# Debra Tjoa > Principal Product Designer | 20+ yrs UX/UI for complex systems | Vision-driven, end-to-end prototyping | I help turn ambiguity into clear, scalable solutions that helps users work up to 2x faster Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/debra I’m a product design lead with 20+ years of experience creating intuitive, scalable B2B SaaS solutions for startups and SMBs. I love helping businesses save time and realize their vision faster. Trained as a geologist, I analyzed seismic data in New Mexico before finding my passion for UX/UI and visual design. Since then, I’ve designed hundreds of user interactions, leveraging insights from ecommerce, dev tools, legal, digital media, and IT management & governance. ⭐️ MY SUPERPOWER IS TRANSFORMING COMPLEXITY INTO CLARITY, saving resources by spotting redundancies and untangling flows that others might miss or struggle with. ↳ My company launched procurement and quoting initiatives, but I recognized an overlap, resulting in merged teams and fewer meetings. ↳ I unified the flows and built an end-to-end prototype in days that won board approval. ↳ I guided a phased rollout over a year, resulting in a product that sped up deals from days to minutes, stopped sales losses, and unlocked a new module to sell. ⭐️ I’M THE GO-TO LEAD for ambiguous, fast-moving projects critical to company strategy. ↳ When the CEO counted on us to merge five apps into one enterprise platform, my team dove in, learned every function, defined information architecture, and prototyped hundreds of screens to fast-track development. ⭐️ EFFICIENCY IS AT MY CORE. ↳ I’ve created pattern libraries and design systems to boost efficiency and consistency. ↳ I’ve pushed for inclusion in roadmaps, raising design involvement from 50% to 90% and streamlining process. ⭐️“MY LIFE IS MUCH EASIER KNOWING DEB IS INVOLVED” ↳ I consistently earn praise like this from engineers and PMs who appreciate my cross-functional collaboration. ↳ Another colleague says, “All the developers and QA love working with her” since I anticipate and communicate edge cases to speed implementation. ⭐️ I DESIGN FOR LASTING IMPACT. Apps I helped architect have stood the test of time. ↳ The open-source security solution I refined remains core to Veracode. ↳ Axcelerate, the e-discovery tool I helped redesign, is still a leader in the space. ↳ Clarity has stayed on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for 22 years. Beyond work, I’m passionate about equal opportunities for children, raising $1M+ through PTA for our low-income schools. I also teach and create Zentangle® art, a pattern-based method that aligns with my enthusiasm for accessible experiences. More at www.debtjoa.com or message me—let’s connect! ## Work Experience ### Principal UX Architect @ Ambry Genetics Jan 2025 – Present ### Founding Product Designer for Stealth Mode AI-Powered Startups @ Unknown Jan 2025 – Present As a core member of the founding teams for two early-stage startups (B2C and B2B), I partner directly with CEOs and Engineering leads to turn raw ideas into real, usable products. • Translate abstract concepts into clear, user-centered designs, from early sketches to polished prototypes. • Bridge vision and execution, driving clarity, surfacing edge cases, and ensuring feasibility through design. • Lead foundational user research to guide product direction and support product-market fit through smart iteration. • Design AI-powered features like agentic workflows and intelligent search to address specific user pain points. ### Director, UX Design @ Inxeption Jan 2021 – Jan 2024 | Cupertino, California, United States Inxeption, a startup of 200 employees at its peak, aimed to be the Shopify and Amazon of the B2B space. We expanded to include verticals in logistics and renewable energy. I began as Principal UX Designer and was promoted to Director after two years, overseeing 4 designers while designing my own features. • Our legacy quoting app forced reps to use spreadsheets, causing inconsistencies that resulted in selling at a loss. I designed a quoting system with essential fields, order conversion, and integrated RFQs which reduced the deal cycle from days to minutes, eliminated sales losses, and created opportunities to sell a digital procurement module. • Sellers struggled to create quality product listings, hurting their sales and making our marketplace look untrustworthy. I improved setup by restructuring the information architecture and consolidating fields into one page. This reduced time on task by 30% while enhancing the seller experience. • Freight shipping complexities led to order cancellations and surprise fees. We developed an algorithm for instant quotes in checkout, ensuring accurate costs upfront. Buyers made informed decisions, sellers could book shipments seamlessly, and Support no longer dealt