01

Fractional Design Leadership

Retainer

Most Series A startups face the same impossible math: you need senior design leadership to scale, but you can't justify a $180–220K full-time design executive. Your one or two designers are talented but directionless; they ship work without strategic vision, process, or a system underneath it.

Fractional design leadership gives you the thinking, decision-making, and mentorship of a seasoned design executive, on a retainer that fits your stage. I embed into your team, align design strategy with your business goals, and build the capability that makes your designers better, your product more coherent, and your roadmap defensible to investors.

Design Strategy & Roadmapping
Quarterly design roadmaps tied to your product and business OKRs, not just a backlog of UI improvements.
Team Mentorship & Leveling
1:1s, critique sessions, and career frameworks that turn your junior designers into a high-performing team.
Design Process Architecture
The rituals, handoffs, and workflows that let design and engineering move fast without breaking things.
Stakeholder Alignment
Design reviews, board-level presentations, and the language to make design legible to non-designers.
Design System Governance
Ownership of your design system so it evolves intentionally rather than growing chaotically.
Hiring Support
Job description writing, candidate evaluation, and interview design to help you hire the right people.

What changes in 90 days

  • Your designers have clear direction and a defined process for the first time
  • Design decisions are tied to metrics, not opinions
  • Investors see a coherent product narrative, not a collection of disconnected screens
  • Your roadmap reflects user needs and business priorities, not just engineering capacity
02

UX for Complex Systems

Retainer or Sprint

Data-heavy B2B products have a UX problem that most designers aren't equipped to solve. They know how to make things look good. They don't know how to make a 47-column data table scannable, a multi-step enterprise workflow learnable in under an hour, or an AI-driven recommendation engine trustworthy to a skeptical power user.

With 15+ years designing for analytics platforms, financial dashboards, and enterprise SaaS. I know how to turn complexity into clarity without losing the depth that power users depend on.

Dashboard & Analytics Design
Information architectures and visual hierarchies that surface what matters without burying everything else.
Enterprise Workflow Optimization
Multi-step flows redesigned for speed, learnability, and error recovery.
Data Visualization
Charts, tables, and scorecards designed to drive decisions, not just display numbers.
Onboarding & Activation
First-run experiences that get complex products to value in minutes, not weeks.

Impact this work has driven

  • 40% reduction in onboarding time for an enterprise analytics platform
  • 65% increase in user engagement after core workflow restructuring
  • 50% fewer support tickets after simplifying a financial dashboard's IA
03

Design Systems & Handoff

Sprint

Most early-stage products are held together with design debt: inconsistent components, undocumented patterns, and a Figma file only one person understands. Every new feature takes longer than it should because designers are reinventing and engineers are interpreting.

A proper design system isn't a luxury for scale; it's the infrastructure that makes scale possible. I build component libraries, token systems, and documentation your whole team can maintain, so design and engineering move in the same direction.

Component Library
A production-ready component set in Figma with documented states, variants, and usage guidance.
Design Token System
Color, typography, spacing, and elevation tokens that map directly to code, making theme changes a one-line update.
Developer Documentation
Handoff specs, interaction notes, and accessibility requirements that reduce back-and-forth with engineering.
Figma-to-Code Workflow
Tooling and process setup so your team can maintain design–code parity without heroics.

What a design system changes

  • New features ship faster because components already exist
  • Brand and UX are consistent across every surface
  • Designers spend time on problems, not recreating buttons
  • Engineers have a single source of truth, not a thousand one-off files
04

AI & Workflow Integration

Retainer or Sprint

AI features fail most often for UX reasons, not technical ones. Users don't trust outputs they can't interrogate. Prompt interfaces are confusing to non-technical users. Automation flows break user mental models built over years of manual workflows. The AI works. The experience doesn't.

I've designed AI into products at both the startup and enterprise level: from natural language interfaces to ML output visualization to smart automation flows. I know how to make AI features feel trustworthy, learnable, and actually useful, not just technically impressive.

AI Feature UX Design
End-to-end experience design for AI-powered features, from first discovery to trusted daily use.
Prompt Interface Patterns
Natural language interfaces designed for users who aren't prompt engineers.
ML Output Visualization
Presenting model outputs (predictions, recommendations, scores) in ways users can act on and trust.
Smart Automation Flows
Automation UX that keeps humans informed and in control without adding cognitive load.

Why this matters now

  • AI features without good UX get disabled by users within 2 weeks of launch
  • Trust is the currency of AI adoption; trust is a design problem
  • The startups that win in the AI economy will be the ones with the best AI experience, not just the best model

Built for a specific moment in a startup's life.

🚀

Just closed your Series A

You have runway, a product in market, and investors expecting growth. Design infrastructure is the lever that turns engagement into retention.

Shipping but not growing

Your team is working hard but metrics aren't moving. The problem is usually in the experience; it needs a systems diagnosis, not another sprint.

🏗️

One designer, no design leader

Your designer is talented but unleveled. You're making design decisions yourself. You need someone to own the design system, mentor the team, and report at the exec level.

Right-sized for where you are.

Best for ongoing leadership

Monthly Retainer

Dedicated hours each month, embedded in your team. The right model for startups building design capability over time.

  • Dedicated senior design hours monthly
  • Strategic design roadmapping
  • Designer mentorship & leveling
  • Design system governance
  • Stakeholder design reviews
  • Start a conversation →

    Fixed scope & timeline

    Project Sprint

    A defined engagement for a specific challenge: onboarding redesign, design system creation, or a critical user flow. Clear deliverables, fast turnaround.

  • Fixed timeline & deliverables
  • Onboarding or activation redesign
  • Design system creation
  • Dashboard or analytics UX
  • Full developer handoff
  • Scope a project →

    Things founders usually ask before booking a call.

    How is this different from hiring a freelance UX designer?
    A freelance designer executes tasks. A fractional design leader owns strategy, mentors your team, governs your design system, and aligns design with business outcomes. The output isn't a Figma file; it's a design-capable organization.
    How many hours per month does a retainer involve?
    It depends on your needs, but most retainers start at 20–40 hours per month. We define the scope together before we start, so there are no surprises. You can scale hours up or down as your needs evolve.
    We already have a designer. Do we still need this?
    That's exactly the situation this is built for. Having a designer without design leadership is like having an engineer without a CTO. Your designer has the skills; they need strategic direction, a system to work within, and someone to remove blockers at the executive level.
    Where do you work with clients? Austin only?
    Austin-first, but fully remote-capable. Most of the work is async by design, with regular video check-ins and on-site sessions when they add value. Location is never a constraint.
    What's the best way to start if I'm not sure what I need?
    Start with a UX Audit. It gives us both a clear picture of where your product stands, what's limiting growth, and what the right next step looks like. Most retainer relationships start with an audit.

    Ready to talk?

    Not sure which service fits?
    Let's figure it out together.

    Book a 30-minute discovery call. No pitch, no pressure. Just an honest conversation about your product and where design can move the needle.