LinkedIn | [email protected] | Austin, TX
I’m a product designer. I care about building profitable businesses that make the world a more efficient place. I dream of a world where we are not constantly paying “transaction costs” to get shit done. I enjoy diving deep into complex technical subject matter.
I like to think of what I do as data experience design. Data tables are the most powerful way in which the world interacts with data – I have spent much of my life building table experiences for specialized use cases. In my most recent role as Head of Design at Flatfile (Series B, raised $100MM total), I built Turntable, a table experience optimized for error resolution. I built a data table component with a rich filtering UI for Uber’s open source Base design system. At the time I left this was the most used component internally, used to build tooling for core data platform and Uber Freight.
I put the “product” in product designer – I prefer to work directly with engineers, no PM needed. I do my best work when I am held accountable to business outcomes, not deliverables. I am comfortable owning and executing on a roadmap. I always spend time to become intimately familiar with the engineering infrastructure, something that I believe all product designers need to do their best work. I expect the same from designers on my team.
My expertise is in building functional products, from ideation and design to execution. I partner with Customer Success and Sales to figure out what needs to be built. I figure out the how with the engineering team – I excel at figuring out what to descope to make sure features actually get shipped, and in a way that adds value, fast.
I love partnering with great visual designers. I don’t have strong opinions on aesthetics, but I appreciate it when they’re good.
What I’m looking for
- Someone to co-found with
- A leadership role at a Series A/B startup
- A single threaded owner role at a larger co, where I have ownership of a high level business objective and the resources to make that happen, start to finish
- A senior IC role at a large co, where I have a high degree of autonomy over my area of work
In my ideal job I’m doing IC work, mentoring a team, all the while creating and influencing high level business strategy. I have many years of management experience and am comfortable wearing that hat — I like to operate as a player-coach. I am great at hiring designers and engineers – in my last role I recruited half the engineering team.
Industries I’m interested in: Supply chain & logistics, Fintech, Biotech, Agtech, Deeptech, SaaS. Why isn’t Gen AI in this list? Cause it’s a tool, and has applications across many industries.
I prefer to work remotely and have a good track record of building a collaborative team culture in this manner. Defaulting to the low-distraction remote collab interspersed with periods of intense in-person time can be one of the most optimal ways in which to work together.
Email me if you’d like to see more of my design work!
Lisa Mahapatra 