A little bit of this, and a dash of that.
I'm a senior product designer based in Palm Springs, California. I've worked in enterprise software, healthcare, the video game industry, and customer service jobs (serving coffee is a rite of passage for career growth). That winding road turns out to be pretty useful when the problems are complicated and people are involved.
The longer version.
I started in the U.S. Army as a Korean linguist, then spent a few years as a flight attendant. Went back to school and worked as a barista through all of my undergrad - jobs that didn't have much to do with design but everything to do with people and working in a team.
Video games got me through the design doors. I worked at LucasArts as a QA tester, then moved into junior systems design and UI design on a couple of projects there. As luck would have it, I was laid off and went back to school to study Video Game Art & Design. All through college I was working contracts doing everything from mobile game UIs and 3D architectural renderings to commissioned paintings and illustrations - with companies like Tapulous, Instagram, and later The Weather Channel. I wasn't following a plan. I was just staying close to interesting challenges and developing new technical design skills.
My first full-time design role was at Walmart.com, designing the first native mobile apps for iOS and Android. That opened the floodgates - AR hardware, CRM interfaces, enterprise platforms, healthcare, and eventually Oracle, where the problems got bigger and the systems got more complex. For over eight years, I taught UX and interaction design at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Sharing what I know has always been part of how I work.
Elective Complexity
Good design doesn't hide complexity. It surfaces it cleanly and then gets out of the way. I believe in giving users options they can actually see, understand, and choose from without ever being overwhelmed. The goal is a foundation that's easy to start with and built to support however deep someone wants to go. Let them explore their own capabilities, forge their own path, and decide how far down the rabbit hole they want to go. I just make sure the ladder is visible, stable, and on their terms.
Options to Clarity
I like to show up with three well-reasoned options rather than one foregone conclusion. That means coming in with research (sometimes doing it myself), understanding the business case, working closely with stakeholders, understanding the tech and design debt, and coalescing around a strategy and tactics that are grounded in reality. Design decisions made together stick better than ones handed down from on high - and a well-functioning team will always outproduce a one-person show.
Currently Into…
Not just a designer.
These aren't just hobbies, part-time gigs, or side hustles. These are different flavors of designing for people. Some have nothing to do with design at all, but every one of them has shaped how I think, how I empathize, and how I show up to work on problems. These side quests are where a lot of the real instincts come from and where I get to keep refining my craft.
Steel Gym
Picked this up during a career transition and genuinely never left. Tight-knit local gym, flat team culture, great people. Unexpectedly inspiring from a business and community design perspective. Still pick up shifts. There's a larger idea brewing here. More on that later.
Outpost111
A print-on-demand shop built on bad dad jokes, kitschy illustrations, and the firm belief that a good t-shirt can make a stranger's day. Running Outpost111 has been a crash course in designing an entire business from scratch - brand, storefront, fulfillment, and a social media strategy I'm still learning and growing. Also: the most humbling education in e-commerce margins.
Teaching
Eight years teaching UX and interaction design at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Explaining something to someone who's never seen it before is the fastest way to find the holes in what you think you understand. Also, I had a presentation glow up once I got into the practice of putting in a well-placed Spongebob GIF that can explain a concept better than boring ol' bullet points.
Game Design Roots
Got my start in the games industry before "UX" was a job title - working through QA testing, UI design, and mobile work before smartphones made that a real career. What stuck wasn't just the craft, it was thinking in systems: levels, rules, feedback loops, player progression. Turns out that's pretty good training for design systems work.
Southwest Airlines
A few years serving people at 35,000 feet taught me more about empathy, real-time problem solving, and reading a room than any design class. Everyone should work in service at some point. It makes you a better designer and a better human.
U.S. Army
Serving in the U.S. Army taught me that the best teams aren't built on rank or titles - they're built on trust, shared understanding, and people who lead by showing others how it's done. That stuck with me a lot longer than anything else from that chapter.
Currently making.
When I'm not doing the day job, I'm usually building something else entirely.
Tarot Companion
A tarot journaling and reference app built around customizable content that matches your style - with your own notes, photos, and interpretations all in one place. A thoughtful reflection, learning, and support tool with ambitions for a community where readers can connect, share interpretations, and eventually a marketplace.
• In ProgressProject Helix
A dating and social platform built for communities that deserve better than a subreddit. Collaborating with a talented backend developer and a good buddy to design something for a niche audience, scalable by design. The first community is a proof of concept - the rest has a lot of room to grow.
• In ProgressDeath Realms
A 16-bit roguelite shooter built around a Mega Man-style world structure and a Hades-style run system - where you build your buster cannon across modifiers, upgrades, and the occasional terrible decision. The ambition is a community-driven level ecosystem where players can design, submit, and vote on their own modular stages. Currently in the design document phase, with plans to prototype it with Claude Code because why not.
• In Progressitsprollyfine
An honest product review platform built around two things I actually know: gym apparel and kitchen tools. The pitch is simple - real reviews from someone who washes things, dries things, and uses them until they fall apart. Currently in the research and design phase, figuring out what an actually trustworthy affiliate review ecosystem looks like.
• BrewingWant to see the work?
Five case studies across design systems, enterprise software, healthcare, and conversational AI. The problems were hard, and that made it fun!