I have worked in multiple industries and roles since my very first job shredding paper at a medical billing company at 14 years old.
Each one, yes even shredding, contributed to who I am as a designer and product person today.
Take a read of my professional and volunteer experiences to get a better sense of who I am as a person and product designer.
Or look at my standard resume. Up to you.
I have worked in multiple industries and roles since my very first job shredding paper at a medical billing company at 14 years old.
Each one, yes even shredding, contributed to who I am as a designer and product person today.
Take a read of my professional and volunteer experiences to get a better sense of who I am as a person and product designer. To read in chronological order, read tabs volunteering → college → early career → ux contracts → BondLink.
Or look at my standard resume. Up to you.
You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot―it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.
Last update: December 2024
I'm the head of design in an advisory role for a pre-seed startup company called Tatala. All information at this time is confidential, but if you're in the aerospace industry or an accredited investor, keep an eye out!
I'm also seeking a full-time role and part-time advisory opportunities. Email me to set something up!
Last update: September 2024
I began working for BondLink in October 2018 on a design team of two, working directly with the director of UX product design. BondLink caters to the incredibly esoteric, convoluted industry of public finance and municipal bonds, by helping muni bond issuers connect with investors.
Though I had experience in personal finance, public finance was a completely different beast. Much of the work was honestly the most challenging design task I've faced, because the intricacies and nuances of the municipal bond sector are never ending.
When I joined the team, our primary tasks were to redesign the existing offerings⏤the corporate site, the issuer platform, and the investor platform⏤from the ground up. We created the design system from scratch, and for a little under two years, embarked on a rigorous journey of research, user interviews and usability studies, and countless iterations on the UI. First, we launched the corporate site. Then, we launched the first half of the issuer platform, followed by the investor platform, and finally the second half of the issuer platform.
The first large scale project that I took on as the lead designer was the redesign of the investor portal. That project was jam packed with obstacles, constraints, mistakes, and most importantly, learnings that I detail in my case study.
This new update is AWESOME! So much better!
— Real investor user in an email to a former marketing employee
I know that quote sounds fake, but it's real, I swear. I do not have access to the person who sent that email back in 2019 so I couldn't ask to use their name.
By 2020, we on the tech team at BondLink had completed the main goal of redesigning and enhancing the main offerings for the company. Now it was time to build completely new products and new features and expand our reach in the market.
At this time, I was promoted to senior product designer. After the Investor Portal project, where I led the UX strategy and the rest of the design process from discovery to handoff, I proved that I was closer to a partner than a junior employee.
I was her manager, but her role quickly grew to feel like a partnership where we worked together to completely overhaul every aspect of BondLink's product suite.
— Michael Histen, my mentor and boss at BondLink
The first large scale product for BondLink I designed that was completely new, not a redesign, was Debt Data. Over the next four years, Debt Data would become one of BondLink's most utilized and appreciated products, with over 80% of customers opting in to using it, as it went through iterations of innovative features that you can read about in detail in my case study.
In 2022, it won the award for Best Data Initiative by US Fintech Awards (Wayback Machine's archived page in case the past award winners pages are taken off the award site).
In January 2023, BondLink had their first round of layoffs, and in an effort to compensate for the lost talent, I took on some work in Product Management in addition to my full-time role as senior UX product designer. I already had brief experience with a fusion of UX and product management at my previous company, Cinch Financial. The design and product team combined to create the product vision department.
The creative part of product management was a smooth transition and addition to my current workload. It was getting closer to the business side that was newer, but it allowed me to put what I learned at Northeastern in my business classes into practice. However, I received my degree in 2016, so to develop my education, I began to take online courses and earned a few product management certificates on Coursera.
As a PM, I elevated my strategy and research skills, as well as improved my ability to collect data, track outcomes, and iterate based on data-driven decisions. One of the features I owned was a feature called deal tracking (case study) that increased customer goals by 70%.
Unfortunately, BondLink had a second round of layoffs, and after almost exactly six years, my journey with them came to an end. They reduced the team by 50%, and the design department was cut. I am immensely grateful for the knowledge and experience gained--as a professional, I grew up there. One of my products won an award, and I acquired a new skill in product management. Now, I'm back on the job market and ready for a new challenge!
I was a UX advisor on a team of 4 designers for the City of Boston's Department of Innovation & Technology. Over the course of almost three months, we worked on two parts of their site. My role was focused on information architecture, user interface design, prototyping, and usability testing.
The first project we did on boston.gov was part of our coursework in the GA UXDI program. Typically, the project ends at the end of the course, however, our group was asked to stay on for another project on the City's budget website.
I contracted for a few weeks with Cinch Financial before they asked me to join the team full time. Cinch aimed to provide a personal advisor/pocket CFO with unbiased, comprehensive financial advice to everyone. There, my team tackled the beast of personal finance and behavioral economics with solutions that were data-driven and user-centered, grounded in reality but always thinking ahead for progress. We did not simply help users budget. We wanted to help change behaviors and break harmful mental models around personal finance ideas, concepts, and habits.
