# Karl Sluis > Staff Product Designer, Bits AI SRE Location: New York, New York, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/karlsluis Passionate about data visualization, product design, and building systems that help people reason clearly and make better decisions. I’ve been fortunate to work alongside and learn from exceptional engineers, designers, data scientists, and product leaders. I’m drawn to ambiguous problem spaces, enjoy untangling messy systems, and care deeply about how teams communicate, align, and act. Today, I work on AI at Datadog on Bits AI SRE, an AI-powered agent that helps teams get to root cause faster when monitors and operational events fire. My focus is designing the agent as a legible partner: something people can follow, interrogate, and understand, rather than a black box they’re asked to trust blindly — especially under the pressure of being on call. ## Work Experience ### Staff Product Designer @ Datadog Jan 2024 – Present | New York City Metropolitan Area Staff Product Designer working across Datadog’s AI initiatives. Currently focused on Bits AI SRE, an agent that helps teams investigate monitors and other events to get to root cause faster. Prior to moving onto the SRE team in April, I was the primary design owner for Datadog’s core visualization widgets: foundational components used across dashboards and product surfaces throughout the platform. This work required balancing legacy constraints, broad stakeholder needs, and extreme leverage, where small visual or interaction changes had outsized impact across the product. I work closely with engineering, product, and research partners to improve clarity, trust, and usability in high-stakes, high-scale systems. ### Senior Product Designer — Data Visualization @ Datadog Jan 2020 – Jan 2024 | New York, New York, United States Senior Product Designer on the Data Visualization team, focused on Dashboards and map-based visualizations. Designed new visualization types and evolved existing widgets used across Datadog’s core workflows. Acted as a point person for visualization quality and consistency across teams, helping align design decisions in a complex, long-lived system with many consumers and stakeholders. ### Founder @ CityAtlas Jan 2017 – Jan 2020 | Greater New York City Area Find the best place to live with exclusive street and neighborhood metrics. Founder. ### Product Designer @ Quovo Jan 2015 – Jan 2019 | New York Employee #1 at Quovo, a financial account aggregation service acquired by Plaid in 2019. Designer-at-large. ### Product Manager @ Pandora Jan 2015 – Jan 2017 | Greater New York City Area Served as product manager for Next Big Sound team, leading team of +20 through transition into Pandora and through the creation of our first post-acquisition product. - Led and owned all phases of development for the Pandora Charts product: three charts, 150 songs and artists, each and every week, sent to over +5,000 subscribers and +10,000 weekly visitors—over 50% of SAM. Launch surpassed all success metrics. Made a measurable difference in Pandora's mission to become the best streaming partner for the music industry. - Owned the product backlog and ensured proper planning, maintenance and team communication took place. - Led yearly and quarterly product planning and execution - Led two-week sprints for a 50% remote-based, cross-functional team, monitoring project status and ensuring all work progressed as planned - Helped engineering, data science, design, and business, at Next Big Sound and at Pandora, to work together to create measurable results for our users. - Continued to design user interfaces and data visualizations for our product - Weekly 1:1 coaching with +5 team members ### Product Designer @ Next Big Sound, Inc. Jan 2013 – Jan 2015 | Greater New York City Area At Next Big Sound, I helped an early-stage startup explore new product verticals, search for and discover product-market fit, and exit to a major technology leader, Pandora Music. - Project managed redesign of core user interface effecting +10,000 users; successfully led team of 12+ across all disciplines while leading research and design for product - Created interactive and static data visualizations for consulting product - Performed extensive qualitative and quantitative user research to grow Next Big Sound into new vertical, Next Big Books ### Freelance Information Visualization Designer @ Information and Data Visualization Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 | Brooklyn, NY Contract information and data visualization for a variety of business, advertising, and non-profit clients ### Information Visualization Designer @ Economist Intelligence Unit Jan 2012 – Jan 2012 | Greater New York City Area Worked with lead creative, UX designer, development team, editorial staff and client ~ Developed dynamic data exploration tools ~ Performed data analysis and contextualization ~ Website concept, refinement, production, and development ~ Created visualization concepts for pitch work ### Design Manager, Clairol Hair Color @ Procter & Gamble Jan 2010 – Jan 2012 Worked with industrial design studios, brand design studios, photographers, printers, marketers, and packaging engineers ~ Managed brand strategy and packaging production for Clairol Nice ‘n Easy hair color ~ Led design development of brand subline extension ~ Led strategy and managed asset production for website restage ~ Managed and retouched model photography ### Design Intern @ Twisthink, LLC Jan 2007 – Jan 2007 Collaborated with principle designers on a wide range of design projects with clients ranging from non-for-profits to Fortune 500; generated design concepts, participated in user research; generated finished illustrations of design concepts ## Education ### BA in American History Northwestern University Jan 2002 – Jan 2006 ### BFA in Industrial Design College for Creative Studies Jan 2006 – Jan 2010 ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/karlsluis - Portfolio: http://www.karlsluis.com - Portfolio: http://kcsluis.tumblr.com - Portfolio: http://www.commonsense-art.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/karlsluis JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/karlsluis/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-30