Cascais, Lisbon, Portugal
I’m a professional designer with over 16 years of experience. For the past 7 years, my main focus has been growing more in lead and management roles. I have experience working in different domains such as automation, low-code and no-code platforms, fin-tech, travel, e-commerce, and healthcare, as well as managing big and small teams of awesome designers.
· Led design across the product surface at Workato, AI features, community library, onboarding flows, in-product walkthroughs, and recommendation systems. · Redesigned the product documentation website and product hub, extending PLG principles beyond the core product to support self-serve discovery and user activation. · Presented design strategy and work directly to CEO, CTO, and executive leadership, defending design decisions with data and rationale and successfully protecting vision through roadmap trade-offs. · Ran stakeholder sessions connecting design improvements to measurable business impact, building the case for design investment across product areas. · Designed and shipped AI-native product features, including a Copilot assistant, an intelligent knowledge tool (Sidekick/AssistIQ), and Genies, an autonomous AI agent system. · Managed a distributed globally remote design team improving delivery predictability and raising quality standards. · Established structured design operations: intake processes, cross-functional workflows, and clear prioritization frameworks aligned to business OKRs. · Expanded the Workato design system by introducing new patterns and broadening component coverage. · Co-created a design career framework with People Ops and HR; ran formal performance reviews and built individual growth plans for every designer on the team. · Hired designers in partnership with VP of Design, defining role requirements and leading candidate evaluation; managed underperformance and team restructuring through periods of growth and hiring freezes. · Partnered with a dedicated UX Research team to commission and incorporate research findings into design decisions across product streams.
· Inherited a design function with no processes, no design system, and no cross-functional relationships; built it into a structured 13-person team with full design operations within two years. · Held full hiring authority, sourcing, evaluating, and making final decisions on design hires; managed underperformance and restructured team composition as the product portfolio evolved. · Created a design leveling and career framework from scratch; promoted 4+ designers across levels and ran structured 1:1s and performance reviews. · Co-led pre-sales meetings and client workshops alongside PMs and account managers; design quality was explicitly cited by clients as a reason for awarding projects, directly contributing to business development. · Delivered projects for Visa, Mastercard, and McKinsey, managing client relationships and design expectations. · Built a modular design system architected, enabling the team to onboard new projects significantly faster. · Introduced a handoff system of state-coverage checklists and design annotations that reduced designer time spent supporting engineering queries from ~48 to ~16 hours per month. · Established a research practice: hired a dedicated researcher, introduced tooling (Hotjar, Maze), and embedded research findings into project kickoffs across all product streams. · Introduced design critique sessions, reviews, and work showcases, building a culture of craft and quality standards · Created and implemented accessibility standards and practices across all product work. · Defined the design team strategy and introduced a structured awards submission process, resulting in the RedDot Design Award 2020 for the Halyk Travel Mobile App.
· Led a team of 6 designers across multiple concurrent B2B and enterprise client projects, managing workload distribution and maintaining quality standards under tight delivery timelines. · Built design team processes from scratch, introducing structured workflows for project scoping, handoff, and client feedback that improved consistency across engagements. · Worked directly with international and US-based clients, running stakeholder workshops, requirements discovery sessions, and presenting design decisions to non-design audiences. · Defined product design strategy and user journey frameworks for SaaS and enterprise platforms.
· Managed a team of 17 UI designers across US and European time zones, standardizing processes, establishing shared component libraries, and maintaining output consistency at scale. · Delivered scalable design systems for major e-commerce platforms serving US and European enterprise clients, enabling faster onboarding of new brand and market requirements. · Worked directly with international client stakeholders, facilitating cross-functional workshops and aligning design decisions with business and commerce objectives. · Introduced shared UI component libraries and documentation practices that reduced duplication across projects and improved team-wide design velocity.