# Melissa Santos > Product Designer | Ex-Microsoft, Ex-Startup (seed through B to acquisition) Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/melissasantos See my portfolio: wordsaredesign.com I'm a cross-functional collaboration queen that drives design projects and builds systems that last. I'm happiest on an energized, tight-knit team that's hybrid in SF. I'm experienced in seed through Fortune 500 companies in fintech, drive safety, location, and productivity. Looking for: Ownership and impact in health, transportation, or anywhere SaaS intersects with service design would be amazing, but I'll always love solving money problems. Big preference for little companies. Not interested in: Work focused on AI replacing people, crypto, or being a cog in a machine. ## Work Experience ### Senior Design Consultant @ City Grazing Jan 2025 – Present | San Francisco, California, United States Consulting on donor and volunteer programs to improve engagement and fundraising for a sustainable land management and fire risk reduction non-profit. Duties include: • Project management • Digital & physical design assets • Marketing • Fundraising & volunteering development • Goat care & socialization ### Senior Product Designer @ Keyboards for Kamala Jan 2024 – Jan 2024 0 - 1 and E2E design for a seed-stage online canvasing startup. Fast-paced and close cross-functional collaboration to ship MVP for election. Owning: design across web app, marketing site, training decks, and brand. Learning: progress over perfection and designing for LLMs. ### Senior Product Designer @ Lendtable Jan 2023 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco, California, United States End-to-end product design plus wrangling words, brand, marketing, research, and components. The usual small team, big dreams stuff. ### UX Designer @ Microsoft Jan 2020 – Jan 2023 | San Francisco, California, United States Most of my experience was in the internal incubator for new consumer products. My product spaces included privacy and security experiences for Microsoft accounts, drive safety for the Family Safety app (mobile and web), and Money in Excel (web and desktop). ### Content Designer @ Microsoft Jan 2017 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco Bay Area I worked on cross-functional teams to write helpful and intuitive experiences. I designed content for Family Safety, Money in Excel, MileIQ, and Spend. I earned my UX Design Certificate from UCSD Extension after hours. ### Chocolatier-Owner @ Cadence Chocolates Jan 2015 – Jan 2020 I ran a small batch chocolate company. I designed custom chocolate and packaging for clients like UCSF, Stanford, and the Mind the Product conference. http://www.cadencechocolates.com ### Customer Support @ MileIQ - Mileage Tracking The Way You Need it to Work Jan 2015 – Jan 2017 I provided asynchronous email support and investigated new issues/bugs with our cross-functional product team. I joined a few months pre-acquisition, but we operated mostly like an independent startup for 2 years at Microsoft. Joining the support team just a quarter before the acquisition, my clear work ethic and problem-solving capabilities earned me a full-time offer at Microsoft. ## Education ### Bachelor of Science (BS) in Biology University of Puget Sound ### UX design certificate UC San Diego Extended Studies ### University of Puget Sound ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/melissaux - Portfolio: https://www.wordsaredesign.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/melissasantos JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/melissasantos/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13