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Darren J Luvaas
www.luvaas.comMy mission is doing good work with good people and learning as much as I can along the way.
Have a challenge? Accepted.
JPMorgan Chase
February 2023 – present
Executive Director of Product Innovation and Experience
JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States and the 5th largest bank in the world. JPMorgan Chase’s Consumer & Community Banking (CCB) business, or Chase as it’s known by most, has been one of the most aggressive financial institutions on the planet in its commitment to leveraging data and analytics to deliver value to its customers and the business.
Responsibilities
As Executive Director of Product Innovation and Experience, my job is to design elegant solutions that govern, manage, and move data efficiently and accurately in order to advance digital consumer experiences, data analytics, cybersecurity, and AI capabilities. As a leader within Data & Analytics Products and a manager of a team of UX Designers, UX Researchers, and Marketers, I led the conceptualization, innovation, design, and research work for a massive data modernization and publishing effort that has accelerated publishing data to the cloud from 6 months to 1 week—a 96% reduction in time-to-deliver. This work has unlocked the firm's ability to make timely, informed business decisions while powering its use of AI.
Tech Used
Illustrator, Figma, Usability Testing, React.js, Persona Development, Management, Finance, Data Analytics, Gen AI, Claude Code, Copilot, AI/ML
Amazon AWS, Developer Experience
November 2021 – March 2023
Manager of UX Design & Research
The AWS Developer Experience org is responsible for building AWS's no-code & low-code application solutions, including the evolution of AWS Honeycode to AWS App Studio.
Responsibilities
As the Manager of UX Design & Research at AWS Developer Experience, I was responsible for building and managing a large team of creative individuals who built solutions in the low-code/no-code space across 3 different AWS products and a Design System team. This work lead to the release of the AWS App Studio, AWS's first generative AI application solution—much of which I personally designed from its conceptualization to its early release. I led a team of 30+ UX Designers, UX Researchers, Design Technologists, Visual Designers, Creative Directors, UX Program Managers, and other UX Managers.
Tech Used
Figma, Illustrator, UX Design, UX Research, Design Systems, Low code / No code
Amazon
July 2020 – November 2021
Manager/Lead User Experience Designer
Amazon is, quite simply, changing the world. Their mission is to be "earth's most customer-centric company." What better place to be for a customer-obsessed user experience builder like yours truly?
Responsibilities
As the Manager/Lead User Experience Designer for the Tax team at Amazon, I built and led the team of talented UX Designers and UX Researchers charged with designing the tools and experiences used to keep Amazon in compliance with all the tax codes and laws across all of the countries of the world in which Amazon does business. That's a lot of countries and a lot of codes! Extreme complexity and an extremely high (no mistakes!) bar for accuracy doesn't require an equally complex set of user experiences, however. My job was to create elegant, intuitive, simple, and efficient applications powered by good processes and even better design. My innovations in this role lead to being listed as Lead Inventor on this org's first patent (US 11,435,871 B1).
Tech Used
Sketch, Illustrator, Usability Testing, User Task Analysis, Persona Development, Testing, Data Analysis, Finance
Spruce Up
July 2019 – July 2020
Head of UX and Creative Director
Spruce Up was an online home furnishing and decor retailer that curated unique shopping experiences for each customer using proprietary "Style Genome" machine learning. Spruce Up built an immersive and engaging shopping adventure that featured hundreds of personalized product recommendations. Users could browse a wide assortment of design styles and discover products curated by their designer-trained AI. Spruce Up was acquired by Wayfair in 2021.
Responsibilities
As Head of UX and Creative Director, I had the pleasure of helping pioneer truly innovative web and mobile application interfaces. My UX background, grounded in personalized marketplaces and visualization tools, helped me create a completely new, entirely novel shopping experience for Spruce Up customers based on a hyper-personalized, AI-driven product pairing and recommendation engine. I oversaw a complete brand and UX overhaul, help set the product roadmap, and successfully launched a unique, hyper-personalized ecommerce experience. After joining the team and pushing some new innovation's into Spruce Up' user-facing UX, the company immediately saw a 5X increase in user registrations along with a 50X increase in customer engagement and became a finalist in the GeekWire 2020 Awards for UX Design of the Year.
Tech Used
React.js, Illustrator, SVG, Photoshop, Node.js, SCSS, CSS, Express.js, HTML, Adobe Premiere, Usability Testing, User Task Analysis, Typescript, RESTful APIs, Customer.io, Mailchimp, Heap, Mixpanel, Segment, AWS, Material Design
Silicon Valley Innovation Center, Weichai
January 2019 – July 2019
Head of UX, Research & Innovation
Founded in 1946, Weichai is a multi-billion dollar manufacturing and heavy machinery industry leader with over 80,000 employees worldwide. Its most recent investment, The Silicon Valley Innovation Center, is responsible for leading Weichai's software development and innovation roadmap.
