Design for complexity & ambiguity,
with humanity. đź‘ŁÂ
👋🏽 Hello! I’m Uday — a versatile, hands-on strategic design leader who drives customer value with humanistic values: respect, empathy, and trust. These are the keys to team success. I partner with my peers in improving people’s lives, beyond just shipping features. It ain’t easy, but it’s important. ⚡️
The last 20+ years of “in the trenches” experience leading cross-functional projects in climate, fintech, enterpris B2B SaaS, AI/automation, and predictive analytics taught me resilience & confidence, with clear-eyed patience.Â
Now with AI rapidly changing the game, those qualities are essential, for everyone. 🙌🏽
Design leadership for me is a multi-faceted concept, not based on title – serving as an evangelist, catalyst, coach/mentor or scouting what’s next, while navigating the “messy middle” of cross-functional teams. I’ve played each role while exploring novel directions or evolving products or inventing new features.
My speciality & value
I lead teams through the “messy middle” of complexity via craft & influence, to achieve clarity — with sketching, high-fidelity mocks, rapid prototyping, and workshopping with cross-functional teams.Â
My method is very simple — I make artifacts to probe a problem space or generate solutions, then I use them to facilitate structured cross-functional dialogues to move forward. With clarity. With shared purpose, not thrash.
Good design is absolutely essential — and requires three key pieces: continuous customer feedback, strong design principles (beyond make it simple, easy, intuitive — duh!), and healthy team collaborations with rituals.
Selected work
As Design Manager at Aurora Solar, I led the redesign of our sales suite, with cross-functional journey mapping, research-informed vision concepts, and executive buy-in for a revamp released in 9 months. View case study →
As UX Architect at Automation Anywhere, I led global IA/nav revamp and created citizen developer "accelerator" smart panel and portal via concept car prototypes. View case study →
As the sole designer (UX Director) at Instart Logic, I drove pixels and strategy with a fully re-built design system, overhauled onboarding flow, and 5 new features per customer validation, before acquisition by Akamai.
View case study →
As Product Design Lead at PayPal, I dramatically improved reliability and user confidence in our mobile Point of Sale solution for small business merchants.
View case study →