Carmen R.

Co-founded a design consultancy serving scale-ups with senior product design, UX strategy, and design system buildouts Built and run Yummy Labs, a 2-week sprint accelerator pairing early-career designers with real startup challenges, mentoring 90+ designers Developed AI-native design workflows connecting Figma, Claude, and brand systems for on-brand prototyping at speed Led 14-day sprints for partners including NeoTaste (500K+ users), delivering validated product roadmaps Grew a design community of 1,000+ members with 25,000+ social reach across platforms

Founding designer from day zero through $4M seed round, owning the entire design function across product, growth, and design systems Shipped mobile app, admin dashboard, marketing site, and full design system driving 80% course completion rates Designed AI-generated micro-lesson experiences with gamification, social feeds, and personalized learning paths Built a token-based design system (color, typography, spacing, motion) for cross-platform consistency Promoted from Senior Product Designer to Director within 18 months Conducted user research that directly informed product pivots and feature prioritization

Designed customer-facing digital products, improving onboarding flows and portal experiences Owned end-to-end design from research through handoff, collaborating in agile teams Created and maintained design systems and component libraries for brand consistency