United States

UX Design

UI/ Visual Design

Branding and Identity Design

Product Design

UX writing

UX Testing

UX Research

Design Systems

Generative AI

Brian McDonald

Lead AI Product Design Consultant

Usability Testing

Product strategy

Prototyping

Communication

Collaboration

Problem-solving

Time management

Critical-thinking

Empathy

Leadership

AI/ML

Design systems

UserTesting

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe XD

Amplitude

Axure

Balsamiq

Canva

ChatGPT

D3.js

Figma

Lucidchart

Miro

Adobe Creative Suite

Google Analytics

Mural

Validately

Confluence

GitHub

Jira

Trello

UserZoom

Workday

Cursor

HTML

Midjourney

Maze

Mixpanel

Notion

Optimal Workshop

Optimizely

Tableau

Sketch

Stakeholder management

Analytical skills

Conversational AI

Negotiation

Chatbot

Data visualisation

Email writing

Information architecture

LinkedIn writing

Machine learning

User research

Quantitative research

Product roadmap

Qualitative research

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

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

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

Tips for transitioning into a new role or company.

Changing roles

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

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

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

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

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

Working with engineers

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

Conducting effective customer interviews

• Designing and delivering zero-to-one platforms with Cursor AI, including a B2B citizen developer app builder with embedded HIPAA and SOC 2 security and compliance.
• Leveraging Figma AI and ChatGPT API to reimagine critical tasks like onboarding from 42 minutes to under 1 minute.
• Using Multimodal LLMs (MLLMs) as a thought partner to create comprehensive competitive analysis to create a competitive feature matrix, to a prioritized success feature roadmap plan for MVP, P1, P2, and beyond.
• Collaborating with engineers in the same tech stack with Cursor AI, GitHub, and Quome, eliminating design-to-developer handoff delays to create a 240x efficiency increase; while improving workflows through UX audits.

•	Led 12 mission critical initiatives around AI for Data Classification, AI Governance, Data Catalog, Data Discovery, Data Intelligence, and Data Policies.
•	Led the overhaul of the universal navigation structure after synthesizing user feedback; conducted rigorous A/B testing, card sorting, tree testing, and surveys which led to a 148% increase in user engagement.
•	Mentored 5 other designers to drive consistency, quality, and best practices.

•	Coordinated cross-functionally with PMs, engineers, writers, legal, and the C-Suite for key initiatives. 
•	Drove user interviews and research with Fortune 500 customers.
•	Gave a conference presentation “Leveling Up Your Product Knowledge”, which became a required training video for all 2,500+ employees.
•	Produced designs that drove over 96% of user stories.
•	Led critical revenue initiatives to help company exceed $1B in ARR. 
•	Facilitated over 14 user journey map sessions with the product team and presented product updates to executives.
•	First designer at New Relic to create an “in context” experience for products to dramatically increase product visibility, revenue, and user engagement.

•	Founded the formation of a UX team from the ground up, leading recruitment efforts and onboarding processes for 5 new team members.
•	Managed UX designers with user research, wireframe designs, workflow creation, and high-fidelity designs; led to an 87% reduction in UX related customer support calls.
•	Established customer feedback sessions, leading to the successful integration of 60+ customer requested features.
•	Collaborated with CTO, CPO, Product Management, customers, and direct reports which led to a 26 point KPI score improvement.

•	In between full-time roles, consulted at Spirion as Product Design Lead (2020-2021), with JDRF as Lead Product Designer (2019-2020), with Kava as Director of User Experience (2018-2019), with CyberDot as Vice President of Product Design (2016), and with Groundfloor as Head of Product Design (2016).
•	Built and maintained 5 design systems, hands-on responsive designs, mobile interfaces, and UX designs with Sketch and InVision.
•	Conducted user research with to validate approach and methodology (including interviews, usability tests, surveys, and A/B tests).
•	Spearheaded strategic partnerships with Spirion VPs, TPMs, and C-suite to develop and scale AI and ML products; efforts resulted in a 182% growth in customer base and a $2.8 million revenue increase within six months.

•	Wore many hats as the founding designer, while creating the design system, all core designs of all product interfaces, and workflows.
•	Managed growth of the UX team as hiring manager and Senior Director of UI developers, UI designers, and UX designers.
•	Led 8 UX designers while creating hands-on wireframes, workflows, low/high fidelity designs, and final designs based on feedback from A/B testing, surveys, tree tests, and card sorting.
•	Ensured that the highly complex internet security application platforms (SaaS and mobile Android/iOS) had the highest standard for ease-of-use by administrators and end-users alike.

Brian McDonald🇺🇸