Product designer, recovering software engineer, and someone who shows up fully — for the work and for the people who matter.
If you don't like solving puzzles, this career isn't for you.
One of my favorite computer science professors said that, and it stuck — because it turned out to be exactly right. I love solving puzzles. That's what's made this whole ride fun, through every twist it's taken.
I started as an engineer and grew quickly into leading projects and teams. Maybe it traces back to an entrepreneurial childhood — mowing lawns, delivering newspapers — but I've always had a way with people, and a lot of empathy for them. To this day, the part of leadership I love most is the 1:1: sitting with someone who reports to me, or helping a colleague who's stuck finally see it click.
So in hindsight, product design was probably always where I'd land. I'm business-savvy enough to be a product manager — but the work I actually love is being close to customers and to the engineers building the solution. Design is where those two things meet. I didn't fall into it. Once I understood myself, I chose it.
There was also a values dimension. After a decade as an engineer across government, finance, telecom, and tech, I'd decided I wanted my work to have greater impact — to help humankind in some way. That's what steered me toward life sciences and biotech. I joined 5AM Solutions deliberately, because they were a consulting firm focused exclusively in the field.
In biotech, that meaning is unmistakable. I've spent the last decade designing software for genomics R&D and clinical diagnostics — where a confusing interface isn't just annoying; it can slow down science that matters. Give me the dense, intimidating, data-heavy product everyone else finds painful, and that's where I light up. My engineering past means I design things that can actually be built, and I can speak the language of the people building them. These days I design and help build, which feels like coming full circle.
I bring real energy and care to a team — and the conviction that the best work is the kind you keep doing.
Engineering, design, and biotech R&D — the overlap is the whole point.
Most people bring one of these. The work I do lives where all three overlap — engineering that keeps designs buildable, the design craft to make complex tools usable, and the years in biotech R&D to know what the science actually needs.
The hybrid, in practice.
Across every role, I've been the person who wears whatever hat the work needs — the one who covers the gaps a team can't always staff for. Colleagues have told me for years I'm built for the fast, ambiguous, do-a-bit-of-everything environments. Whatever the setting, that range is what lets me move a project from messy problem to shipped solution.
Currently open
A designer who codes, learned the science, and brings real care to a team — if that sounds like a fit, I’d love to talk. Open to product design roles, biotech and complex software especially.