We explore spintronics from a quantum information (QI) perspective. We show that QI specific methods can be an effective tool in designing new devices. Using the formalism of quantum gates acting on spin and mode degrees of freedom, we provide a solution to a reverse engineering problem, namely how to design a device performing a given transformation between input and output. Among these, we describe an orientable Stern-Gerlach device and a new scheme to entangle two spins by transferring the entanglement from orbital to spin degrees of freedom. Finally, we propose a simple scheme to produce hyper-entangle electrons, i.e., particles entangled in both spin and mode degrees of freedom.