# Mark Potterf > Design & Research Leader | AWS Infrastructure Services Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/markpotterf I've worked with clients across multiple industries, using a combination of marketing, communications, creative and consulting to meet their objectives. Specialties: User experience design, design management, mobile web/application strategy and design, streaming video integration, and creative direction. ## Work Experience ### Sr. UX Manager, AWS Infrastructure Services @ Amazon Web Services (AWS) Jan 2025 – Present | San Francisco, California, United States I lead Design and Research for AWS Infrastructure Services, managing a team of 24 designers and researchers across 30+ external AWS services. I also manage design and research for internal tooling that Network Operators use to maintain the AWS Network. I drive strategic design direction for AWS networking, security, and infrastructure products while establishing organizational frameworks that elevate design maturity across the portfolio. ### Principal User Experience Designer @ Amazon Web Services (AWS) Jan 2025 – Jan 2026 | San Francisco, California, United States As a Principal UX Designer for AWS Network Performance Monitoring, I play a crucial role in shaping the user experience across the suite of network monitoring services, including Network Flow Monitor, Internet Monitor, and Network Synthetic Monitor. This strategic position requires deep expertise in user-centered design, technical domain knowledge, and the ability to drive cross-functional collaboration. I define the overall design strategy for these network monitoring capabilities. By analyzing customer pain points, workflows, and performance data, I identify meaningful opportunities to enhance visibility, troubleshooting, and optimization of network infrastructure and internet-facing traffic. I work closely with product management, engineering, and other stakeholders to translate these insights into releases. A key focus for me is optimizing the information architecture and interaction models to ensure network administrators can quickly access the data and functionality they need. This involves reimagining dashboards, expanding filtering and visualization capabilities. Paying close attention to user mental models and reducing cognitive load is essential, as network teams often need to analyze performance metrics, connection data, and health events. As a design leader, I am responsible for elevating maturity and capabilities across AWS. This includes maturing design systems, mentoring designers, and driving user research best practices. I also stay abreast of industry trends, identifying opportunities to incorporate emerging technologies. ### Sr. UX Design Manager @ Amazon Web Services (AWS) Jan 2022 – Jan 2025 | San Francisco Bay Area Was responsible for AWS Console experiences, managing a team of 6 focused on cross-console experiences for external and internal customers. Key Projects AWS Console Side Panel Framework (including AIOps and Explore Related Metrics) - Led design for a unified side panel framework that provided a consistent, reusable interface across AWS services. - Enabled multiple tools and capabilities to be integrated into a single, cohesive side panel so users could access functionality without leaving their current service context. - Integrated AIOps capabilities into the side panel to provide intelligent operations and investigation features, including automated analysis, anomaly detection, and intelligent recommendations to help users troubleshoot and optimize AWS resources. - Delivered Explore Related Metrics within the side panel to help users discover and analyze interconnected metrics across their AWS infrastructure, surfacing contextual insights and relationships between services and resources. myApplications - Shaped the centralized application management experience in AWS Console Home as a unified cross-console initiative. - Provided customers with a unified view to manage and monitor applications across AWS services, including health, performance, security posture, and costs from a single dashboard. ### Sr. Manager, Product Design - Application Observability @ Splunk Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco, California, United States Overseeing the design of Splunk's Application Observability Portfolio that enables DevOps, SREs and ITOps to prevent business disruptions with synthetic testing and diagnose issues with frontend and backend monitoring. ### Sr. Product Design Manager @ VMware Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | Palo Alto, California, United States Led design teams across vRealize Operations Management, vRealize Log Insights, Skyline, and vRealize AI Cloud. Together the team partners with engineering and product management to deliver self-driving IT operations management for private, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. vRealize enables continuous performance optimization, efficient capacity and cost planning, app-aware intelligent remediation, and integrated compliance for enterprise organizations. • Empowered product design leaders and design managers to define, design and deliver useful experiences to customers. • Mentored a team of 19 designers that deliver across four products • Advocated for user-centered design with cloud management business unit • Led design hiring for team of 200+ • Created mechanisms to ensure product quality, projects are delivered efficiently, and features are built consistently across product portfolio ### Product Design Manager @ VMware Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | Palo Alto, CA Led vRealize Operations Management and vRealize Log Insights global design teams. I worked with product management and engineering leaders across the organization to determine priorities and align resources