Modernizing a Legacy Platform

Sr. UX Director    |   Made at BigTime, 2023-25

When I joined BigTime in Fall 2023, the product was scaling, but UX, systems, and internal processes hadn’t yet caught up. The company had a fully staffed product and engineering team, but no formal UX team, no embedded research, no design system management, and no formalized product education process. I was brought in to establish processes and build up a UX & Research discipline as a strategic partner in product development.

Over the past two years, I helped build the foundation of BigTime’s UX & Research function, introducing scalable research methods (without a dedicated researcher), launching a product education arm to support onboarding and adoption, and developing a remote-first design culture that spans Chicago, Boston, and Wrocław. I also led two internship programs to grow local talent and sponsored multiple internal promotions through career development.

In parallel, I served as Product Lead for the front-end team, where we delivered a new design system in under a year, reducing tech debt, enabling cross-platform consistency, and accelerating delivery. I also introduced new operational processes across UX, product education, marketing, navigation, and engineering teams. This included establishing new JIRA workflows, agile sprint planning, and creating roadmaps that brought alignment and momentum to our project plans.

As part of our modernization efforts, I led the design strategy, product education rollout plan, and launch of BigTime’s first AI-powered features, including an in-app assistant that now helps users onboard faster and find answers in context.

These case studies reflect these modernization efforts. Everything from standard cleanup to innovation, and the systems, leadership, and collaboration that made it possible.