# Julie Zagorniak > Sr. User Experience (UX) Manager | Leading UX Strategies, Driving Customer-Centric Design | Passionate builder of high-performing teams | ex-McAfee, Norton-Lifelock, Cisco Location: San Jose, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/juliezagorniak As a Senior Product Design Manager (UX), I lead a team of UX Product Designers, Researchers, and Content Writers to create engaging and user-centric web applications for millions of customers. With 15+ years of experience in UX, I have successfully directed, managed, and mentored UX teams across multiple large-scale product designs, company acquisitions and divestitures, and corporate rebranding projects. My core competencies include UX team management, UX strategy and roadmap planning, UX project management, content strategy, information architecture and taxonomy development, user research, user testing, persona development, wireframe development, content management system development, and agile / lean UX and scrum framework. I have a strong background in content strategy and web marketing, having completed a continuing studies program at Stanford University. I am passionate about delivering best-in-class designs and optimal user experiences, while building strong relationships with all stakeholders and advocating design-led thinking and value proposition. ## Work Experience ### Senior Product Design Manager @ Palo Alto Networks Jan 2025 – Present | Santa Clara, California, United States I played a pivotal role in shaping the user experience for Palo Alto Networks' security platforms, driving significant improvements in design clarity and team performance. • Developed and implemented design strategies that increased user engagement and satisfaction. • Mentored team members, fostering a collaborative environment that encouraged innovative design solutions. • Achieved a measurable increase in product usability, contributing to enhanced customer retention rates. ### Independent Consultant - Senior User Experience Strategy Consultant @ Jan 2024 – Present | San Jose, California, United States Strategy - Provided strategic user experience insight and direction on small-to-midsize business ventures - Designed, developed and implemented user experience and product management teams structures for clients ensuring complete customer journeys are carried through - Deployed human-centric approach to evaluate existing teams and processes and recommended resulting improvements to drive greater results ### Senior Product Design Manager @ McAfee Jan 2020 – Jan 2024 Leadership: • Created future web application portal which heavily influenced the product landscape for McAfee • Presented to executive management the new product roadmaps strategy based on customer experience feedback and product industry data • Developed new web application portal by implementing user centric and strategic plans to update the new business roadmap • Successfully launched McAfee’s web application portal; exceeding the enrollment goals by 20%, going from 200K users to 1 million users in 2 months • Built strong relationships with all stakeholders while advocating design lead thinking and value proposition Process improvement: • Created an experience design end-to-end design process, allowing the design team to work more efficiently and quickly within the agile process • Designed, developed and successfully implemented a process to better incorporate user research into the agile design sprints, thus fixing a gap in the design/research process, resulting in more solid designs based on customer feedback • Established a vendor engagement process; where none existed before, to ensure a streamlined design process between internal design teams and the vendor • Identified risks and worked to address them across the core team, having foresight to raise issues to higher level management when cross OS concerns emerged Management: • Mentored a team of designers at all levels of their career path, creating well-rounded designers with layered skill-sets • Listened to the needs of multiple stakeholders and engineered design processes to remove roadblocks which were causing friction in the design process • Provided support and design guidance to ensure both user and business objectives are accommodated within the designs • Created a collaborative environment to managed COVID by hosting remote design jams, content workshops, research brainstorming sessions and business / user requirements gathering meetings ### Senior Manager User Experience @ NortonLifeLock Jan 2014 – Jan 2020 Leadership: • Led a team of UX Researchers and Visual Designers through 3 major corporate rebranding projects, 4 company acquisitions and divestitures: Veritas, Verisign, NortonLifeLock, and Broadcom • Mentored a team of Designers and UX Architects to ensure best-in-class designs and optimal user experience, increasing web and mobile traffic by 20%, and overall conversion by 7.8% • Drove UX best practices across the company by leading a UX committee to ensure common practice and shared knowledge across all digital properties • Developed a successful model for Agile UX design leveraging a phased design approach User-Centric Design / Customer First: • Presented user testing findings to senior-level management by providing an informational summary and clear next steps for site improvements, achieving fiscal year and quarterly UX objectives • Implemented feedback into workable sprints for the business while showing progress and improvement to the users through interviews and surveys • Led, managed and designed an integrated partner experience creating a single destination for multiple partner sites caused by acquisitions • Developed a consistent login experience for all platforms and websites within Symantec.com. Achieved cross-functional, end-to-end thinking to develop a standard UX and UI for a customer login and user profile • Developed personas and archetypes based on customer interviews and industry best practices Content Strategy: • Led workshops on corporate strategy and content mapping to better align the content development for the website • Drove content strategy discussions with stakeholders to ensure a complete end-to-end experience of the website development, bringing synergy to marketing and user objectives • Helped stakeholders determine the content needed for the user by guiding them through the user journey, leading to higher conversion rates and increased documentation downloads by 23% ### Senior Information Architect & Content Strategist @ Symantec Jan 2010 – Jan 2014 ### Senior User Experience Lead @ Juniper Networks Jan 2009 – Jan 2010 • Developed and implemented recommendations for better management and fine-tuning of the taxonomy, content, and meta structures • Led the creation of an integrated enterprise search experience and roadmap, ensuring alignment to business priorities and user needs • Translated business needs into workable user requirements by working cross-functionally with IT and the business team • Guided creation and completion of user testing (from hypothesis creation to influencing creative to identifying success metrics) and post-test analysis • Created and maintained a content inventory for all customer facing pages on Juniper.net • Managed usability vendors both locally and internationally to ensure quality testing results ### User Experience Specialist @ Juniper Networks Jan 2008 – Jan 2009 ### User Experience Analyst @ Cisco Systems Jan 2007 – Jan 2008 • Liaison between development team and the application owner to implement a design that follows branding standards and meets customer concerns • Collected, documented, and continually assessed the implementation of user and business requirements in order to deliver a best-in-class application that characterized Cisco as a leader • Analyzed the workflow and creation of mockups and prototypes for the new Cisco online ordering experience • Acquired expert knowledge of Cisco design requirements and branding standards, which were incorporated into all customer-facing designs for elevated global brand recognition • Organized and facilitated user test questions to ensure the application was in line with the end user’s expectations. Presented key user testing findings to executive team. • Developed a centralized project plan that helped keep the project milestones on target and the key stakeholders on task during the design application project lifecycle • Responsible for managing the integration of a critical partner application into a new Cisco online ordering tool, resulting in enhanced capabilities for our partner community and increased satisfaction levels ### Web Manager/User Experience Lead @ Cisco Systems Jan 2004 – Jan 2007 ### Web Manager/Designer @ Cisco Systems Jan 2000 – Jan 2004 ## Education ### Graphic Design in Marketing, Sociology University of Missouri-Columbia ### Content Strategy & Web Marketing Stanford University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliezagorniak --- Source: https://flows.cv/juliezagorniak JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/juliezagorniak/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-07