United States

Product Design

Bala Kalyanasundaram

UX Director

Communication

Collaboration

Problem-solving

Critical-thinking

Organisation skills

Presentation skills

Conflict resolution

Leadership

Project management

Product roadmap

Product strategy

User research

Time management

Figma

ChatGPT

Empathy

Stakeholder management

Team player

Customer service

Public Speaking

Analytical skills

AI/ML

Conversational AI

Brand strategy

Information architecture

Budget management

Usability Testing

Introduce yourself, define mentoring expectations and goals. Learn and grow together.

General mentorship

Making remote and globally distributed teams work for you and your needs.

Working remotely

Learn essential burnout prevention techniques and replenish physical and emotional energy.

Managing burnout

Talk to people who have learned to manage their imposter syndrome.

Dealing with imposter syndrome

Navigating micro-aggression, getting paid what you are worth and finding a community.

Being a woman in tech

Understanding factors that lead to a motivated team - recognition, communication and more.

Keeping team members motivated

Understand the process of training, motivating and directing your team members.

Managing people

How to create a positive workplace culture that drives collaboration and productivity?

Fostering a good team culture

Steps to building and maintaining a strong, cohesive and effective team.

Building an effective team

Learn the tips to successfully manage a team in a remote environment.

Managing a remote team

How to maintain trust, commitment, accountability deliver results while handling conflict

Avoiding common dysfunctions

How to determine what is a good balance of skill sets for your organization's needs

Building balanced teams

How to identify star candidates, evaluate technical ability, and close hires

Hiring software engineers

Decision making as a software engineer or lead - how to become better at making the right choices

Making better tech choices

Strategies for maximizing your design internship or co-op program.

Getting the most out of my internship

Tips for transitioning into a new role or company.

Changing roles

How to successfully prepare and position yourself for a job promotion?

How to get promoted

How to ask for a promotion and negotiate for salary raise?

Negotiating a job offer

How to think about design career paths and what progression looks like for designers?

Design career path

Learn the career path and progression for product managers.

Product management career path

Get actionable feedback on your resume or portfolio.

Resume and portfolio review

Practice HR, technical and behavioural interviews with mentors.

Practice mock interviews

Talk to people who've broken into the tech industry and learn their stories.

Breaking into tech

Learn the best ways to answer technical interview questions with frameworks

Acing technical interview questions

How to set up the team for success by defining and measuring team's performance.

Choosing metrics and team goals

Best practices for running productive design critiques.

Running effective design critiques

How to define and execute a successful launch and managing stakeholders expectations. (eg. MVP)

Launching new products or features

Methods of prototyping and solution validation. When to use which kind of prototype (eg. Webflow, Notion, etc)

Prototyping methods and tips

Manage team expectations and get the most out of your meetings.

Running effective meetings

Identify and define potential product problems and generating possible solutions.

Identifying problems vs solutions

Learn how to properly present your work and share ideas and opinions.

Presenting your work with impact

Tips on how to work and collaborate with designers.

Working with designers

How to work with team members with different skill sets but towards a common goal?

Working cross-functionally

Methods and models of exploring, deciding and delivering design.

Building a design process

Managing being the only designer at your company and working with non-designers.

Being the only designer

Explore different generative and evaluative research techniques. User research synthesis and presentation.

Conducting good user research

Ways and resources to improve your design skills.

Improving design skills

Navigating the working relationship with PM's and engineers as a designer.

Working with product and engineering

How to set up product analytics and metrics to track success?

Leveraging Product Analytics

How to create personas, and leverage them in design.

Creating and leveraging user personas

Ways to provide constructive feedback to team members.

Giving effective feedback

How to define an ambitious product vision and how to best communicate it to stakeholders?

Creating a product vision

Tips on how to work and collaborate with engineers and developers.

Working with engineers

What is a successful user onboarding flow and how to achieve it?

Onboarding new users

Best practices for documenting projects, epics, and stories

Writing product requirement documents

How to conduct interviews, what to ask, and how to analyze your results? (eg. user interview)

Conducting effective customer interviews

Led UX and research across enterprise AI, cloud, and platform products. Built and scaled global UX organizations, shaped product strategy, and partnered closely with Product and Engineering leaders. My work included AI applications, developer platforms, enterprise workflows, and complex multi-product ecosystems.

Bala Kalyanasundaram🇺🇸

About Bala Kalyanasundaram

Expertise

Sessions with Bala Kalyanasundaram