I’ve always been drawn to design…
From the age of 5, I was mesmerized watching my parents bring my favorite characters, like Barney, to life on paper.
In grade school — longer than I'd like to admit — my friend and I swapped playing with Barbies for designing their spaces.
In college, while officially pursuing a design degree, I unofficially spooked my parents with a giant plastered onion slowly taking over my dorm room. I eased their concerns (a tad) by winning a few design awards.
At my first job, at Yum! Brands, my boss helped me choose between development and design. I picked design — but development's logic and problem-solving stuck with me, and it still shapes how I work today.
At TOMS Shoes, I heard the term "UX" for the first time and was hooked. I took a class, sharpened my discipline, and shifted my focus from the aesthetics of digital design to the full experience of the user.
In jobs since — startups and Atlassian — I found my footing as a strategic design partner, using both qualitative and quantitative data to shape direction, running scrappy experiments to test my assumptions before investing in craft, and saving delight for where it's earned.
Now — I’m excited to create meaningful, thoughtful software that actually helps people, not just adds to the noise.
