# Brad Bitler > Founder at Takeoff • Ex-Apple HI-Design Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/bradbitler Founder of Takeoff, an AI-powered agentic travel platform reimagining how people plan and experience trips. Currently in the Vercel AI Accelerator. Previously a design lead on Apple's Human Interface Design Team, where I led projects to multi-billion-dollar outcomes. Before that: startups, enterprise, consulting for multi-platinum artists and a winning presidential campaign. Prior to UC Berkeley, I was a Platoon Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, leading 64 Marines in an active combat zone during Operation Iraqi Freedom. I build at the intersection of design and AI. From agentic orchestration to shipping production apps with SwiftUI, Next.js, and LLMs. Building: AI-native travel experiences, agentic workflows, mobile-first products Background: Product design leadership, design systems, UX strategy, cross-platform design, team building Stack: SwiftUI, React Native, Next.js, vector databases, LLMs, Figma, Claude Code, Paper, OpenClaw ## Work Experience ### Founder @ Takeoff Jan 2026 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area Building Takeoff, an AI-powered agentic travel platform reimagining how people plan and experience trips. Currently in the Vercel AI Accelerator. ### Director of Product Design @ Skydio Jan 2025 – Jan 2026 | San Mateo, CA • Established an AI first approach in design, prototyping, and deliverables. • Leading a talented team of designers and design engineers to innovate a suite of multi-platform applications. • Enhancing user experience across controllers, mobile, and web platforms while driving engagement, usability, and pioneering user interactions for autonomous flying robots. ### Senior Staff Product Designer @ Skydio Jan 2025 – Jan 2025 | San Mateo, California, United States ### Product Design Lead @ Apple Jan 2022 – Jan 2025 | Cupertino, California, United States ### Senior Product Designer @ Apple Jan 2019 – Jan 2022 | Cupertino, California visionOS - developer experience: setting up, testing, and distribution of apps. App Store monetization - completely redesigned developer commerce experience ### Principal User Experience Designer @ Autodesk Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco Bay Area Continued support of BIM 360 Cost Management in addition to leading improvements and commercial release of BIM 360’s NLP based dashboard ecosystem. Including the standardization of data visualization across the product line. Championed the move from static curated dashboards to a configurable ecosystem that surfaces actionable machine learning powered data. Daily interfacing with product, development, and data science teams. Additionally, led an initiative to surface partner applications and data within our product—improving user experience and simplifying customer workflows. Presented our solution at Autodesk’s largest customer facing event. ### Principal User Experience Designer @ Autodesk Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco Bay Area Launched an all new product, BIM 360 Cost Management, from customer requirement gathering to commercial release. Worked with an internationally distributed product and development team throughout the development cycle. Leveraged Human Centered Design practices ensuring that the feature set met customer requirements. Handled entire design process from whiteboard, concept design, workflows, detailed designs, pixel perfect specs, and iterative improvements & asset delivery. Supported by designers in Shanghai that worked directly with the development teams throughout their business day. ### UX Designer @ RhythmOne Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 Led the responsive redesign of our web property that has ~24 million unique monthly visitors. Created over 140 page type designs (3-4 different views for each page). The redesign resulted in 42% increase in mobile sessions, 42% increase in organic sessions, and an improvement of 195% for mobile conversions. Owned product and experience design from low-fi wireframes, sketches, flow charts, and prototypes to pixel perfect assets. Working in an agile development team assisted in user research that included: usability testing, surveys, A/B, etc. Additionally, developed and maintained visual design and interaction style standards for SideReel. ### Designer @ Blanc.io Jan 2007 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco Led hundreds of creative and technical projects for an impressive array of clientele including: numerous RIAA platinum and multi-platinum selling recording artists, internationally published print magazines (MAXIM, The Source, etc), and many others. Proven ability to independently manage multiple projects that spanned the creative spectrum; designed and developed websites, mobile applications, and social media layouts. Furthermore, worked in digital video direction and creation that has been published on over 140 websites and viewership in >126 countries. While focusing on mobile games and merchandise for veterans, our first game reached #19 on iOS adventure games. Further releases were enjoyed on and off military bases worldwide. Additionally, in further capacity as a product designer, from product inception to MVP launch: developed and maintained design wireframes, mockups, and branding material. Collaborated with developers and product managers in a distributed and agile teams. Led user centered research initiatives and competitive product analyses, persona creation, task/purpose flows, and storyboards. ### Platoon Sergeant | Supervisor @ United States Marine Corps Jan 2003 – Jan 2007 | Camp Pendleton, CA & Al Anbar, Iraq. Promoted meritoriously twice (<2% of promotions) and at a rate of promotion relatively unheard of. Excelled in high velocity and pressure filled situations. Led groups as large as 64 while supporting an organization of ~1,200 personnel. Influenced workplace culture by setting the highest of examples for junior employees to emulate. Promoted continuous improvement and mentored multiple staff members to obtain accelerated promotions. During this period, responsible for entire lifecycles of projects from inception, planning, and execution—while managing multiple projects concurrently and awarded for results. Created classified technical solutions in a role reporting directly to and advising c-level staff ## Education ### Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) University of California, Berkeley ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/bradbitler --- Source: https://flows.cv/bradbitler JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/bradbitler/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13