# Fran Lukesh > Design Leadership @ Amazon Web Services Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/fran Product design leader with 15+ years of experience leading UX and design teams across enterprise products in cloud infrastructure, security, and platforms. I build design teams that operate as strategic partners to business and engineering leadership, grounded in a core principle: when the problem and opportunity are well-defined, the solution becomes obvious, and the resulting craft is stronger. AI has made this principle urgent, and as execution accelerates, the teams that define problems well are the ones that ship both fast and well. ## Work Experience ### Sr. Design Manager, Platform Services @ Amazon Web Services (AWS) Jan 2024 – Present | United States Lead a team of UX designers across S3, Security, Compliance, and Infrastructure as Code: a portfolio of products collectively exceeding $10B ARR and serving millions of customers worldwide. Driving a cultural shift from solution-oriented design to problem definition: designers are evaluated on the quality of their problem framing, research rigor, and success metric definition, raising both the strategic value and the craft quality of the team’s output. Built a technical fluency program that prepares designers to meaningfully engage in code generation, leverage AI tools for rapid prototyping and hypothesis testing, and collaborate with engineers as peers rather than hand-off partners. Embedded designers into engineering standups and development workflows, replacing the handoff-and-review model with continuous, integrated collaboration. Led design for the ground-up launch of the next generation of AWS Security Hub, featured in a keynote demo at re:Invent 2025 by AWS’s CISO. Shipped core S3 experiences used by millions of developers and enterprises worldwide. ### Sr. Design Manager, Security and Compliance @ Amazon Web Services (AWS) Jan 2022 – Jan 2024 Hired as a single-threaded design leader for AWS Security, responsible for building and leading the UX design team for security products across the AWS platform. Established the problem-definition culture and design operation frameworks that became the foundation for the team’s expanded scope. Operationalized design process to maintain continuity and quality through corporate restructuring without missing milestones or losing institutional knowledge. Scope expanded to include Compliance in recognition of the team’s impact and operational maturity, setting the stage for the subsequent addition of S3 and Infrastructure as Code. ### Staff UX Design Lead @ Google Jan 2017 – Jan 2022 Led design across three major product areas in sequence: Google Workspace (G Suite): Led enterprise data loss prevention (DLP) design across the Workspace suite, including direct collaboration with the Gmail team on how DLP functions for enterprise customers. YouTube: Introduced service design methodology to YouTube TV. Redesigned critical internal tools based on service design insights, and built a team around this discipline. Google Cloud: Led UX for software supply chain security tooling. Designed and implemented cross-functional engagement models that improved collaboration between design, product, engineering, and security stakeholders on mission-critical tools and processes. Demonstrated range across consumer, enterprise, and infrastructure products while maintaining a consistent approach rooted in service design thinking and deep technical engagement. ### Adjunct Instructor, UX/UI Bootcamp @ UC Berkeley Extension Jan 2020 – Jan 2020 Taught UX design methodology and practice. Contributed curriculum changes for the shift from classroom to remote instruction during COVID-19. ### VP of User Experience @ Lucidworks Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco Reported to CEO. Led strategy, research, and design for Lucidworks Cloud platform and Fusion product suite. Redesign drove double-digit YoY growth with >90% customer retention and satisfaction. Managed and executed research across business units, synthesizing business goals and field intelligence into actionable product direction. Instrumental in company strategy, new product positioning, and go-to-market. ### Creative Director @ Lucidworks Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco Bay Area Reported to CMO, drove Lucidworks identity redesign, logo and identity redesigns for Apache Software Foundation, Apache Solr, and the annual Lucene/Solr Revolution conference. Responsible for production of sales collateral, event design for tradeshows and meetups, and all other supporting marketing production. Tightly integrated with product ensuring alignment between product and marketing. Responsible for aesthetic and UX direction for product suite. ### UI Lead at Topsy (acquired by Apple) @ Apple Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 | Cupertino, CA Led UI design and contributed to the codebase for Topsy, a social analytics platform. Introduced maintainable design patterns to the UI team. Instrumental in building product value that led to acquisition by Apple. ### Partner, Creative Director @ Andculture Jan 2001 – Jan 2013 Co-founded design consultancy and developed the business into a fully integrated marketing and software agency serving Fortune 500 clients. Delivered branding and identity design, interactive design projects (museum installations, touchscreen walls, stadium signage), consumer and enterprise software, and early mobile prototypes. Led production on focused teams of 6–10 designers and engineers. Open-source contributor across multiple platforms. ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/francislukesh - Portfolio: http://about.me/flukesh --- Source: https://flows.cv/fran JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/fran/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13