with frustrated customers. This innovation streamlined checkout and gave us a competitive edge in B2B ecommerce. • Our platform only accepted full payment via credit card/offline payments, limiting large, self-service transactions. I helped integrate ACH, check, wire, payment terms, and tax exemptions. Expanding payment options removed a $10k transaction cap, enabling larger purchases and reducing involvement from Sales. • As our team expanded, disorganized processes multiplied—requests came in last-minute to individual designers, or features were added without design time. I introduced a process to balance workloads and plan ahead with PM, increasing design involvement in roadmap planning from 50% to 90% and improving visibility, predictability, and quality. ### Principal User Experience Designer @ Inxeption Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 Selected accomplishments in this earlier role: • Sellers found setting up our WordPress store difficult, and it lacked conveniences for distribution partners, forcing them to rely on phone or fax. We introduced a setup-free sales channel with a compact list and bulk pricing capabilities, which doubled ordering speed and created a new revenue stream. • Onboarding sellers was painful. Ops manually spun up AWS instances, created accounts, and guided sellers through redundant forms—sometimes over days. I helped redesign the process into a streamlined wizard, automated setup, and cut onboarding from days to minutes, freeing up Ops, improving retention, and letting Finance recognize revenue sooner. • Additionally, I improved mobile and desktop navigation, streamlined ecommerce checkout flow, advised on splitting a monolithic app into independent apps that could be updated more quickly, and designed features for Know Your Business/Know Your Customer (KYB/KYC), invoicing, discounts, and shipment creation. ### Principal UX Designer @ Veracode Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 SourceClear was an application security solution for scanning open-source software. As the sole designer in this startup, I worked with ~25 teammates locally and in Singapore, focusing on our web app for scan results and the vulnerability repository. After CA Technologies acquired us in April 2018 and spun us off with Veracode in January 2019, I remotely joined Veracode’s 10-person Boston design team and integrated SourceClear into Veracode’s UI. • I designed our SaaS platform’s self-service plan management, enabling customers to upgrade, downgrade, or cancel without contacting Support. I also advocated for customer-friendly billing logic for mid-cycle changes. This reduced Support tickets and likely increased upgrades by making it seamless for users to adjust plans as needed. • I shaped the design of SourceClear’s policy system, allowing companies to define security rules tailored to their needs. This reduced issue fatigue and made our product more competitive. The feature remains in use today at Veracode, proving its lasting impact on how teams manage open-source security risks. • Additionally, I designed and specced features user and group management, paywall/trial/billing flow, onboarding flow, container scanning, organization-wide agents, CVSS version 3, and a UI refresh. ### Senior UX Designer @ SourceClear Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco Bay Area SourceClear was an application security solution for scanning open-source software, acquired by CA in April 18. Please see Veracode for experience details. ### UX Design Manager @ Recommind (now OpenText) Jan 2013 – Jan 2016 Recommind, a mid-sized startup, provided SaaS solutions for unstructured data. As part of a four-person design team, I managed one designer and worked on the Axcelerate enterprise e-discovery product with teams in San Francisco and Germany. OpenText acquired Recommind in 2016, and while the UI was refreshed, Axcelerate remains a leading e-discovery solution built on our UX foundation. • Our software let users tag legal documents, but they had to manually remember dependencies, leading to errors and potentially hours of rework. I designed a UI that enforced tagging rules with intuitive interactions, space-saving controls, and a button to test for conflicts, dramatically improving accuracy and efficiency while releasing to market as swiftly as possible. • Because engineers frequently rewrote UI and design inconsistencies multiplied, I co-wrote an extensive pattern library that evolved into our design system, complete with samples and code snippets. This saved hours per week in design consultations, dev time, and bug fixes, while ensuring scalability. ### Sr. Web Developer @ Disney Interactive Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 | Palo Alto, CA I maintained the front end of One True Media, Vlix, and SpotMixer after our acquisition by Disney in