# Colin Johnson

> Head of Product Design

Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/colinjohnson

Silicon Valley Product Design Leader · Vibe-Designer

I design products with AI—not around it.

I’m pioneering vibe-designing: an AI-native, code-first design practice where LLMs act as design partners and coordinated AI agents help turn intent directly into production-ready systems. No handoff theater. The design system lives in the codebase.

Built and scaled the Cohesity Design team from 1 to 15 designers across the US and India, serving as both People Manager and Lead Designer since 2018.

Co-designed Cohesity Data Cloud with Jeff Thorslund, awarded a Gold Medal for Best User Interface at the London Design Awards (Dec 2023).

Sole designer of FortKnox, winner of Best of Show and Gold Medal for Data Protection at VMware Explore 2022.

I specialize in shipping enterprise products that are coherent, scalable, and actually usable.

Focus Areas
	•	Vibe-Designing (AI-native, code-defined UX)
	•	Lean UX & continuous discovery
	•	Design systems as production artifacts
	•	Cross-functional collaboration (PM / Eng / Design)
	•	Interaction design, research, and modeling

Certified Product Owner (Scrum Alliance).
Trained by Jeff Gothelf (Enterprise Lean UX) and Jeff Patton (Product Discovery).

## Work Experience
### Senior Director, Head of Product Design @ Arctera.io
Jan 2024 – Present | United States

### Principal Architect, Product Design @ Veritas Technologies LLC
Jan 2023 – Present | Santa Clara County, California, United States
Design Leader at Veritas
Currently Leading Design Operations.

### Head Of Design @ Cohesity
Jan 2018 – Jan 2023 | San Francisco Bay Area

### Technical Director @ Dell EMC
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Santa Clara
Technical Director
User Experience Architect responsible for simplifying and unifying the user experience across the Data Protection Division

### Senior User Experience Architect @ Dell EMC
Jan 2014 – Jan 2018 | Santa Clara
User Experience Evangelist providing expertise in research, modeling and design across multiple product groups at EMC.

### User Experience Architect @ Dell EMC
Jan 2011 – Jan 2017 | Santa Clara
Lead designer for Data Domain Management Center, with a team of 4 designers.

### Senior User Interface Architect @ Citrix Systems
Jan 2010 – Jan 2011
Technical Director responsible for User Interface Architecture across the complete product suite, reporting to the Vice President of Product Design

### User Interface Architect, SMAI Engineering @ NetApp
Jan 2005 – Jan 2010
User Interface Architect responsible for application frameworks and user interfaces across management product suite.
Created UX process at NetApp and was lead researcher, modeler and interaction designer.

### Principal Engineer - User Interface @ Code Green Networks
Jan 2004 – Jan 2005

### Principal Engineer - User Interface @ Packeteer,Inc
Jan 2003 – Jan 2004

### User Interface Architect @ SonicWALL, Inc
Jan 2001 – Jan 2003

### Senior User Interface  Engineer @ Tut Systems
Jan 1999 – Jan 2000

### Windows User Interface Technical Lead @ OneWorld Systems, Inc
Jan 1998 – Jan 1999

### Windows User Interface Technical Lead @ Global Village Communication, Inc
Jan 1997 – Jan 1998

### Windows User Interface Engineer @ KNX Ltd
Jan 1994 – Jan 1996


## Education
### BEng (HONS) in Electronic Systems and Control Engineering
Sheffield Hallam University
Jan 1989 – Jan 1994


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinscottjohnson

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Source: https://flows.cv/colinjohnson
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/colinjohnson/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-07