Future employer, is it really you??
I hope so 🤞 let's find out! These days I do design systems work (at Marriott). But I've got a rich background as a generalist designer at a small studio (Brunch), prototype-builder for UX research studies at a medium-size SaaS company (FiscalNote), and doing design ops serving a team of UXers at a biiiig enterprise organization (Gartner).
I'm not actively seeking a new position, but also my current gig is unlikely to be the last thing I ever add to my resume.
Maybe you're a hiring manager or recruiter interested in a poaching me? Maybe you're a designer who wants me on your team? Maaaaybe we should talk 👀
What I can do for you
Your Figma components could probably use some love. Variable collections too. Heck, your whole Figma file ecosystem. And you're paying how much for those licenses again? I can fix all that and craft documentation that consumers actually read and are grateful for. I'm also likely to be one of your engineers' favorite designers.
Design systems are personal. The approach I'll take to build a successful design system at your company won't be a cookie-cutter replica of what I've done it at previous companies. But a lot of it will probably rhyme! You can read more about my prior work on my portfolio and resume:
What your company can do for me
- Have non-men and non-white folks in leadership roles.
- Care about building a diverse team.
- Have other folks in my same discipline, ideally senior practitioners who are excited to mentor me.
- Resist shipping the org-chart, embrace shipping to help customers.
- Have product, design, UX research, and engineering teams that are eager to collaborate together.
- Have career advancement tracks for individual contributors (I am not interested in managing people as I level up in my career).
- Have professional development budgets for individual employees (eg. $2,000 per year to spend on courses, books, certifications, workshops, conferences, etc).
- Have an HR department.
- Run programs that combat burn-out and meeting fatigue (eg. summer-Fridays, no-meeting-days, monthly whole-company recharge days, 4-day work weeks, etc).
- Provide at least 20 days of vacation in addition to paid holidays (eg. New Years Day). Bonus points for companies that have open vacation policies and require employees meet a minimum amount of time off work each year (eg. 3 weeks). Extra bonus points for companies that give PTO for local and federal election days.
- Have sick-leave separate from vacation time. Also provide a parental leave program, medical plans that include gender affirming care, and 401K match.
- Offer a fully-remote position (even if I'm close to an office).
Shout out to my fellow AU alumnus, the wicked talented front-end engineer Ally Palanzi, for inspiring this webpage 💖
