Product Design Leader With Technical Roots

20 times
Growth at Tribute: 0 to 1
Products shipped

I'm a Colorado-based product designer and developer with technical roots and grit. I work end to end, from research through shipped frontend, turning complex product problems into interfaces that hold up under real use.

It started with shampoo bottles.

Late 1980s. First the bath, then the shower.

I'd turn the bottle over. Study the label, the cap, the curve of it. Decide what I'd change.

Then I’d pitch my redesign out loud — to a boardroom of nobody.

I didn’t know “designer” was a job yet.

I just knew I couldn’t leave things alone.

Capabilities

The full range I bring across a product, from first research to the frontend that ships it.

Design

Product strategy
Design systems
Design tokens
Design sprints
Rapid prototyping
Accessibility
iOS & responsive
Figma
Framer
Webflow
Design mentorship

Engineering

Frontend architecture
TypeScript
JavaScript
React
Vue
Tailwind
HTML
CSS / SCSS
Git
REST APIs
Performance optimization

Research & growth

UX research
Qualitative research
Usability testing
A/B testing
Conversion optimization
Growth design
User journey mapping
JTBD
User activation & retention
Lean UX
PostHog
GA4

AI & leadership

AI-native workflows
LLM-powered design
Claude Code
Cursor
Cross-functional leadership
Roadmap planning
Agile / Scrum
Early-stage startups

Selected work

Tribute V3

Re-architecting a decade-old platform

Ten years of band-aids, rebuilt in three months by a team of four — with functioning code as the deliverable instead of Figma files.

Client

Tribute V3

Role

Head of Product Design

Year

2025
Tribute Recording Flow

Doubling submissions on a core flow

The interaction twenty million submissions pass through — rebuilt from 33% completion to 66.58%, by treating infrastructure as a conversion problem.

Client

Tribute Recording Flow

Role

Head of Product Design

Year

2024
Tribute.co

Rebuilding a product through 20× growth

Hired the team, built the system, and rebuilt every user-facing surface — while revenue went from $250K a year to $700K a month.

Client

Tribute.co

Role

Director of Product Design

Year

2020
Tribute Greetings

Launching a new product on three platforms

A 0→1 product built from scratch in eight months — validated with 300 research participants, then deliberately made smaller.

Client

Tribute Greetings

Role

Director of Product Design

Year

2022
Peterson's Test Prep

Making test prep work on a phone

Two native apps, 185 courses, four months from ideation to launch — 4.6 stars and 10,000+ downloads in the first week.

Client

Peterson's Test Prep

Role

Design Lead

Year

2020
Hive Design System

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Client

Hive Design System

Role

Design Lead

Year

Coming soon

How I work now

I prototype in code, with agents

Notion as the hub for every tool, briefs written for Claude Code, taste passes with Impeccable, structure from Relume, and where Figma still fits.

How I work with AI

About me

Where design meets code, and teams do their best work

A stack of design and development books: The Design of Everyday Things, Don't Make Me Think, Grid Systems, and more

I came up doing both design and development, two disciplines that rarely sit in one person. Somewhere along the way it clicked that I could do more by improving how a team thinks than by executing faster myself.

Learn more about how I lead

Experience

Nearly twenty years across design and code

From Apple's bench to leading product design at Tribute, most of it spent living on both sides of the design and engineering line.

See the full story

- Led a cross-functional team of six designers and engineers through a full redesign and rebuild of Tribute’s platform, remaining hands-on across product strategy, complex workflows, and prototyping while delivering a scalable product that supported 20x growth in two years.
- Established the design system, critique rituals, and standards the team built against; mentored designers, converted designs into production-ready TypeScript, and directed engineering partners to ship reliably, making UX quality a shared responsibility.
- Integrated customer interviews, usability testing, A/B testing, and analytics into the design process, improving core funnels and lifting key conversion metrics by up to 50%.
- Directed the integration of an acquisition in six months, resolving critical issues across system compatibility and UX while reducing operational costs by nearly 50%.
- Drove the design and partnered with engineering to ship two native iOS apps and AI-enabled product experiences from concept to release, including conversational workflows, human-in-the-loop controls, error recovery, and iterative evaluation.
- Led a team of four designers and frontend developers across web and mobile, introducing research-driven practices and a scalable design system that improved development speed and product consistency.
- Built and launched a mobile app from concept to App Store release in six months, earning a 4.6-star rating, 90%+ positive reviews, and 10,000+ downloads.
- Redesigned core LMS workflows through usability testing and iterative prototyping, simplifying critical tasks and reducing friction across the experience.
- Droplr: Built a custom WordPress Multisite platform, brand guide, and design system, increasing organic traffic by 115% and raising Lighthouse scores to 98/100.
- ETHDenver: Achieved 96% CSAT by leading design and development across the event platform, integrating promotional sites, forms, scheduling tools, and social media.
- Inspirato: Drove acquisition of 4,000+ members for the Inspirato x Amex joint venture, with 25% converting in the first six months, and launched the brand’s blog and content platform.
- Delivered 15+ client websites using user-centered, responsive design, earning 2 Communicator Awards for excellence in visual design and engagement.
- Managed simultaneous projects across multiple client accounts, balancing frequent stakeholder meetings, shifting priorities, and tight deadlines in a fast-moving agency environment.
- Led interactive design for over 10 major tourism brands, overseeing high-traffic websites and mobile experiences with tens of millions of annual pageviews.
- Directed key digital projects, including the Colorado.com redesign and the award-winning 5-Minute Meeting Planner.
- Provided technical consultation on Apple products, troubleshooting hardware and software issues and translating complex technical concepts for non-technical customers.