structured app environments. She separated work and personal identities instead of letting them blur together. And she created a dedicated Testing Space so experimentation never interferes with her primary workflow.
It’s exactly what you’d expect from a developer: clear contexts, fast switching, and minimal noise.
See what the fuss is all about and download Shift for free today.
