Who am I

I'm a product designer with 8 years of experience designing B2B SaaS products. I thrive in environments that have a collaborative culture where problems require clean user journeys and have allocated time for testing with real users.

Most of my career has been spent in the tech industry talking to users, collaborating with product and engineering, mapping edge cases with developers, and making sure the design decisions that matter get prioritised. I've worked across accounting tools at Xero, payment software at Timely and Pushpay, data analytics at Movio, and most recently at Estimate1 in the construction industry.

I have also been an active member of the UX design community writing online and mentoring designers throughout my career. I was the co-organiser for the UX Auckland meetup in New Zealand, the 3rd person in New Zealand on ADPList in 2020 offering mentoring to designers and have helped students in New Zealand grow their design skills, networking capabilities and personal confidence at Summer of tech.

Outside of design I play bass guitar, go to the gym and swimming pools, read finance and self development books, attend concerts and design conferences, and spend too much time researching bands on tour.

My key design principles

1
Define the problem
Start with clear problems, not solutions. I work closely with product and engineering to make sure we're solving the right thing.
2
Cover the edge cases
A good product doesn't just cover the happy path. Missing additional edge cases early is always more costly later.
3
Checking over guessing
Assumptions are expensive. It's better to run a quick test or talk to a user than ship something we're not sure about.

What I am looking for

I'm currently open to permanent or remote roles.

I'm looking for a product design role where I can contribute to problems end to end — from defining the right problem with product and engineering, through to shipped, tested solutions. I work best in collaborative teams where design has a seat at the table early, the culture is supportive and decisions are grounded in user evidence.

I am open to new opportunities

Get in touch with me on Linkedin or by email at szetomj@gmail.com
© Michael Szeto | Melbourne, Australia
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