UX + Product Design Leadership
UX Leader Designing Complex Products That Scale
I lead design at the intersection of product strategy, research, and engineering to solve complex problems and deliver measurable business impact.
20 years experience across consumer, B2B, and internal platforms.
Bridging product, research, and engineering to drive outcomes.
Trusted to lead ambiguous, high-stakes work.
Selected Work

Product Strategy, Research & Delivery · Consumer Platform

Re-architected a highly complex product detail experience to support scale, variation, and long-term growth.

Aligned product, engineering, and platform partners to resolve systemic constraints and deliver a flexible foundation under real-world business and technical limits.

Product Strategy, Research & Delivery · Consumer Platform

Re-architected a highly complex product detail experience to support scale, variation, and long-term growth.

Aligned product, engineering, and platform partners to resolve systemic constraints and deliver a flexible foundation under real-world business and technical limits.

0→1 Platform Design, Strategy & Delivery · B2B Stealth Startup

Defined interaction paradigms and system architecture for a cloud-based 3D collaboration platform built from zero to one.

Partnered directly with founders and senior engineers to shape product vision, validate core concepts, and establish direction in a constrained, early-stage environment.

0→1 Platform Design, Strategy & Delivery · B2B Stealth Startup

Defined interaction paradigms and system architecture for a cloud-based 3D collaboration platform built from zero to one.

Partnered directly with founders and senior engineers to shape product vision, validate core concepts, and establish direction in a constrained, early-stage environment.

0→1 Platform Design, Strategy & Delivery · B2B Stealth Startup

Defined interaction paradigms and system architecture for a cloud-based 3D collaboration platform built from zero to one.

Partnered directly with founders and senior engineers to shape product vision, validate core concepts, and establish direction in a constrained, early-stage environment.

Internal Platforms, Research & Delivery · B2B SaaS

Led research, strategy, and delivery for a revenue-critical internal platform used by a rapidly scaling sales organization.

Translated insights from top performers and external research into guided workflows that improved speed, accuracy, and trust at scale.

Internal Platforms, Research & Delivery · B2B SaaS

Led research, strategy, and delivery for a revenue-critical internal platform used by a rapidly scaling sales organization.

Translated insights from top performers and external research into guided workflows that improved speed, accuracy, and trust at scale.

Complex Problems Require Trust
Colleague feedback
“Derek is an all around great colleague, team player, leader, and UX expert.”
Deb Hartman, Ph.D
Vice President Customer Insights
How I Work

I specialize in complex, ambiguous problem spaces where design must align tightly with business goals, technical constraints, and organizational realities. I work across product, engineering, and leadership to clarify problems, reduce friction, and move teams forward with confidence when conditions are imperfect.

Leadership

I align teams around shared models, not opinions. By clarifying constraints and surfacing tradeoffs early, I help product, engineering, and stakeholders make durable decisions under uncertainty.

Design

I design interaction models and information systems that scale with complexity. My focus is on how experiences behave over time, not just how screens look, to enable product and organizational growth.

Research

I turn messy qualitative and quantitative inputs into insights and direction. My strength is synthesis that reduces ambiguity and helps teams align without over-process.

About

I bring depth across UX, research, and leadership, shaped by years of work on complex systems. I value clarity, long-term impact, and building solutions teams can sustain.

Built With Intent, Not Templates

This portfolio was designed and built from scratch to reflect how I actually work.

AI tools were used selectively to support exploration, content drafting, and idea validation. All design judgment, structure, and final decisions remained my responsibility.

The site was designed in Figma and built in Webflow to support flexibility, performance, and long-term maintainability.

Let’s Connect
The easiest way to reach me is on LinkedIn. For more detailed inquiries, you can also use the contact form.