# Austin Bales > was brought to you in part, by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/austinbales ## Work Experience ### Proprietor General @ General Impact Jan 2025 – Present GENERAL IMPACT are a general contractor for information technology businesses and their products. ### Director of Product Design @ Instagram Jan 2018 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco, California I led the teams responsible for the core consumer experience of Instagram, and supported Meta’s most senior individual contributors. Co-founded Instagram Labs with Robby Stein, Vivian Wang and Ryan Olson — a small independent group responsible for new product innovation and "finally" features. The team grew and scaled across organizations, with units embedded in every part of Instagram. Finally, I built the design team for Threads, and designed its Fediverse features. ### Director of Product Design @ Facebook Jan 2017 – Jan 2024 | Menlo Park, California Over some eleven or twelve years I led product design for News Feed, Growth, Messenger and Instagram’s consumer products. It was amazing to work on things we use everyday. I built teams, supported people, shaped strategy and created processes that accomplished big shifts for the company: launching Reels, bringing new ideas to Stories, the growth of Messenger as a texting product, and establishing the individual contributor Director career path. I also hired and supported individuals who’ve since grown to senior executive positions. Their success makes me so happy. I led design recruiting for a third of Meta’s product teams in partnership with Jeremy Loughnot. Built and ran our process for allocating new grad candidates; wrote the book on hiring managers, and created the process and criteria for evaluating candidates and making hiring decisions with Luke Woods, Robyn Morris and Tom Hobbs. Before I started that work I was afraid to work on recruiting, and I’m quite proud to say that I now enjoy it. My guidance and ideas sparked projects that grew into large initiatives and organizations, notably Meta’s company-wide design system and the Instagram Labs program. I’m not usually the guy presenting or taking, or deserving, credit, but it’s so cool to see how these seeds grow. I’m deeply honored to have played a part in the work and careers of some of the industry’s best designers. Working at Facebook was an experience of a lifetime. I leave with tremendous gratitude. ### Product Design Manager @ Facebook Jan 2013 – Jan 2024 | Menlo Park, California Over several years I led the News Feed, Feed Ads, Messenger, and Growth Design teams. ### Product Designer @ Facebook Jan 2013 – Jan 2024 I designed the new user experience and real-time communication features for Messenger 3. And contributed to Origami for Quartz Composer. ### Senior Member of Technical Staff @ Salesforce Jan 2011 – Jan 2013 ### Interaction Designer @ Odopod Jan 2010 – Jan 2011 ## Education ### Industrial Design in Design, HCI Carnegie Mellon University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/austinbales - Portfolio: http://austinbales.com - Portfolio: https://m.me/arbales --- Source: https://flows.cv/austinbales JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/austinbales/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13