The design team balanced being focused on thinking big and conceptually into the future and ensuring we stayed on track on our roadmap each sprint. I worked on cross-functional teams of designers, developers, product managers, copywriters, data scientists, and business analysts within an agile framework to implement and ship designs sprint-to-sprint. My boss was the head of both UX and Product, so I was lucky to dip my toes in product strategy and direction under smart, experienced leaders.
After four months, Cinch closed its doors after an unfortunate deal that fell through at the very end of September 2018.
As a side hustle, I started to freelance and take on clients part time. I currently manage a few websites and have built them all with Webflow. I started with a home building company called TLC Home Builders that launched in 2019, and took on two more over the next few years.
This was my first "real job" out of college. I worked at Workbar, a coworking space with nearly 10 locations in Massachusetts. I managed the space by facilitating a warm, collaborative, fun, and productive environment for our members. This included managing partnerships with local businesses and groups, writing location-specific performance documents, analyzing reports on the budget, P&L statements, and churn and retention, selling memberships, planning events, collecting member feedback, and day-to-day operational tasks like making coffee and ordering supplies. After one year, I was promoted to senior community manager.
This is where I met C. Todd Lombardo, who was the Head of UX, the first Product and UX hire for the company. That's where I learned about CX and UX. I made the initiative to show interest in that work, which led to helping C. Todd on research and information architecture projects. Because our company's primary value prop was physical coworking spaces, a lot of the job fell under customer experience, research, and wayfinding.
The two projects I helped on that solidified my interest in UX and helped me make the decision to switch was the digitization of new membership signups and an evaluative research project.
Workbar was still signing up new members with pen and paper and billing manually through a third party. I assisted with designing the forms by determining what information we needed to get from new members, and labeling what information was optional and what was required. Then I collected feedback from the rollout, organizing notes and learnings from the form to turn into tweaks and enhancements.
The second project was my first taste of being a UX researcher. I conducted user interviews, surveys, and small focus groups to gather feedback on any improvements we could make to the space, membership, and overall experience at Workbar.
I made the decision to leave Workbar and pursue UX by enrolling in General Assembly's User Experience Immersive Certification Program. I informed Workbar six months before, so I could help find a replacement and train them. That happened quickly, but there were still a few months left until I was going to leave. I joined the sales team by becoming a Business Development Associate.
The transition was very smooth because sales was already a large part of my job as a community manager. I learned how marketing and sales work together, how to use social media to promote the business and spread brand awareness, how important a company website is as the first impression to potential customers, how to negotiate and craft deals on an individual basis to land the sale, and how to use events for sales and marketing purposes. Event planning was another significant part of my work as a community manager, but the goal was member fun. As a business development associate, I discovered how to plan events that will bring in external interest for new memberships and business partnerships.
I enrolled in General Assembly's UX Design Immersive (UXDI), a 10-week long training program dedicated to give students a deep dive into the world of user experience design, focusing on design tools and best practices. The program was a mix of theory and practice, with our days filled with classes, workshops, and individual and group projects.
I was on a team of four that helped the City of Boston with important task flows on their website. The City noticed many people were complaining through various methods that certain tasks, namely paying a parking ticket, were hard to do on the website. Our team investigated the issue and suggested a reorganization of the page, as people were finding the payment page, but abandoning the task.
We collaborated on all the tasks, however, my main duties were ideation and prototyping. Additionally, I was the client liaison and writer for the case study on boston.gov. Here's a link to a snapshot of the page on archive.today, just in case.
I was on a team of three that designed conceptual features for food & drink services in-flight within Delta Airlines’ existing mobile app for iOS. My role was focused on target user identification, user flows, usability testing, and ensuring our designs were aligned with the brand by studying Delta's design system.
I designed a medium-fidelity prototype for an e-commerce platform for the vintage shop, Bobby from Boston, to be implemented into their existing website. I focused on nailing down information architecture and user flows, but worked on the process from research to presentation of platform. Bobby from Boston is a legend in the clothing space, and the founder, Bobby, unfortunately passed a couple years prior to my project. Like many vintage and bespoke clothiers, they have had a difficult time allocating resources to implementing an online shopping experience.
I designed a mobile application concept for iOS that allows users to create their own digital business cards, share those cards with others, and store digital business cards they’ve received. I worked on the whole process from research to prototype v.1 and focused on rapid ideation and iteration based on feedback gathered during usability testing.
In 2014, my friend Rita approached me with an idea: daily music "takeovers" for the people, by the people--a new DJ each day you might personally know playing snippets of what they're listening to on the Coterie's Snapchat account. If you were a listener, you could do a takeover. It was a way for regular people to share music they love with others.
