# Akshay Rawat > Designing productivity tools Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/akshay Hey hey! I’m Akshay (duck-sh-hey | 🐥-🤫-👋 without the D), a T-shaped designer with roots in consulting and a focus on building thoughtful, scalable systems. By day, I work at ClickUp designing tools that help teams plan and manage their people more intuitively. By night (and most weekends), I’m chasing light with a camera, geeking out on vintage Porsches, or learning something new. I'm driven by curiosity, craft, and the joy of making complex things feel simple. ## Work Experience ### Senior Product Designer @ ClickUp Jan 2025 – Present | San Francisco, California, United States ### Lead Product Designer @ Smartsheet Jan 2023 – Jan 2025 | San Francisco, California, United States Led AI and integration design for an acquired tool within Smartsheet’s core platform – aligned vision while accelerating short-term delivery. - Designed agentic workflows to reduce friction and guide users through complex setup. - Partnered with PM, Engineering, and AI leads to define intelligent defaults, surface recommendations, and build trust. - Reimagined monetization experiences to support PLG adoption and drive upgrades. - Drove a 150% boost in discoverability and unlocked $2M+ in quarterly pipeline through cohesive UX. ### Senior Designer and Researcher @ Foundation Design Jan 2023 – Jan 2024 Drove 0→1 product development for early-stage startups; shaped product vision, design systems, and MLP experiences rooted in growth strategy and user insight. Embedded in lean teams to validate hypotheses through rapid prototyping and user feedback loops. ### Product Designer @ Genemod Jan 2023 – Jan 2023 | Seattle, Washington, United States Secured $4.5M in funding by redesigning electronic lab notebooks and lab inventory systems that scientists at biotech and pharma companies use to plan, conduct, and manage preclinical research studies. ### Teaching Assistant – User Research Studio @ University of Washington Jan 2023 – Jan 2023 | Seattle, Washington, United States Led operations of MHCID 531, a 40-student user research studio, with Dr. Kristin Dew and Prof. John Zošák by facilitating discussion sections, tutoring students, and developing and grading assignments. ### Product Designer @ Cedar Jan 2022 – Jan 2022 | New York City Metropolitan Area Led early design and strategy for a 0→1 healthcare fintech product, shaping Cedar’s pre-visit payments experience from ambiguity to first prototype. Mapped patient psychology through qualitative research, defined core experience principles, and drove decisions across UX flows, product positioning, and roadmap priorities. ### Product Designer @ Click & Pledge® Jan 2022 – Jan 2022 | Remote Reduced support tickets by 14% by addressing usability and accessibility gaps in Connect, a peer-to -peer fundraising platform used by 20K + nonprofits and tied to $1B+ in donations. Led a mixed-methods study to inform design improvements. Increased free trials by 23% and subscriptions by 5% by redesigning the sign-up journey in collaboration with marketing and engineering. Simplified the product portfolio, overhauled UX via interviews and heatmaps, and co-developed the website. ### UX Researcher @ University of Washington Jan 2022 – Jan 2022 | Seattle, Washington, United States Future of Wearable Sports Tech – Investigated autonomy of personal health data in sports and its privacy implications through speculative design and attitudinal research methods, including surveys, user interviews, and focus groups. Findings being synthesized into heuristics and research paper for CHI ‘24. ### Senior Associate / Process Designer @ PwC Jan 2018 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco, California Drove 14% decrease in customer support requests by leading a mixed methods study for an online fundraising platform with 20k+ causes and $1B+ in donations to identify service gaps and improve usability and accessibility of Connect 4.0, the latest iteration of Click & Pledge’s peer-to-peer social fundraising service. Drove 23% increase in free trials and 5% increase in subscriptions by redesigning the fundraising platform’s landing page. Ran 6 competitive analyses, simplified product portfolio, overhauled UX through in-person user interviews and heat maps, prototyped designs, and co-developed website. Expanded PwC’s service offerings to Fortune 100 companies by selling and implementing Extract, a proprietary tool that automates data transfer between client databases and PwC. Helped recruit, onboard, and mentor interns and full-timers. ### Product Designer @ Click & Pledge Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Blacksburg, VA Drove 23% increase in free trials and 5% increase in subscriptions by redesigning the fundraising platform’s landing page. Ran 6 competitive analyses, simplified product portfolio, overhauled UX through in-person user interviews and heat maps, prototyped designs, and co-developed website. ### Undergraduate Teaching Assistant - Marketing Management @ Virginia Tech Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Blacksburg, VA Planned and lead the operations of a 600+ students class with Prof. Donna Wertalik, Pamplin College of Business’ Director of Marketing – redesigned the syllabus, hosted TA hours, managed the special needs’ section, and graded tests and homeworks. ### Marketing Strategist @ PRISM | Pamplin Reinventing Social Media Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 | Blacksburg, VA Crowdfunded $11.5k+, 115% of goal, in 2 quarters by developing a human-centered social media strategy for FutureHAUS Dubai, the US’ award-winning entry into the 2018 Solar Decathlon Middle East, an international competition to build a net-zero energy home that meets the city’s complex space and climate needs. ### Product Designer @ Snapdeal Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | New Delhi Area, India Redesigned the online bus ticketing experience for Snapdeal, one of India’s largest e-commerce platforms with over 70M+ users Applied Stanford d.school’s design thinking process to deliver an enhanced UI/UX: conducted usability tests and interviews; defined user scenarios and product requirements; reimagined app’s information architecture; developed prototypes using Adobe Xd, and; refined prototypes through observations and user feedback Detailed findings in a product requirements document, delivered presentations to the product team, and led cross-functional meetings ## Education ### Master of Science - MS in Human Centered Design and Engineering University of Washington ### Bachelor’s Degree in Major: Business IT (Decision Support Systems) Minors: Industrial Design and International Business Virginia Tech ### User Experience Research and Business Analytics in Human Computer Interaction Udacity ### Study Abroad in Business Information Technology, International Business Prague University of Economics and Business ### High School Diploma in Physics, Chemistry, Maths, English, Economics Delhi Public School Mathura Road ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/rawatakshay - Website: http://www.itsakshay.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/akshay JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/akshay/resume.json Last updated: 2026-02-23