Responsibilities
This position required a unique combinations of skills as a designer, UI expert, and software architect. With an emphasis on front-end design and development, I led the effort to modernize Weichai's UI and front-end development process and raise it to the highest standards of excellence. Primary projects included the design and architecture of a front-end framework capable of supporting a SaaS-based application stack that enabled rapid deployment and minimal maintenance costs. This framework provided dynamic forms, customizable layouts, themes, and a highly configurable user experience -- all based on a flexible, scalable, and easily implemented configuration mechanism.
Tech Used
Illustrator, Photoshop, Node.js, SCSS, CSS, HTML, Angular 2+, Usability Testing, Persona Development, Typescript, Express.js, Javascript, RESTful APIs, Material Design, Web Components, Angular, AWS
KION Group
April 2017 – December 2018
Head of UX, Research & Innovation
KION Group is a multinational manufacturer of materials handling equipment. Its principal products are forklift trucks; warehouse equipment; industrial trucks; and operations, logistics and material handling software. KION Group has offices around the world including, with its 2017 acquisition of Dematic, an R&D lab called "Advanced Software" located in the heart of the Silicon Valley.
Responsibilities
As scientist, engineer, and designer, I led the company's efforts in designing, architecting and implementing a next generation of User Interface technologies to provide best in class HMI and HCI solutions to KION's customers. Solutions provided include an expansive framework with a core of shared components used to unify the front-end development efforts across the hundreds of software applications KION has developed or acquired over its long history. I also served as Lead Designer Coordinator, coordinating the collaboration activities of the distributed UX Designers across the company.
Tech Used
Illustrator, Photoshop, Node.js, Express.js, HTML, CSS, SCSS, D3, Persona Development, SVG, Typescript, Javascript, HTML, Jenkins, Angular-CLI, Twitter Bootstrap, RESTful APIs, Jira, Git, GitLab, Angular, Material Design, Angular 2+, Mongo, Polymer, Web Components
KarmaLaunch
September 2014 – April 2017
Co-Founder & Chief Pixel Pusher
KarmaLaunch is a crowd-funding platform dedicated to helping charities, causes, and passionate people raise funds to help make the world a better place. As a Co-Founder of KarmaLaunch, I’ve been involved in every step of its growth as the primary owner of the code, UX, and design. KarmaLaunch is truly a labor of love.
Responsibilities
Chief developer, UI/UX, visual design, NetOps, and product management.
Tech Used
Mongo, Express.js, Node.js, HTML, CSS, SCSS, JQuery, SVG, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Usability Testing, User Task Analysis, Persona Development, Gulp, AWS, Foundation, Jira, Github, Git, RESTful APIs, AngularJs
Queue Technologies
September 2013 – September 2014
Co-Founder
Queue is an organic, viral marketing platform that accelerates growth by encouraging fan engagement.
Responsibilities
As a co-founder of Queue I helped establish and refine the company's business offering, UX, code, and roadmap.
Tech Used
SVG, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, SCSS, HTML, JQuery, CSS, Adobe Premiere, Ruby on Rails, Mongo
Zazzle
April 2005 – September 2013
Creative Director
Zazzle’s mission is to give people the power to make and sell anything imaginable. As one of Zazzle's founding members I built the front-end framework, wrote the style guide, and established the Creative Team to own, design, and implement the top-most layer of Zazzle's tech stack. During my tenure Zazzle became one of the Web's most highly trafficked sites, growing from Alexa N/A to an Alexa 500 company with over 17 international domains.
Responsibilities
Ownership of the brand, visual design, UX design, front-end development/architecture, usability testing, and oversight of 3 different teams of talented Visual Designers, Product Designers, and Web Development professionals.
Tech Used
.Net, HTML, CSS, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Usability Testing, User Task Analysis, Persona Development, Multivariate Testing (SiteSpect)
Dematic
May 2014 – May 2016
Consultant, UX Design & Architecture
The KION Group, which acquired Dematic in 2016, is a global leader in industrial trucks, related services and supply chain solutions. Across more than 100 countries worldwide, the KION Group designs, builds and supports logistics solutions that optimize material and information flow within factories, warehouses and distribution centers. This 30,000+ person company is the largest manufacturer of industrial trucks in Europe, the second-largest producer of forklifts globally, and a leading provider of warehouse automation.
