I’m drawn to complex product environments where user behavior, data, operations, and technical constraints have to be structured into something people can understand and use.

My Journey

I grew up in Russia in a family shaped by architecture, education, and entrepreneurship. Drawing and mathematics developed side by side throughout my childhood, creating the balance of creativity and analytical thinking that still defines my work today. At eight, after receiving my first computer, I decided I wanted to design interfaces; around the same time, a photograph of the Golden Gate Bridge sparked another dream—to one day live nearby. Years later, both became reality. I went on to earn a Master’s degree in Computer Science, with a focus on Operations Research and Game Theory, where I studied optimization, systems modeling, strategic decision-making, and risk.

​After graduation, I spent a couple of years living in Japan and later traveled extensively around the world, which broadened my perspective on people, technology, culture, and design. Although I have an extensive background in digital illustration and visual storytelling, I'm always more drawn to solving complex problems in collaboration with others and creating products with meaningful global impact.

I began my career in web and graphic design, where I created hundreds of business websites, e-commerce experiences, brand identities, illustrations, and interactive products. As the work became more complex, I moved deliberately into Interaction Design and Human-Centered Design, discovering a research-based framework that deeply aligned with how I wanted to work. Looking back, I realized that I had spent years learning design principles and how computers work; Human-Centered Design added the missing piece—understanding the people using them.
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​My product career in the United States has since spanned mobile applications, large web platforms, software-hardware systems, B2B marketplaces, AI-powered enterprise products, cloud infrastructure, internal tools, and data platforms across companies, including SlashdotMedia, GoPro, B-Stock, SupportLogic, and eBay.

Most recently, I completed Stanford's programs in Leadership with AI and UI/UX Design for AI Products, continuing to explore how AI is reshaping product strategy, design workflows, and decision-making—and how those changes are influencing my own design process and philosophy.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

Human-Centered Design

I design for people, more than 'interfaces'.
Human-Centered Design taught me to understand how people think, decide, collaborate, and solve problems. It gave me a research-based framework and transformed design from creating interfaces into understanding human behavior.

Data-Informed Product Decisions

Research is the source of truth for the entire product design process.
I began experimenting with an AI-native design process where research became the source of truth for the entire design workflow. Instead of relying on generic prompts or assumptions, I explored how research evidence could be transformed into structured design artifacts—including product requirements, information architecture, user stories, UX copy, realistic prototype content, and evidence-based design prompts. Because the prototypes were grounded in users' language, mental models, and real-world scenarios, they became more accurate, coherent, and meaningful for both users and stakeholders.

These experiments also led me to explore specialized AI agents responsible for different stages of the design process—from semantic analysis and requirement extraction to UX writing, design critique, and stakeholder perspective review. This became the foundation for my vision of collaborative AI design systems, where specialized agents accelerate discovery, design, and decision-making while keeping human judgment at the center.

AI-Native Workflows

AI acceleration. Human judgment defines direction.
Today, AI is an integral part of my entire design process. Rather than treating AI as a single tool, I build specialized AI workflows that support research synthesis, thematic analysis, product strategy, information architecture, design exploration, rapid prototyping, critique, and communication.
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Rather than automating design decisions, I'm interested in automating the repetitive work surrounding design, so people can spend more time understanding problems, exploring alternatives, weighing risks and options, and making thoughtful decisions. While AI has dramatically increased the speed of product development, I believe the fundamentals of product design remain remarkably consistent: successful products still depend on thoughtful discovery, clear problem framing, strong design craft, and continuous validation.

Building Organizational Capability

Value long after a project ends.
In recent years, I've become increasingly interested in designing not only products, but also the design process itself. At eBay, I developed AI-assisted workflows that helped organize research, synthesize insights, and make knowledge more reusable across product teams. I also worked with product managers to structure research datasets so they could independently explore smaller research questions while preserving high-quality knowledge for future product decisions.

Whether defining reusable platform patterns, mentoring designers, organizing research repositories, or building AI-assisted workflows, I'm motivated by solutions that make other people more effective and continue scaling beyond my own individual contribution.

Looking Ahead

I'm most energized by problems that don't yet have obvious answers.
As AI reshapes how products are conceived, built, and experienced, I'm excited to help define what comes next. I'm particularly interested in the intersection of AI, enterprise platforms, systems thinking, and product strategy—where emerging technologies can help organizations make better decisions without losing sight of the people they're designed to support.

Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, and exploring nature through hiking, ocean walks, floristics, gardening, and landscaping. My broader interests include cognitive psychology, statistics, animal behavior, and living systems. I'm especially drawn to understanding patterns of how people make decisions, how groups behave, and how larger systems adapt and evolve. I also enjoy digital illustration, cinematic storytelling, and AI-assisted filmmaking—not only as creative outlets, but as opportunities to explore new forms of art, visual communication, and human-AI interaction.