Hi!

J.T. Trollman — I create useful products & productive teams, building on decades of experience working across both global initiatives and scrappy startups.

Practically speaking, I try to solve meaningful problems for people.

Hi!

Selected Writing

Recent Work

2023–Present

Cruise

Head of product design for the ridehail consumer experience of Cruise, one of the world’s foremost autonomous vehicle companies. Making transportation more magical, equitable, and seamless in our lives.

2021–2023

Meta Reality Labs

Head of Experiences Design for new neural interfaces product lines — and new teams around them — within Meta’s Augmented Reality division, creating the next great input mechanic and consumer devices.

2020–2021

Facebook Campus

Founding design manager for a comprehensive new community product for college students. Launched its North American beta summer 2020 with 30 US universities, ramping to many more.

2020

Facebook Neighborhoods

Founding design manager for another new community product, for local neighborhoods. Launched its North American beta fall 2020, and led to a more comprehensive tool set for all Facebook group admins.

2017–2019

Facebook Local

Design manager for the Facebook Local product ecosystem and the Facebook Local app. Oversaw an increase to 700M consumers per month using our products, as well as 120K creators per month.

2016–2021

Make America Dinner Again

Founding designer for this national volunteer organization, fostering better communication across the aisle leveraging over 12 national chapters in 20 cities.

2014–2017

Community Integrity

Design lead across all Facebook Consumer Support tools, including reporting and the global Help Center. Established best practices that scaled across 120 languages and created all-new AI-powered content recognition & response tools.

2013–2014

Core Experiences

Designed core systems for Facebook, including News Feed, rich engagement features, and emerging market features. Co-designed the first comprehensive, component-based design library for the Facebook app on Android.

Pre-2013

Pre-Meta

Co-founded two start-ups, ran a small design consultancy, and had a career in design agency life before that through places like IDEO.

About

I’m a design leader focused on 0–1 spaces, making hard things a reality. I’ve worked in both hardware/software and pure software environments, and most recently am serving as the head of product design for Cruise’s ridehail consumer experiences.

I am particularly invested in product design work that enables me to do the greatest amount of good I can manage for society, connecting and serving people at scale — with all the humbling responsibility and pitfalls that can entail.

Previously I spent 10 years at Meta, concluding with 2.5 years as the head of experience design for a line of new “neural interfaces” products within Meta’s Augmented Reality division. I was responsible for work that affected around 2,000 cross-functional employees and I directly built 5 teams and over a dozen reports. Together we pushed the boundaries of what was possible with novel technology, and filed over 12 patents in unique user interfaces.

Within the Facebook App I supported multiple “0–1” new product teams within their Community Incubator group, and I was a product lead for Meta’s company-wide design education initiatives.

Prior to that I was the design manager for Facebook’s Events products and Local app, enabling people to spend more time with close friends and family in the real world. I also spent years on our Community Integrity team as the design lead for our content moderation and help products, touching everything from AI/ML chat bot technology to redesigning our reporting and help center tools. And winding the clock back even more, I was one of two designers to create our first Android design & navigation system in the process of initiating better emerging market support; and I worked on News Feed and expression products (like being the first to support rich comments like stickers. Remember that?).

Key areas of interest for me include creating products for underserved communities; emerging-market enablement; privacy, trust & safety issues; community involvement and engagement; political engagement; public information access; automotive & transit technology; AI; and cartography. (I’m also a huge nerd for hiking, photography, travel, music, comics, videogames and cars.) And I somehow have 2.8M followers on Pinterest for a couple of these topics.

I've spoken internationally about issues I've mentioned. After the 2016 US election, I also became the founding designer for a passion project to facilitate understanding across the political divide at Make America Dinner Again. We have over 12 chapters nationwide, and have been covered everywhere from The New York Times to the BBC to The Blaze. Somehow both Oprah and Glenn Beck loved us.

Before all that, I co-founded two start-ups (B4UGO and Happiness Engines), piloted a small design consultancy, and tinkered on countless other side projects with friends. I’ve also acted as an advisor and strategist for start-ups, and worked alongside great folks at IDEO for some years as well.

Speaking, Teaching & Mentoring

Speaking ‧ 2015

HIVE: Designing For Empathy

A talk grounded in three principles for designing for empathetic products

Speaking ‧ 2016

Tel Aviv Talks: Designing For Moments of Struggle

Examples of how designers can and should consider how their products touch people in their most vulnerable moments

Speaking ‧ 2019

Bridge Builders 2019: Product Thinking

A primer on how Meta has a uniquely developed opinion on product thinking

Speaking ‧ 2020–2022

Bridge Builders 2020: What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Product Design

Grounding people in the soft skills of product design: proactivity, communication and humility

Teaching ‧ 2014–2023

Meta Design Camp

As product lead for Meta’s design education, I crafted and taught the curriculum for a wide variety of classes

Mentorship ‧ 2014–2023

Meta Design Mentorship

I created the senior mentorship circles program for the Facebook App org, ran the Design Circles program for Reality Labs, and personally mentored 2–3 managers and designers each half

Mentorship ‧ Ongoing

External Mentorship

I mentor 1–2 under-represented external designers each half, with the goal to create lasting relationships

Photos

I’m an amateur photographer with a great joy for people and the outdoors, slowly learning how much I respect videographers for the added dimensions of sound, motion and time they juggle. I've been lucky enough to have my work included in publications such as The New York Times.

Contact

Drop me a line at jt@jtroll.com, or through social media of your choice. Thanks for your time!