Employment
Robin Powered
Director of Product Design (01/2024–Present)
I lead the design team and am responsible for ensuring quality design work is delivered by every designer on every project. I also guide career development for my team, find opportunities for them to grow their skills and contributions to the company and their scrum teams, and push the strategic possibilities of a cohesive product design approach across all of our product surfaces.
Senior Design Manager (09/2023–01/2024)
Responsible for managing/mentoring 2 designers and leading design efforts for a company strategic pillar, aligning multiple scrum teams and keeping design efforts cohesive across all involved teams.
Lead Product Designer (02/2023–09/2023)
Responsible for supporting ongoing feature development with a scrum team by leading early stage research, design ideation, user testing, and feature refinement/design handoff. Also responsible for mentoring designers within the team and pushing strategic design initiatives forward outside my scrum team.
DEPT®
Principal Product Designer (02/2021–02/2023)
- Led a team of internal and client designers in the ongoing evolution of an end-to-end commercial real estate lending platform for a major financial services firm.
- Responsible as a design liaison for our largest client, contributing to daily decisions on design staffing, direction and strategy.
- Served as direct people manager for two internal designers, with additional mentoring responsibilities for other designers.
Senior Product Designer (01/2020–02/2021)
- Led a design team in redesigning a major wealth management platform for one of the top brokerage firms in the world.
- Created, maintained and evangelized a design component library to assure designer/developer alignment across a 5+ squad client product org.
- Mentored junior designers in their progression as new employees and their development as product design experts.
Virgin Pulse
UX Manager (11/2018–01/2020)
- Created a recruitment and hiring workflow that allowed us to quickly find and hire 4 junior designers for our growing team.
- Refined the hiring workshop process for senior-level UX design hires leading to 4 new senior designers.
- Mentored junior designers and new design managers in adjusting to their roles and responsibilities.
Senior UX Designer (03/2018–10/2018)
- Identified UI consistency and quality issues and implemented our first shared design system to address them.
- Eliminated quality bottlenecks in the design-to-production process for a more consistent experience for users of our platform.
- Contributed primarily to projects known for tight deadlines, tricky stakeholder issues, or complicated competing priorities.
East Coast Product
Director of Product Design & Strategy (06/2016–03/2018)
- Created and led a team of product designers.
- Implemented new design processes for a lean software product team.
- Guided UX strategy initiatives internally and on client projects.
Fresh Tilled Soil
Director of AUX (10/2014–06/2016)
- Executed a complete overhaul of curriculum for a UX apprenticeship program.
- Created a new recruitment initiative resulting in a 6x increase in applicants.
- Graduated ~40 UX apprentices positions in the Boston area and beyond.
UX Strategist (01/2014–06/2016)
- Led strategy, research and planning on client projects.
- Led a team of UI designers and front-end developers in implementation.
- Pursued new strategic initiatives with clients and internally.
UX/UI Designer & Front-End Developer (01/2012–01/2014)
- Conducted research, interviews and usability testing for client projects.
- Created and iterated on UX/UI work for client projects.
- Developed front-end code for prototypes, applications and sites.
Thoughtbot, Inc.
Design Apprentice (10/2011–01/2012)
- Assisted with design/development of client projects.
- Designed and built event marketing page for a small tech conference.
- Studied startup technologies and processes.
Vistaprint, Inc.
Graphic Designer, Web Creative (01/2011–10/2011)
- Created mockups and assets for Vistaprint.com.
- Redesigned product flows to improve user experience.
- Designed and developed social media properties.
Junior Graphic Designer, Retention Marketing (07/2009–12/2010)
- Designed/developed HTML emails and created production standards.
- Iterated on existing email campaigns to improve engagement metrics.
- Created campaigns for Facebook/Twitter and improved engagement metrics.
Production Artist, Retention Marketing (06/2008–06/2009)
- Created and maintained company standards for HTML email development.
- Designed and developed HTML email campaigns to engage existing customers.
- Altered existing email campaigns to improve engagement metrics.
Intern, Marketing (06/2007–08/2007)
- Developed and validated HTML emails.
- Created direct mail print campaigns.
- Reorganized product image database.
Campus Design at UMass Dartmouth
Lead Designer (05/2007–05/2008)
- Managed staff of designers, marketers and office help.
- Monitored schedules and budgets on all projects.
- Responsible for creative output of the entire team.
Designer (09/2006–04/2007)
- Designed posters and collateral for campus organizations.
- Maintained and ran wide-format printer and other physical production assets.
Education
- Attended UMass Dartmouth, Class of 2008.
- Received a BFA in Graphic Design & Letterform.
- Graduated Summa Cum Laude with a GPA of 3.862.
Skills
- User experience design & strategy: Advanced
- Interaction/UI design: Advanced
- Information architecture: Advanced
- User research and usability testing: Advanced
- Visual design/typography: Advanced
- HTML and CSS: Advanced
- Javascript/jQuery: Intermediate
Other
- Guest lecturer/instructor/critic at Lesley University, General Assembly, Startup Institute, Girl Develop It, and Launch Academy.
- Speaker at Future of Web Design NYC 2013/2015 and Future Insights Live 2014/2015 conferences.
- Published in Net Magazine/Creative Bloq and Smashing Magazine.