We were a music discovery focused TikTok before TikTok was TikTok, before it was even Musical.ly, and before Musical.ly even existed!
Rita was the brains of the operation, and I was lucky to be along for the ride. It was a side project, something we did after schoolwork and our jobs. We handled every aspect ourselves: social media marketing, grassroots marketing, operations and coordination, and basic graphic design.
I was a security guard at the House of Blues from 2012 - 2016. I was the personal green room security guard for Common in 2013. I held a cake while he, his friends and family, and I sang happy birthday to his friend. He put his arm around me. That's all you need to know about my time at HoB.
I also was promoted to trainer and merchandise representative, getting to work with and settle up merch sales for numerous acts and learn some business tactics. But really, the Common thing is the takeaway.
I went to Northeastern University, where we spent half the year in the field doing internships and the other half of the year in class. I love music, and I originally thought I wanted to be an Artist & Repertoire Representative for a music label or in publishing and licensing. I did internships with Universal Republic Records in New York City and Harvest Records in Boston, learning a lot about the music business. Coupled with my experience in the live music industry at House of Blues, I learned enough to know that the New York City is one of the places on earth where magic is real and the music industry is wild in the good way and the bad way. It was not for me. I wanted to keep music as something I loved, and I never wanted it to be a chore. I still received my B.S. in music and business, with a minor in creative writing.
As a designer, though, I would love to work on a music project one day.
I was actually a paid tutor at YDIP for 5 years, but after I graduated, I went back to help tutor and run activities on a volunteer basis. YDIP was a Northeastern program that aimed to prepare high school students in Boston for college by introducing them a campus environment early on in their educational career, provide tutoring and educational programming resources, and emotionally support social and cultural changes as they arise.
I have spoken at two Boston-based events for women in tech about my work and experiences in the industry. In 2019, I was on a now-defunct podcast speaking about the challenges of switching careers, giving advice on how to break into tech and specifically, product design. I also went back to General Assembly to speak to students about what to expect after completing the immersive program and provide guidance. Though definitely helpful for networking in my career, I volunteered at each of these things.
In 2022, my wife and I volunteered to be organizers for the Boston chapter of the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society for their annual event called The Big Climb. My wife was on the board, and I was a fundraiser and recruited my company at the time, BondLink, to be a sponsor. At the event, we climbed over 60 flights of stairs. I thought my years on the track team would help me. They didn't. But one of my co-workers came in second place in the whole race!
For almost five years from 2018 to 2022, I mentored a young woman who was 16 at the time we were matched through a program called Silver Linings Mentoring. From their website, "Community Based Mentoring pairs youth impacted by foster care ages seven and older with a one-to-one volunteer mentor for a minimum of one year... Mentors meet young people in the communities where they live for at least eight hours a month, engaging in activities that encourage skills development and build strong relationships... For many youth, their mentors are the only consistent adults in their lives who are not paid to spend time with them."
It was that last fact, "For many youth, their mentors are the only consistent adults in their lives who are not paid to spend time with them," that drew me to the program. My mentee and I did things like go apple picking, play board games, see movies, look for jobs, and run errands together.
Additionally, I volunteered as a mentor at two of SLM's Learn and Earn programs, 12-week programs that provide life skills training. During Learn and Earns, I met with youth, other volunteers, and SLM staff every week for two hours to work on skills such as budgeting, resume-writing, banking, financial literacy, interview skills and more. The youth earned a stipend for each curriculum component they successfully completed, allowing them to build assets to support their transition to adulthood.
In 2019, BondLink's Head of Product secured the opportunity to partner with a local STEM non-profit, The Young People’s Project (TYPP), to host 2 high school students for a six week summer internship. I volunteered to be the initiative's second in command, helping the student interns with anything they needed and facilitating their interactions with each department.
The students wrote short pieces detailing the work they did, their obstacles, their learnings, and their next steps. At the end, they had a case study that put together those pieces and discussed what they enjoyed and why; something they could bring to their future professional and academic experiences and begin their portfolios/collections of work.
I know this might be bragging, but they found most of the work boring, until I introduced them to UX ideation workshops like affinity diagramming. That was one of the only activities during which they didn't glance at the phones in their bags in a "miss you" type way.
I went to a catholic high school that had a volunteer program called "One Day." Before a student could graduate with their diploma, they had to complete one full day of volunteer work. Not consecutively, of course. 24 hours over a period of four years. I started there, where I was forced to volunteer (is that still volunteering?), and continued to participate in my communities.
As a high school senior, I applied to be a group leader in a leadership and community building camp called Camp Champagne. It was one of those experiences that puts a warm pang in my stomach when I reflect on it, because it is such a fond memory that I wish I could go back to and re-live.
I signed up for a community service program called nuSERVES the summer going into my freshman year of college. I did it originally to be able to move into the dorm early and pick the best bed, but I fell in love with it.
The following year, I applied to be a group leader of the program and was accepted.
