# Christopher Seeds > Product Design Lead · Player-coach · Complex workflows, constraint-heavy domains · Let’s talk about slow design Location: Greater Seattle Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/christopherseeds Product design lead with 15 years in complex B2B SaaS — health tech, fintech, and philanthropy. I work in a player-coach capacity: hands-on with the hardest design problems while leading small teams and partnering with product and engineering to shape the roadmap and ensure the right things ship. ## Work Experience ### Senior Product Designer @ UpMetrics Jan 2024 – Present ### Head Of Design @ Venice Music Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 Led four products from 0 to 1 by collaborating with Co-founders, Product, and Technology teams, leading to a 65% increase in platform engagement. Shaped the product and service vision by crafting comprehensive design artifacts, including journey maps, service blueprints, wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs. Player/coach role managing the output and growth of a high-impact three-person design team (served as a manager and lead designer). Implemented personalized career development plans for designers, aligning with organizational needs and supporting individual growth. ### Senior Designer @ Venice Music Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 ### Lead Designer @ AbleTo Inc. Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | Greater New York City Area Led the design of a therapy appointment scheduling and management product, achieving a notable 65% decrease in customer support calls across three product verticals. Generated impactful design artifacts, including service blueprints and interaction model prototypes, fostering efficient decision-making across three internal teams and an external team. Executed user research and usability testing to guide design decisions, culminating in an enhanced interface that facilitated scheduling changes with minimal disruption to other sessions. ### Senior Product Designer @ Blackboard Insurance (AIG) Jan 2018 – Jan 2020 | Greater New York City Area Directed research and design efforts for an AI-augmented data entry product, resulting in a 250% improvement in insurance application throughput and accuracy. Collaborated with researchers to design a document scanning product that standardized data from all prior insurance carriers, accelerating the commercial insurance application process by 2x. Orchestrated the evolution and expansion of the Blackboard design system by collaborating with engineering, which led to increased development velocity and uniform UX patterns. ### Graduate Research Assistant @ University of Washington Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Greater Seattle Area Designer and researcher on the multi-university research project focusing on cognitive behavioral therapy through motivational interviewing. The system uses machine learning models to label important features of the interaction between a therapist and client (Was this a reflection? an open question? How empathetic was the therapist?) and then turns all of this information into a friendly feedback tool. My work as focused on the visualization of the data and the experience of recording an interview session. ### Graduate Teaching Assistant @ University of Washington Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Greater Seattle Area Co-Lecturer for: HCDE 308 – Visual Communication in Human-Centered Design and Engineering // Fall 2016 Assisted lecturer of record for Visual Communication in Human-Centered Design and Engineering course. Responsibilities included leading lectures, planning course work, facilitating critiques, and grading assignments. Objectives of the junior-level course were to introduce Human-Centered Design and Engineering students to the foundations of visual communication design within the digital space. Teaching Assistant for: DESIGN 166 – Design Foundations // Winter 2017 Assisted professor for Design Foundations course in the Division of Design within the School of Art, Art History and Design. Responsibilities included leading weekly critique session, updating the course website, and grading assignments. Objectives of the freshman-level course were to introduce students to the foundations of design. CSE 440 – Intro to Human-Computer Interaction // Fall 2017 Assisted professor of Intro to Human-Computer Interaction course in the Paul Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering. Responsibilities included leading weekly critique sessions, updating the course website, and grading assignments. Objectives of the junior-level course were to introduce engineering students to the iterative design process and provide a foundation in HCI. ### User Experience Designer @ Microsoft Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Redmond, Washington Designing Mixed Reality experiences. (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Hololens) Working with the Hololens team to define innovative experiences for augmented and virtual realities. Work included broad ideation and leading team brainstorms to prototyping and testing design experiments. Prototyping involved working on an interdisciplinary team of 3D artists, animators and engineers. All experiments were tested with internal teams at different stages of the projects in order to validate design decisions and provide insights into possible directions of future experimentation. ### Product Designer @ Free Association Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | Greater New York City Area Work ranged from early ideation and exploration of a new digital product to creating a design system for a top-tier collegiate newspaper to creating a global experience for an international credit card company. The design process relied on fast sprints where ideas were flushed out quickly and iterated upon. This sprint process allowed for rapid idea validation through various types of prototyping. ### Product Designer @ Plated Jan 2014 – Jan 2015 | Greater New York City Area Projects ranged from proprietary internal software to a complete iOS application design, to a brand re-design. Once launched, projects were monitored for performance and iterated on based on a KPIs that was assigned on a quarterly basis. All projects were approached from a discover/design/prototype/test/develop cycle. The design cycle was made up of hand sketches, low fidelity wireframes, interactive prototypes, animation prototypes, and full production-ready design files. Also lead design critiques and mentorship for junior designers. ### Product Designer @ Findaway World Jan 2011 – Jan 2014 | Solon, Ohio Duties included information architecture planning, user experience mapping, user interface design and the visual design of the brand in the digital space. Work ranged from landing pages, e-commerce architecture, mobile app designs and prototypes, email campaigns. Managed and mentored junior designers and interns. ### Graphic Designer @ Louis+Partners Design Jan 2010 – Jan 2011 | Akron, Ohio Responsibilities included print and interactive design. Work included brand collateral, brand strategy, identity design, annual reports, and websites. ### Design Intern @ FORM Jan 2010 – Jan 2010 | Cleveland, Ohio ### Graphic Design Intern @ rocket science + design Jan 2009 – Jan 2009 | Cincinnati, Ohio ## Education ### Master of Design in Interaction Design University of Washington Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 ### Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communication Design Kent State University Jan 2006 – Jan 2010 ### Fine and Studio Arts The College of Wooster Jan 2005 – Jan 2006 ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/cseeds - Portfolio: http://christopherseeds.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/christopherseeds JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/christopherseeds/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-30