United States

UX Design

UI/ Visual Design

Branding and Identity Design

UX Research

✊🏿🏳️‍🌈 Diversity & Inclusion

Diego Fernandez

Director of Product Design & Research

Resume

Prototyping

Communication

Collaboration

Problem-solving

Critical-thinking

Organisation skills

Presentation skills

Leadership

Design systems

Product roadmap

Figma

Framer

Adobe Creative Suite

Google Analytics

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

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

Get actionable feedback on your resume or portfolio.

Resume and portfolio review

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

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

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

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

Design career path

I mentor designers, drawing from my experience as an individual contributor and leader to promote a design philosophy centered on ethical choices that benefit users. Encouraging collaboration and open communication, I aim to inspire innovation.

At Balto, we leverage the power of AI to enable agents to reach their full potential. 

As the Director of Product Design & Research, I have been responsible for building the Design team and establishing foundational design and research practices that contribute to our success.

At Salsify, I joined as a Senior Product Designer and worked across various existing and new product areas, including Workflow, Product Information Management (PIM), and Insights.

I was promoted to Design Lead of the Content Activation product area. My work primarily involved research, interaction design, and information architecture. This effort led to the initial implementation of an Activation Funnel that helped establish a baseline understanding of areas requiring new tooling and enhancements to the user experience, making it easier for brands to transfer content from our PIM to retail destinations.

Simultaneously, I was the lead designer for Habanero, Salsify's Design System. I contributed to its design, evangelization, and, ultimately, the establishment of the DS Operations, which continue today.

Sensive began as an experimental project to share design work-in-progress through a stream of self-updating artboards, leveraging the innovative Figma API. Our initial concept struck a chord with the Product Hunt community, earning us a spot in the Top 3 products of the day. This achievement showed us the potential to address the transparency challenges many design teams encounter during their iterative processes.

Motivated by the encouraging response, we refined our initial concept. Gradually, Sensive became a specialized project management tool for creatives, focusing on efficient asset delivery. This evolution enabled us to better cater to the needs of our target audience while staying true to our founding vision.
We decided to sunset the project in 2021 to reflect on the lessons learned and experiences from an entirely bootstrapped venture.

During my tenure at ChatID, our team developed an innovative interface known as Chatbar, which revolutionized how shoppers interacted with brand representatives from companies like Samsung, Acer, and Lenovo on popular retail websites such as Walmart, Target, and Newegg.com. This groundbreaking solution bridged the gap between brands and their customers, allowing shoppers to address their questions and concerns in real-time.

From the inception of ChatID as a company and the suite of chat-based products, our team strongly emphasized user research and fostered a collaborative environment among our small yet highly skilled group of professionals. This focus enabled us to create a user experience that surpassed those of most chat providers during that era, with seamless functionality across both desktop and mobile platforms.

Our commitment to innovation and a profound understanding of the shopping experience did not go unnoticed. In late 2018, Salsify, a leading product experience management platform, recognized the value of our products and the opportunity ahead, leading to an acquisition.

• Developed a set of multilingual marketing campaigns to target audiences. 
• Developed workflows for social media marketing campaigns 
• Strategized the launch of a new brand and corresponding features and marketing materials
• Led the ideation, validation, and design of iOS and Android apps
• Managed the planning and implementation of Happytel's iOS and Android apps
• Managed projects and adjusted expectations of two remote teams in Ukraine and India

• Founding design partner of a multi-service digital agency specializing in WordPress
• Stablished user experience research practices and led in-depth user research for strategic accounts
• Led marketing creative and user experience-related projects. 
• Scaled up a remote team from three to seven design contractors

Diego Fernandez🇺🇸

About Diego Fernandez

Expertise

What mentees say