Hi I'm Meghan, and I want to impact the world through pixels.

I'm a product design strategist. I craft product experiences that lead to better outcomes for end-users and our digital world, through a blend of creative thinking, business strategy, and product mindset.

10+

Years of experience across tech verticals

$10+ Million

Collectively retained through design work

Meghan the Designer

photo of meghan taped to a whiteboard

I’m an impact-driven designer with 9+ years of experience, mostly in SaaS, specializing in product-led growth. I craft informed design solutions that not only prioritize user needs but also consider the bigger picture—like market trends, economic conditions, and company goals—to make sure every decision is both user-friendly and business-savvy.

I'm currently leading the Digital Advisory Experience portfolio at Thrivent. In tandem to work, I write for UX Collective and various Medium publications. I offering coaching in addition to mentoring incoming product designers through Out in Tech's university program. Most recently, I've become interested in learning more about dark UX patterns and sustainable UX/UI.

Prior to Thrivent, I led Apollo GraphQL's PLG & onboarding, leading to a 55% increase in engagement, a 44% increase in user graph creation, and a demo experience accounting for 30% of new onboards. My role was "T-shaped" -- stretching partnerships horizontally across marketing, developer experience, and sales.
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I've led business critical projects that have significantly reduced churn amongst key customer segments, retaining millions in customer retention revenue. @ Lever I led the creation of custom roles (RBAC) worth $2.4mil in ACV, yielding a 57% customer retention rate, and generating $1.2Mil+ in revenue retention within 3 quarters of release. 🥳
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I’ve built more fun stuff like data portals @ Twilio, tiered account security, machine learning analytics tooling and data viz @ Amplitude, interactive/digital car repair estimator tooling, and much more.

CASE STUDIES

Case Studies

Professional work and detailed case studies

  • Design lead at companies like Thrivent, Twilio, Amplitude, & more.
  • I’ve built self-serve data tools at Amplitude utilizing machine learning
  • Work that makes an impact; like custom permissions @ Lever, worth $2.4mil in ACV; generating $1.2Mil+ in revenue retention within 120 days
Community assets & learning

Design Resources

Content build to enable design without paying 100 million dollars.

  • Insider tips, proven strategies, and expert insights from top design leaders
  • The Product designer's interview playbook
  • How to turn case studies into stories that captivate
ARTICLES & WRITING

Published Content

Educational and op-ed pieces published through UX Collective and UX Bootcamp (Medium).

  • Business acumen and design expectations
  • How design interviews have become anti-design
  • Navigating neurodivergence in design

Design is better for your business.

10,000ft view

Design directly impacts your financial health

It's true, McKinsey's quarterly report states "companies with the best financial returns have combined design and business leadership."

I'm a strategist focused on bridging product and business value. I aim to find that sweet spot between what the company needs and what the user wants, with the flexibility to adapt when needed. I strategically address market forces, economic conditions, and company objectives so design outputs focus on business realities.  

1,000ft view

User-centered design is a company-wide responsibility

I work horizontally across teams, ensuring the solutions we implement make sense to customers across the entire platform, not just one product line. In addition to product, sales, marketing, front-line, and service teams play a critical role in your users experience.

Siloing departments undermines the performance of the business.

100ft View

Digital products require architecture that matches user needs.

I lead with empathy. We must put ourselves in the shoes of customers in addition to understanding the problem through the perspective of our product/business counterparts.

Understanding the customer journey first and foremost enables the creation of experiences that not only solve the problem but offer innovation. This involves understanding your product architecture so customers can navigate complexity with ease.

Testimonials

Colleague, josh

Josh Skinner

Sr Product Designer, Loop

"Meghan was genuinely such a pleasure to work with. From the day she started, she displayed a strong willingness to learn and explore new concepts and ideas. Meghan is also a versatile designer; she is quick to adapt to new problem spaces and environments all while providing a thoughtful and elevated solution in the end. She also spearheaded several critical initiatives at Lever, laying the groundwork for a successful design team. I look forward to having the privilege to work with Meghan again in the future."

