# Debbie Kim > Product Design at NerdWallet Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/debbiekim I’m a designer and user defender, bridging the needs of people and businesses through purposeful experiences. Skills: User experience, user interface, product design, visual design, strategy, prototyping, wireframing, art direction, journey maps, user flows, wireframes, competitive analysis, e-commerce, web/mobile design, HTML, branding, management, marketing, infographics, typography, lettering, sign painting ## Work Experience ### Senior Product Designer @ NerdWallet Jan 2024 – Present | San Francisco, California, United States Leadership • Partnered with product to define strategic direction and identify high impact areas • Led SMB design following a company-wide RIF, maintaining velocity and meeting goals across lending, SEO, and registered experiences • Mentored design team, defining development areas and processes for consistency and visibility • Navigated shifting priorities and regulatory changes, and drove new strategies to support speed and new experiences in a lean environment • Directed research, support coordination, and brand needs as acting lead during team reductions Business Impact • Boosted offer to close rates by 30% with a redesigned borrower dashboard in our sales flow; achieved a 90% adoption rate by the sales team in one quarter • Generated $1.2M in incremental revenue/year by optimizing the onboarding UX, driving a +5% completion rate • Drove 20% growth in ARR through 0-to-1 initiatives across lending, business development, and referrals • Collaborated to launch Spara, SMB’s first AI initiative, to support off-hour borrowers • Mitigated critical SEO decline by shipping 50 experiments. Improved key rank from 30+ to 14 and reversed a 1.4 average position loss • Increased registration rates by 50% and ToFu signups by 13% for the new SMB hub Design Systems and Processes • Spearheaded AI workshops to expand design systems and address UI discrepancies • Improved intake requests, accelerated discovery with custom GPTs, and refined engineering handoffs • Centralized design libraries into a unified system to resolve design debt and ensure platform consistency ### Product Designer @ NerdWallet Jan 2021 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco, California, United States Ownership and strategy of end to end process: • Collaborating with PMs to shape strategy and define roadmaps • Leading discovery and facilitating ideation workshops • Running and synthesizing user research and partnering to shape testing strategies • Analyzing data to identify opportunities and pain points • Applying skill sets across visual, product, research, interaction, and copywriting Scope focused on solving for the following at scale: • Fundera and NerdWallet branded experiences • Improving the onboarding user experience to identify pain points, opportunities, segmentation, and conversion • Driving registrations and efficiencies within our sales team’s workflows • Launching new verticals and optimizing top of funnel engagement Implementing process updates and leading weekly meetings that improve cross-functional communication, prioritization, and collaboration Frequently work with ambiguity within a complex loans space and distill bigger ideas to smaller, shippable iterations ### Senior Visual Designer @ NerdWallet Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 Product marketing: • Built up the product marketing program and processes with the content strategist and product marketing manager • Hypothesized, tested, and optimized new content and in existing surfaces, including app stores, videos, landing pages, and influencer posts • Initiated a redesign of our app pre-registration flow, resulting in a statistically significant 4.3% lift in install-to-registration rate Performance marketing: • Maintained and designed components for our WordPress tool, ensuring they’re flexible and aligned to our larger design system • Managed our agency relationship, guiding creative to stay within our brand expression, and refined processes • Supported requests for monetizing landing pages • Collaborated with the performance and brand teams to onboard new tools to accelerate workflows and testing opportunities, and developed documentation • Spearheaded an audit across 2,500+ ads with the performance team, identifying off-brand assets, building a plan to test and replace, and documenting findings and best practices Initiatives + Collaborations: • Designed the layout and components for a COVID guide page to be easily updated regularly by content writers. Almost a year post-launch, this page had generated 8.5M visits to date. • Joined the accessibility audit team, reviewing accessibility violations and creating recommendations to be AA compliant • Collaborated with the Sr. UI eng to redesign the brand guidelines site and a net-new segmentation site • Partnered with brand and product designers, researchers, and eng to bring brand expertise to product surfaces, ship various features, support campaigns and internal briefs, and participate in and lead studios focused on iconography, data viz, and atomic components ### Creative Manager – Crazy 8 @ Gymboree Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco Bay Area • Created user-centered designs and guidelines informed by quantitative and qualitative research • Launched brand redesign and replatformed for responsive experience • Implemented metrics, usability reports, feedback, and competitor analyses to the design process • Provided external partners with UI direction, redline documentation, and iconography • Streamlined cross-functional processes to improve efficiency, communication, and quality of deliverables • Designed cross-brand Baby2Baby initiative that met $500K goals before the target date • Led multi-platform design for Six Flags sweepstakes, resulting in a 66% opt-in rate • Crafted onboarding and developmental plans for direct reports ### Senior Visual Designer – Crazy 8 @ Gymboree Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco Bay Area ### Senior Visual Designer – Janie and Jack & Crazy8 @ Gymboree Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco Bay Area • Developed web creative for Janie and Jack and Crazy 8, including site, mobile, and UI, while overseeing designers • Was the interim sole designer for both brands, overseeing and executing all creative campaigns and deliverables • Spearheaded creative for first major C8 branding initiative • Collaborated with front-end developer, web and copy teams, planning, merchants, and leadership team
 • Created meetings allowing for checkpoints across teams and providing earlier feedback • Implemented a structured process integrating competitor analyses, research, photo art direction, and wireframing ### Senior Web Designer – Pottery Barn Teen @ Williams-Sonoma, Inc. Jan 2014 – Jan 2015 | San Francisco Bay Area • Planned and implemented UI improvements, custom design tools, and mobile redesigns 
• Built UI site assets and overlays • Designed responsive homepages, mobile, modals, special features, templates, site and dorm content, assets to A/B test, and collaboration lookbooks
 • Partnered with directors, front-end developers, merchants, and copywriters to execute new feature page designs and daily updates 
• Implemented a more efficient review process and trained team members on Adobe Experience Manager CMS, Jira, and Creative Suite 
• Managed three production and junior designers ### Senior Email Designer - Pottery Barn Teen @ Williams-Sonoma, Inc. Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 | San Francisco Bay Area • Designed all email creative and registry campaigns, seasonal templates, online marketing ads, and social media landing pages • Supported web team with updated homepages and site assets • Scheduled and trafficked copy, input corrections, and distributed proofs • Corrected HTML files, oversaw daily multiple sends, and managed the junior designer and the off-site coding team relationship ### Editorial Designer @ Hyphen Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 | San Francisco Bay Area • Designed layouts and hand lettering for non-profit Asian American culture and politics print magazine • Proofed copy and typesetting, participated in fundraisers, and brainstormed in sessions for current and following issues • Created promotional material to publicize fundraisers and various Hyphen events ### Visual Designer @ Gap Inc./Banana Republic Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 | San Francisco Bay Area • Conceptualized improvements for site, UI, and functionality for US and EU pages • Collaborated with marketing and production to deliver weekly campaigns and promotional site pieces for campaigns including Madmen, Create Jobs for USA, and Marie Claire • Designed layouts for homepages, department pages, and email marketing for US and international sites ## Education ### Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Design, Emphasis in Visual Communications University of California, Davis ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/debbiekimdesign - Portfolio: https://www.dskimdesign.com/ --- Source: https://flows.cv/debbiekim JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/debbiekim/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13