Why
I'm drawn to the parts of technology where one design decision decides whether someone can trust the system or gets quietly failed by it. Most people using what I build will never see the pipeline underneath, they'll just find out if it kept its promise the day something breaks. I enjoy being the one standing between that complexity and the person who has no choice but to trust it anyway.
Focus
Right now that's AI-native CI/CD at GitLab, specifically how much control a human should keep once AI starts making deployment decisions on its own.
How I start
Pen and paper, before any tool touches the problem. I get stubborn about the why before the what, the business case, the actual jobs to be done. Only then do I look at the individual pieces before I let myself see the full picture. It matters more in a domain this technically dense, where jumping straight to the whole system is exactly how you miss what's actually going on underneath it.
Role
Staff Product Designer, GitLab Deploy.
Insights Discovery 144 · Creative Directing Motivator
Directness
I would rather tell you the flaw in your plan today than let you find it in production next week. I expect the same back.
Unafraid to look stupid
Being willing to look stupid beats being clever, in this job. Asking the obvious question, even when it makes you sound like you don't get it yet, is usually how you find the real drive behind a job to be done, and will give you an edge over anyone in the room who was too embarrassed to ask.
Systems vision
I see the shape of a problem fast, often before the data fully confirms it. Bring me a messy, half-formed problem and related data. That's where I add the most value.
Fast synthesis
I can take scattered research, conflicting stakeholder opinions, and a vague brief, and find the throughline. I prefer working with raw inputs than a pre-digested summary.
Kill bad ideas
I'll tell a PM their pipeline concept will erode trust before it ships, even if it's uncomfortable. Come to me with a specific ask and I'll go deep immediately.
High stakes
I do my best work in rooms with real tension: competing priorities, unresolved architecture questions, a PM and an engineer who disagree. Put me in that room.
Community bridge-building
Most designers stay on the sidelines of open source because the entry point was never built for them. I've spent years making the case for why they shouldn't by actually contributing myself and also by supporting teh community. Find the door to a closed community motivates me.
Finishing
I'll start five threads with real conviction and need someone else to close the loop on five of them. How to help: give me a clear, specific definition of "done" up front. Don't assume I'll intuit it.
Iteration
I'm better at defining the big swing than at visibly breaking it into shipped pieces along the way. How to help: ask to see the increment, not just the end state, before I've fully worked the whole thing out myself.
Criticism
When feedback conflicts with my own read on something, I need real time to actually absorb it, not just agree with it on the surface. How to help: give me space to sit with it instead of expecting an instant reversal.
Pressure
Silence from me under stress means I'm regrouping, not that everything's fine. How to help: if I've gone quiet on something that matters, check in directly instead of waiting for me to surface.
Coming back
The hardest part of coming back after having my son wasn't the caregiving. It was losing the ability to act on my own ideas at the pace I was used to, and needing months to get that back. What actually helped was getting ruthless with my own time, fewer things, chosen on purpose, actually finished.
The shift
Growth matters more to me than it would to someone already at the top, and I think about it in scope, not title. What I'm actually after is a shift in which conversations I get pulled into, from "execute this well" to "help us figure out what we should even be doing."
In practice
Sometimes that means asking in before my current scope has technically earned me a seat. That's not overreach. It's the thing I'm building toward. (I'm working through an Impact MBA on the side toward the same goal, it's a means, not a headline.)
Input
I want options on the table, not one tidy conclusion, because I'll end up stress-testing it myself anyway, sometimes by arguing the losing side just to see if it survives contact. It's part of the job, not me being difficult.
Support
Downstream of me, I need someone tracking the detail I'll lose patience with by day three. And I need people to disagree with me out loud. Saying the uncomfortable thing early is most of what I've built my design career on, and I need that from the people around me too, not just from myself.
Comms
Direct, and usually short.
Feedback
Say it early, say it straight.
Word counts
100 words means 100 words.
Pushback
Why do you push back so fast on ideas? Because I've usually already run the idea through a few scenarios in my head before you finished the sentence. It's not dismissal, it's me doing the stress test out loud. If I got it wrong, tell me, I'll recalibrate fast.
Feedback
Do you actually take feedback well? I act on it fast, that's never been the slow part. What takes longer is actually squaring it with my own take, letting the disagreement settle instead of just complying with it. Give it some time. If it was real, I'll bring it back up myself, unprompted.
Directness
Do you expect the same directness you give? Yes. I'd rather have an uncomfortable conversation early than a polite one that leaves the actual problem unsaid.
Trust
What's the fastest way to lose your trust? Tell me one thing and do another, or hold back information you think I "don't need." I'll extend you the same transparency I expect back.