I was invited to join Treasure Data in 2018 to reinvent the product design department. User Experience had been an afterthought up until then at TD. Additionally, my experience with marketing automation was needed to build a new CDP (Customer Data Platform) that combined a strong data manipulation with the marketing/security functions required of the B2C market.

During my 3 years there, I designed numerous projects that helped drive vision, built an amazing team of designers, and established many processes to smooth design and development including the acceptance process and changelogs.

Covid-19 hit during my tenure there and presented new challenges. Luckily it worked out well. I was surprised how productive a team could be in a distributed environment. We innovated with many team bonding exercises.

Early in my Treasure Data tenure, I personally executed all of the designs from architecture to the little details. As time progressed, I spent more and more effort on recruiting and training of my young design team. (I hired 6 designers straight out of college.)

By the end, I was providing high level architecture, but the team had become self-sufficient, including divvying up all of the work and responsibilities amongst themselves. This is the first team I had achieved this level of self-sufficiency. Honestly, it’s the best team I’ve ever had the honor of managing.

Note: This collection is more detailed than other companies I have worked for. Reasons include a stronger team than usual and Figma made it quite easy.