Colleague, Skip

Skip Allums

Design Leader | Ex Google, Ex PayPal

"From Day 0 she demonstrated that she was a valuable asset to the team and to our customers. Meghan asks tough questions. She brings her broad design experience and sparks ideas for internal processes. As a Design leader, I have to trust that each person on my team will be a strong user advocate, and Meghan fights for the user every time. Would definitely work with Meghan again!"

Colleague, Deep

Deep Jani

Staff Product Manager

"I worked with Meghan during her time at Lever. Meghan and I were overseeing highly impactful product areas such as data compliance & privacy and User Access & Permissions. I have become a huge advocate for her as she displayed the ability to understand, extract, and synthesize customers’ needs through continuous discovery & research. Not only that but her raw horsepower coupled with strong user empathy bolstered our ability to develop scalable solutions that addressed the most complex user needs while keeping business objectives in sight. Lastly, one of my favorite qualities about her as a person is that she is not afraid to show vulnerability - this benefited us to develop a strong partnership through open, transparent, and respectful communication. I can definitely see Meghan reaching new heights as a designer and would love to work with her again in the future!"

Image of Sophie

Sophie Edelman

Sr. Tech Recruiter, Ford

"I hired Meghan to help design my website. Meghan knocked it out of the park! I was so impressed with how she improved my website designs. She took a standard template I had put together and within a week the entire site had been overhauled and it was such an improvement. I'm very pleased with the work she produced and it was a joy working with her. I recommend!"

image of Cortney

Cortney Ho

Mentee, Out in Tech U

"My name is Cortney and I recently graduated from UC Santa Barbara. Meghan was my Out in Tech (OIT) mentor last fall, and she was the best mentor anyone could ask for. Throughout the 8-week program, Meghan was incredibly patient and supportive of my journey toward professional self-discovery. She always encouraged me to work towards the goals we set at the beginning of the program, elevating my understanding of the diverse demands and roles within the tech industry. Under Meghan’s guidance, I brought together design elements, user interface guidelines, and performance expectations to successfully create a mock product requirements document. At the start of the mentorship, I had no idea what to expect from post-grad life. Now, since I’ve started job hunting, I feel so much more confident and equipped to enter the professional world!"

Image of Steven

Stephen Cohn

Founder, CEO Winware.ai

"Meghan was an integral part of designing our MVP. She is great at capturing user needs and turning them into elegant designs. She works well with both developers and the business team. I loved partnering with Meghan."

Colleague, Taylor

Taylor Jones

Senior Software Engineer

"I love working with Meghan because she is not only thoughtful about her designs but drives them using data and best practices. She is one of the best storytellers I have had the pleasure of working with and works extremely hard to understand the users what their personas need in a way that makes a positive impact not only for our users but for our company. She also is super easy to work with and makes sure I have all of the information and assets I need as a developer to implement her designs."

Colleague, Dani

Danielle Man

Sr. Director of Engineering, ApolloGraphQL

"Meghan has an impressive ability to tackle complex systems design problems. She's a good storyteller, she runs her own research, she's constantly teaching herself new things and keeping up with industry trends. More than other folks, I think she approaches her role with fearlessness and the energy she brings can be the rising tide to lift boats around her. At Apollo, I have seen her build productive x-functional relationships and take initiative to own full business problems and champion design thinking time and time again. We've been working on a long term project together to overhaul our product's information architecture, and the care, research, and exploration Meghan has done have led us to a creative solution that I didn't even think was possible before we started. Every time I get to pair with Meghan on a design problem it gives me new energy. I think her ceiling is extremely high."

partner, Dimitri

Dimitri Salzmann

PM and Developer, Featured Customers

"Meghan is both a fantastic designer and a great team player. Would recommend to any company looking for a designer or product leader"

Colleague, Kaushik

Kaushik Sahoo

Engineering Manager, ApolloGraphQL

"Meghan and I have worked on a variety of projects at Apollo, and her number one skill as a design partner is her ability to critically think through any problem a business is facing/might face. She is driven by data and analytical insights, and when this is mixed with her ability to create beautiful user interfaces, it creates for a stellar combo. You can always trust Meghan to work with all stakeholders to ensure there is proper buy-in across the organization. I greatly appreciate her natural inclination towards product-led growth and desire to consistently start from the perspective of truly understanding what customers want first and foremost."

design community assets

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