to deliver product iterations together. In 2020 the vRealize Operations team focused on improving our efficiency, domain knowledge and team culture to build the foundation for mature design team. Stage 3 to stage 5. https:// www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-maturity-stages-1-4/ • Integrated VMware's design culture in vRealize Operations Management, vRealize Log Insights and Tanzu Observability (Wavefront) by hiring a new design leaders, aligning on values with PM and Engineering partners, deploying VMware's core career development framework, and creating a psychologically safe environment for designers. • Revamped VMware Design's hiring process to increase inclusivity, quality of candidates and speed • Lead the re-imagination of vRealize Operations Manager with ease of use, application management, and time to value as top priorities. This is now the North star for the product roadmap. • Managed a team of 12 across three offices • Fostered and grew the Tanzu Observability design team from 2 design leaders to 6 ### UX Design Manager @ Amazon Web Services Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | Palo Alto, California Mentor, manage and recruit for a design organization of 20 Design leaders to support AWS’s Database, Analytics and Storage products. - Built an organization of UX design leaders for Database, Analytics and Storage products - Mentored 5 individual contributors for people management - Instituted mechanisms to ensure quality bar and business goals are met - Provided UX direction for 11 new service launches, and 50+ features - Procured, on-boarded and managed 9 designer contractors - Reviewed 300+ projects across the AWS portfolio for UX ### Manager, User Experience @ Autodesk Jan 2014 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco Bay Area Hired, trained and evaluated a team of talented Designers. Responsible for the creation and alignment of design principles, completion of supporting collateral, and implementation support for development teams. Customer advocate for Autodesk Knowledge Network, leveraging user research methodologies and techniques to identify customers, and enhance products that meet their needs. Accountable for the creation of compelling experiences that balance user intent, business needs, and competitive advantage. Key Responsibilities - Provided leadership, direction, and mentorship for a team of 8 UX Designers - Managed a variable team of UX and visual design contractors (2-5) - Led user driven and holistic thinking across product releases and platforms - Delivered UX visions and plans for iterative steps to get there - Prioritized design work against multiple roadmaps - Monitored and advocated adherence to process; improved efficiency between Product Management, Development and UX ### Principal User Experience Designer @ Autodesk Jan 2014 – Jan 2014 Key Responsibilities - Worked with the design, engineering, and business teams to define visions for Autodesk Knowledge Network and in-product Help. - Collaborated with product management to create user goals and tasks - Established interaction design and usability requirements for the Autodesk help systems - Designed innovative user interfaces and interactions, which resulted in improved user productivity and experience, making it easier for customers to find help and ask for support. - Designed and develop design specification documents including conceptual models, user flow diagrams, wireframes, page schematics, and low/high-fidelity prototypes - Planed, conducted, and presented usability research at Autodesk University. - Delivered detailed designs to agile scrum teams ### Director, User Experience @ WorkHabit Jan 2013 – Jan 2013 Worked with Autodesk UX designers and Work+habit developers to design and build the Autodesk Knowledge Network. Key Responsibilities: - Led responsive design - Preformed Product Owner duties - Managed agency development resources (5) ### Emerging Platforms Lead @ Sagepath Inc. Jan 2011 – Jan 2013 | Atlanta, GA / San Francisco CA Responsible for researching, selecting and implementing new web/cloud based applications. Focused on social and mobile platforms to support the evolving consumer. Creates business cases, gathers requirements, leads creative and technical teams, to provide clients with enterprise class mobile, social and web applications. Key Responsibilities: - Led creative direction - Preformed Product Owner duties (proxy) - Consultant to Marketing VP of NAPA - Managed an offshore development team - Lithium social platform expertise Key Projects: - NAPA Mobile app and mobile website - NAPA community forums experience - NAPA 2025 Vision - Tesla Community - Home Depot Community iPad App ### Sr. Designer, Online Creative @ The Home Depot Jan 2010 – Jan 2011 | Atlanta, GA Lead designer focused on interactive kiosks and THD branded third-party online experiences while working with agency partners. ### Art Director, Web Creative & Marketing @ Sagepath Inc. Jan 2008 – Jan 2010 | Atlanta, GA ### Interactive Designer @ Merge Agency Jan 2006 – Jan 2008 | Atlanta, GA "Swiss army knife" for digital media: Web site design & development., video post for online delivery, event video and animation creation, print design and pre-press. ### Web Designer & Developer @ Pixelutions Studios Jan 2006 – Jan 2007 | Atlanta, GA Web design and development for small to medium size businesses. ### Student @ The Art Institute of Atlanta Jan 2003 – Jan 2006 Studied web design and development, information architecture and streaming video. ## Education ### Interactive Media Design in Design The Art Institute of Atlanta ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/markpotterf --- Source: https://flows.cv/markpotterf JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/markpotterf/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13