Jean-Bertrand Uwilingiyimana
Product designer & design engineer
New York, NY
About me
I'm a product designer who bridges design, engineering, and strategy across companies at every stage—from early-stage startups to established platforms. My work spans the full spectrum of design disciplines: user research, interaction design, visual design, service design, and product management, with hands-on front-end development capabilities . I've shipped products across fintech, civic tech, education, retail, and creator platforms, navigating the distinct challenges each industry and company stage presents. Whether establishing design foundations as a founding designer or scaling systems as a design lead, I focus on understanding complex problems to design for measurable outcomes.
Before my career in product design, I worked in community development and urban housing policy research. Outside of work, I'm passionate about food, music, basketball, and woodworking.
Experience
Staff Product Designer at Puzzle — Led product design initiatives for product led growth, including onboarding, first time user experience, analytics and insights dashboard, accounting AI, transaction categorization and other general UX improvements for the enterprise accounting platform..
Lead Product Designer at Hype — Led all product design initiatives for Series A saas company building a CRM for creators. Designed for native iOS as well as web app.
Design Lead at Catch — Drove design strategy and execution for financial tools serving freelancers and independent workers.
Senior Product Designer at Pico — Designed and shipped creator-focused tools, shaping product experiences for emerging content platforms.
Founding Designer at Reach Progress PBC — Established design foundations for a civic engagement platform launched during Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 2018 primary campaign. Shaped product strategy alongside the CEO and contributed to front-end development across web and native applications built in React and React Native.
Senior Product Manager at Octane Lending — Led product strategy for fraud prevention and credit underwriting platforms. Spearheaded LexisNexis integration for fraud and identity management, designed proprietary fraud detection automation tools, and expanded underwriting capabilities to support new asset classes in collaboration with executive leadership.
Senior Designer at Aceable — Owned brand and marketing design while serving as lead product designer for driver's education and real estate platforms. Conducted user research and usability testing to inform product decisions.
Experience Designer at Whole Foods Market — Designed digital experiences for the company's first national brand campaign, led service design for in-store digital touchpoints, and shaped customer experiences within the Whole Foods Market mobile app.
Lead, Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy — Directed HUD-funded research initiatives through Habitat for Humanity (2012–2014) focused on urban revitalization in upstate New York. Organized coalitions of public and private stakeholders to inform resource allocation strategies for the New York Governor's office.
AmeriCorps — Completed year of service with the Corporation for National and Community Service.
Education
Environmental Science & Policy — Boston University | 2007 - 2011
Skills
Design & code — Research, User Testing, UI/UX, Interaction, Prototyping, Front-End Development
Product management — Scrum, Roadmap planning, Analytics, Strategy
Tools — Figma, Linear, JIRA, Spline, Git, React, Claude, Cursor, Vercel, PostHog, MixPanel, Amplitude, Heap, Adobe Design Suite