I believe a good designer is someone who can clearly define the problem statement, who is able to articulate every design decision that is made and can drive towards a common consensus within the team.
About
Innovative and knowledgeable product designer with expertise in strategic design thinking. Proficient in interpreting experience metrics and web analytics. Skilled in facilitation, collaboration, brainstorming, and mentoring teams. Demonstrated ability to excel in fast-paced, continuous delivery environments. Experienced in creating innovative and user-friendly product applications and features. Strong presentation, communication, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. Proficient in design tools such as Figma, Sketch, Photoshop, and Miro.
I’m based in Oakland, CA, but grew up in the city of Pune, India.
Experience
Staff Product Designer - Broadcom
(VMware was acquired by Broadcom in Nov. 2023)
Senior Product Designer VMware
September 2020 - Current
Tanzu Application Platform (TAP): Build, Ship and Secure Tools
- Lead the end-to-end (E2E) experience for three significant features within VMware TAP: Tanzu Supply Chain, Secure Tools, and Deploy. In this capacity, I work in close collaboration with other senior designer to meticulously define and craft these experiences, ensuring alignment with user needs and design best practices.
- Actively share UX best practices across the organization to elevate the user experience and promote a culture of design excellence.
- Contribute significantly to shaping the strategic direction of these features within the VMware Tanzu Application Platform, collaborating closely with cross-functional partners to navigate evolving technical landscapes, leverage emerging technologies, and facilitate learning and iteration.
- Play a pivotal role in mentoring fellow designers, actively contributing to the team's growth and scalability.
- Continually hone skills in visual design, interaction design, and prototyping to excel in delivering top-quality user experiences
Tanzu Application Platform
Virtual Storage Network (vSAN):
I delivered the end-to-end product experience for vSAN. My primary goal was to bring an outside-in perspective so that I could align and solve customer needs.
- Identified, synthesized, and vocalized customer needs to help drive the product roadmap with Product Management and other cross-functional partners (ex: Customer Zero and Global Support Services).
- Worked closely with Product Management and Engineering teams to develop design briefs outlining the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), conduct user testing, and iterate on design solutions tailored for our Virtual Infrastructure (VI) Administrators.
- Worked collaboratively with Product Management to define success metrics to enable a clear understanding of how the designs impacted both the customers and VMware goals.
- Collaborated with the Accessibility and Design System teams to make sure designs were scalable and flexible and that the prototypes aligned with VMware standards and best practices.
- Championed design critique events to get feedback on concepts and new ideas with extended product design teams.
- Mentored junior product designers to support design standards and principles. Diligently worked to educate and align these team members to the product and user goals.
UC Berkeley | UX Instructor (Part-Time) | Berkeley, CA
January 2020 – September 2020
I taught a semester of UX Bootcamp at UC Berkeley that covered the fundamentals of UX Research, Design, and Testing.
Senior Product Designer – Mode Analytics
2019
I was hired to bring my design thinking to the access control part of the product at Mode. My goals were to uncover unmet customer needs and to identify existing gaps in the product design process.
- Conducted a heuristic analysis of existing products to understand product gaps.
- Reviewed existing customer research and sat in on various customer calls to better understand the end-user needs.
- Championed the creation of a 'Proactive Design Board' consisting of designers, product members, and engineers to discuss work items. Facilitated bi-weekly meetings with this group to advance project deliverables.
- Defined the framework requirements with stakeholders for RBAC (Role-Based Access Control). Encouraged multiple discussions with key players to talk about the bigger picture of how RBAC fits into the regular usage of Mode critical functionality across the wider customer ecosystem.
Principal Product Designer – Panasonic Company
2018 - 2019
I worked for a startup within Panasonic, and I brought a human-centered lens to the design of Machine Learning AI products. I collaborated with business stakeholders and the CEO to understand the high-level strategy the company needed to take with Panasonic so that I could align my product design goals accordingly.
- Facilitated user research to expose customer insights, needs, & pain points.
- Conducted design thinking workshops with product management, data scientists, & engineering members to vet out design ideas.
- Constructed customer journey maps through collaboration with extended teams.
- Built product release prioritization based on the product vision roadmap along with the product management team.
- Defined and tracked product success KPIs along with the product management team.
- Built, reviewed, and socialized designs with stakeholders and cross-functional team members.
- Developed click-through detailed wireframes in Sketch and Invision based on sprint deliverable requirements.
- Collaborated with user researchers to help get validation on designs.
- Collaborated with the visual and brand designers at Panasonic to build a design system.
Principal Product Designer – Calix Systems
2017 - 2018
I was hired as Principal UX to bridge the gap between product engineering and product management. By facilitating communication between business and product management and by speaking with the customers, I was able to help define the product design strategy by understanding their goals, pain points, and expectations. As a designer, I helped to visualize solutions for management by conducting design workshops and then I brought these design visions into practice. I also helped instill the UX agile workflows into the existing agile development process.
Lead Product Designer – Cisco Systems
2013 - 2017
Led projects for the network security business group. The challenge with Cisco’s network security products was to bring the intense data-focused product together with a user-friendly UI that allowed the 'Threat Investigator' (user group) to complete their tasks in a minimalistic, intuitive, & efficient manner. To achieve this goal, I tapped into ‘Data Visualization’, which was a very unique approach in our domain.
Product Designer – Western Union
2011 - 2013
Working for Western Union was very challenging because it required that I introduce new ideas to an established 160+-year-old company. A big portion of my job was collaborating cross-functionally with various department leads to understand their part of the business and their pain points. One of the things I am most proud of is that I was able to analyze the VOC (Voice of Customer) data from various channels and built a quarterly scorecard, which helped the product teams prioritize items on their roadmap.
Product Designer – eBay
2009 - 2011
Worked closely with 2 cross-functional teams at eBay as the lead UX. My goal was to work closely with product management to facilitate the understanding of requirements, connect with the research team, and understand the user needs so that I could define the design vision and success KPIs for these projects. I then worked with the offshore design teams to develop the interaction design and visual design components. Along the way, it was necessary to communicate and socialize these design concepts between everyone on the product management, engineering, and extended UX teams.
Product Designer – Cognizant, India
2008 - 2009
Cognizant hired me to establish a formal UX team in Pune, India. That work entailed both hiring and mentoring a team of designers across several locations. I was responsible for establishing the UX processes there and for the planning and rollout of the onsite-offshore UX work.
Achievements
Patent Filed 2023
Health Evaluation For A Distributed Storage System: VMware
UX Instructor
University of Berkeley
Published
Lectured At
IIT Kanpur - User Experience Design in the Real Industry
Recognition
Best Innovative Idea - Cisco's Yearly Technology Competition
Articles Published
‘Usability in Technical Writing’ (Not Linked)
Currently Learning
Reading
Creativity Inc. (By Amy Wallace and Edwin Catmull)
Listening To
High Resolution
Google Design Podcast
Contact Me
919 - 802 - 0434
rajmirajkar@gmail.com