Product Designer & Systems Thinker

Maya
Chen.

Designing at the edge of
clarity and delight.

I craft product experiences for early-stage startups and scaling platforms — turning ambiguity into interfaces people actually want to use. Currently open to senior IC roles and select consulting engagements.

Featured Project Meridian Finance — 0→1 Design
7+
Years experience
24
Products shipped
3
Design awards
01 — Selected Work

Products I've
shaped.

All case studies ↗
SaaS Design system 0→1

Meridian — Personal Finance Platform

End-to-end product design for a YC-backed fintech. Led design system creation, onboarding flows, and a dashboard that reduced time-to-insight by 40%.

Mobile Research

Tempo — Task Rhythms App

iOS app for async teams. User research, IA redesign, and motion language that drove a 62% retention uplift at 30-day mark.

B2B Data viz

Verdant — Supply Chain Analytics

Redesigned core analytics surfaces for logistics operators. 80+ component library, complex data tables, and a radically simplified KPI layer.

Consumer iOS · Android

Lume — Mood & Wellness Tracker

Sensitive-data UX for a mental health startup. Built accessible check-in flows and an award-winning visual language.

AI product

Prism — AI Knowledge Layer

Designed AI-native interaction patterns and trust-signalling UI for an enterprise search product.

Web3 Design system

Orbit — Web3 Collaboration Suite

Demystified blockchain primitives through progressive disclosure and a cohesive cross-platform design system.

How I work

01
Discover
Research & stakeholder alignment
02
Define
Problem framing & success metrics
03
Design
Wireframes, prototypes, systems
04
Validate
Usability testing & iteration
05
Ship
Dev handoff & QA partnership
02 — About

Designed with
intent.

Maya Chen
Available for work — Q3 2026
Figma Prototyping Design systems User research Motion design Accessibility HTML / CSS Data viz Strategy

I believe good design is
less about aesthetics and more
about reducing cognitive load.

Born in Shanghai, raised in Vancouver, and now based in San Francisco — I've spent seven years working at the intersection of product strategy and visual craft. My background in cognitive science means I start every project with the question: "What does the user need to understand, and how fast?"

Before going independent, I led design at Ripple (series B fintech), was staff designer at Notion's growth team, and spent two formative years at a small studio in Berlin learning that constraints are a feature, not a bug.

Career timeline
2024 – now
Independent Product Designer
Self-employed · San Francisco, CA
2022 – 2024
Senior Product Designer, Growth
Notion · San Francisco, CA
2020 – 2022
Lead Product Designer
Ripple (Series B) · San Francisco, CA
2018 – 2020
UX Designer
Reaktor Studio · Berlin, DE
2014 – 2018
BSc Cognitive Science & HCI
University of British Columbia
03 — Get in touch

Let's build
something
remarkable.

Whether you have a funded startup that needs a design partner, or a product team looking for a senior IC — I'd love to hear about it. Response time is usually under 24 hours.

[email protected]