June 2012. • I created vision mockups of white-label promotional Vlix campaigns and was involved in early implementation of our website to support Story, the Disney Photo App for Family Storytelling. • I used Interface Builder to create informational screens and collaborated on the interaction and functionality of the Story app. ### UX Designer @ SpotMixer (formerly One True Media) Jan 2005 – Jan 2012 SpotMixer, a fast-paced startup of ~20 people, pioneered online video editing for millions of users with B2C (One True Media, Vlix) and B2B (SpotMixer) SaaS products, including TV ads, YouTube video creation, and a video-sharing community. As one of two designers, I worked on all apps and the marketing site. We were acquired by Disney Interactive in June 2012 and merged into Story, the Disney Photo App for Family Storytelling. • I redesigned the One True Media video song page to simplify the upload process and integrate free tracks from third-party providers. My design made it easier for users to browse and add music, improving usability. It remained in use in up to 15,000 videos daily at peak, until the product’s end of life. • I enabled the company to pivot from B2C to B2B, opening a new line of business and adding dozens of clients by defining and reskinning our One True Media video app into SpotMixer, allowing users to create TV commercials and internet ads as easily as making a slideshow. • I similarly broadened our funnel and helped the company gain thousands of new clients and users by creating tailored video creation flows and sharing galleries in partnership with Google, YouTube, BabyCenter, TiVo, and iVillage. • Additionally, I ran usability sessions, updated the marketing website, and promoted new features on social media. (While my job title was officially "Interaction Designer," the duties I performed more closely aligned with that of a UX designer.) ### Freelance Web Designer @ Self-employed Jan 2005 – Jan 2005 Web design/development for small businesses and organizations. Designed new websites and redesigned existing websites; improved site layout, interaction, code structure; optimized images; enabled online purchasing. ### Senior Web Producer @ CA Technologies Jan 2005 – Jan 2005 Niku was a mid-sized startup that offered IT Management and Governance software solutions. I was part of a design team of seven and worked on several enterprise and B2B products with colleagues in the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago. CA Technologies—later acquired by Broadcom—acquired Niku in 2005. • When leadership recognized inefficiencies caused by our fragmented suite of five separate project management and financial software systems, our design team unified our resource management, project tracking, finance, and security apps into a single platform, Clarity. I became a key resource, immersing myself in these domains and creating 750 HTML prototype screens in under two years. Clarity became a market leader in enterprise project portfolio management, saving businesses millions and staying on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for 22 consecutive years. • Once our separate apps were united in Clarity, executives needed tools to make decisions driven by all the data, which had been previously housed in separate apps. To address this, I designed a flexible, customizable reporting and BI dashboard, allowing client administrators to apply multiple filters and users to personalize layouts. This ensured executives could access insights tailored to their needs regardless of industry or domain. • One of five Development employees given the Niku Summit 2002 award for outstanding performance. • Sole designer for three of five years. ### Senior Web Producer @ Niku Jan 2000 – Jan 2005 | San Francisco Bay Area Niku was a mid-sized startup that offered IT Management and Governance software solutions, acquired by CA Technologies in June 2005. Please see CA Technologies for experience details. ### Geophysicist @ Texaco Jan 1997 – Jan 2000 • I utilized 3-D seismic interpretation and visualization software to generate well locations in the Permian Basin region, southeast New Mexico. • I created well databases for five concurrent projects and prioritized evaluation of over 300 square miles of 3-D seismic data. • As webmaster of the West Texas Geological Society, I updated the UI with a more modern look and feel, optimized images, and refreshed our logo to improve our branding. ## Education ### B.A. in Geology Cornell University ### M.S. in Geology University of Michigan ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/debtjoa - Portfolio: https://www.debtjoa.com - Portfolio: https://www.tanglesense.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/debra JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/debra/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13