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

The work, in more detail

I joined SoFi because it’s a company uniquely positioned to create a powerful AI-in-product experience that creates groundbreaking access to the right information & products to help you in your personal finance journey. In a world with increasing divides between the haves and have-nots, I’ve found meaning in giving everyday people power at their fingertips previously only available to the wealthy.

In 2023 I briefly served as head of product design for Cruise’s ridehail consumer experiences, covering roughly 80% of their business. I joined with the goal of helping scale to 13 new cities in the next year, supporting three novel car platforms, all interior and exterior vehicle user experiences, and our full phone app experiences.

My decade at Meta was my longest chapter. I concluded with 2.5 years as head of experience design for a line of new “neural interfaces” products in the AR division — work that affected around 2,000 cross-functional employees, with 5 teams I built directly. Together we pushed the boundaries of novel input technology and filed over 12 patents in unique user interfaces.

Earlier at Meta I supported multiple “0–1” product teams within Facebook App’s Community Incubator group, and was a product lead for Meta’s company-wide design education initiatives. Before that I supported Facebook’s Events products and Local app, helping people spend more time with close friends and family in the real world. Our standalone Facebook Local app (and sibling tab within the Facebook app) had greater retention and stickiness than Yelp in the US, just before the pandemic hit… and killed global local discovery intent for the next three years. Those were interesting times.

For years prior I was design lead on the Community Integrity team, building some of the industry’s first mature social content moderation and help products — everything from AI/ML chatbot technology to redesigning our reporting and help center tools. Going further back: I was one of two designers to create Facebook’s first Android design & navigation system in service of better emerging-market support, and worked on News Feed and expression products. (I was the first to ship rich comments like stickers. Remember those?)

Outside the day job

I’ve spoken both domestically and internationally about a number of issues I care about. After the 2016 US election I became the founding designer for Make America Dinner Again, a passion project to facilitate understanding across the political divide. We grew to over 12 chapters nationwide, and were covered everywhere from The New York Times to the BBC to The Blaze. Somehow both Oprah and Glenn Beck love us.

Before all that I co-founded two startups in social media/creation and local discovery (B4UGO and Happiness Engines), piloted a small design consultancy, and tinkered on countless side projects. I’ve also acted as an advisor and strategist for startups, and worked alongside great folks at IDEO for some years. I live in the Bay Area with my family, and outside of software tinkering I love woodworking, autocross, backpacking, and talking way more than is reasonable about automotive history and cartography.