Responsibilities
The R&D branch of Dematic, D-LABS, sought out my expertise to help them build a prototype for their next-generation warehouse management system. After a successful showcasing to internal management the prototype was featured at their annual conference. Dematic came back for a second round of engagement so that I could help them create the architectural framework for their next-generation applications.
Tech Used
D3, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Mongo, Express.js, Node.js, JQuery, HTML, SVG, SCSS, CSS, Persona Development, Usability Testing, User Task Analysis, Typescript, Angular 2+
Skinnyprice
October 2014 – October 2015
Chief of Design and UX
Skinnyprice pioneered the concept of "Probability Pricing™", a patented pricing concept that allows retailers to determine what customers are willing to pay for products while also increasing engagement through gamification principles.
Responsibilities
As Chief of Design and UX, my role included creation and ownership of brand, visual design, and UX for Skinnyprice's product suite. Of course I also had a hand in the HTML/CSS/Javascript for product and site creation.
Tech Used
Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, SVG, SCSS, HTML, CSS, JQuery
PacketZoom
August 2016 – October 2016
Consultant, UX and Design
PacketZoom improves customer experience on mobile apps by improving reliability of mobile content delivery. They provide SDKs for mobile developers.
Responsibilities
PacketZoom came to me because they had an amazing technology but weren't getting enough users. It turns out they were getting plenty of users, they just weren't keeping them. By tracking usage they were able to determine that potential customers were bouncing from the site at a surprising rate and needed a UX expert who could both increase their conversion rates and make their offering easy to use.
Tech Used
Photoshop, Illustrator
Tacit Software
April 2004 – April 2005
Principle UI Design Engineer
Tacit's tech allowed companies to seamlessly and transparently mine their workforce for area expertise.
Responsibilities
As the principle owner, designer, and architect for the front-end of Tacit's software suite, I was responsible for end-to-end design and development of all Tacit software and web-based application solutions. Key clients included Lockheed Martin, Morgan Stanley, Northrop Grumman, and the CIA (InQTel).
Tech Used
Illustrator, Photoshop, SCSS, CSS, JQuery, HTML, PHP
Navis LLC
April 2003 – April 2004
Manager of User Experience
Navis is the global leader in resource optimization technology for the transportation and logistics industry and its software has been recognized as the industry's de facto standard for more than 30 years.
Responsibilities
As the Manager of the User Experience team, I was responsible for directing, designing, and developing all user-facing interfaces of Navis's extensive software product line, including its web-based and packaged software solutions. Managed creative professionals, including UX Designers.
Tech Used
Illustrator, Photoshop, Java, Javascript, HTML, CSS
Informative
October 2001 – April 2003
Senior User Interface Design Engineer
Informative (now a part of Satmetrix) was a pioneering customer survey solution. It's web-based application suite provided users a custom survey creation interface and a powerful polling mechanism.
Responsibilities
Responsibilities included specification development, prototyping, usability testing, technical documentation, graphic design, and all front-end code development. I also served as lead engineer for the presentation-layer coding of XHTML, HTML, DHTML, CSS, Javascript and display logic with JSP. Key clients included LEGO and Procter & Gamble.
Tech Used
XHTML, HTML, DHTML, CSS, Javascript, Illustrator, Photoshop, JSP
Rentals.com
March 2000 – October 2001
Creative Director
Rentals was one of the first online real estate marketing and management application service providers.
Responsibilities
Created, prototyped, and produced original concepts while enforcing established HCI paradigms to ensure all front-end solutions were executed at a level of quality consistent with company standards. Primary responsibilities included leading the Design Department; overseeing graphics and markup development; front-end development; visual design; and usability testing and analysis.
Tech Used
Photoshop, Illustrator, HTML, Usability Testing, User Task Analysis, Javascript
Stanford University
October 1998 – March 2000
Adaptive Technology & Accessible Web Design Specialist
This pioneering, ivy-league, temple of higher education (Cal alumns may disagree), made strident efforts to ensure that all students, regardless of physical or psychological disabilities, had access to all that the university had to offer. To that end, they hired me to build a first-of-its-kind Adaptive Technology Center.
Responsibilities
Founded and directed one of the most advanced assistive computer technology centers in the world. Assessed ergonomic, physical, sensory, and cognitive limitations of staff, students, and faculty members and recommended appropriate compensatory strategies and assistive technologies. Served as campus authority on accessible web page design and user interfaces (WAI and Section 503 compliance). Managed front and back-end design/development of departmental databases, hardware and software maintenance, administration, and IT consultation. Founded and managed both the Alternative Format Production Facility and the Assistive Computer Technology Center and their respective lab staff.
Tech Used
Ergonomics, Adaptive Technology, HTML, XML, Javascript, Alternative User Interfaces
