# Merv Arnold-Lyons

> Product Design Leader | Ignis AI, RiseSmart, Bambee, CrossLead | Volunteer firefighter, former founder, design educator

Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/merv

I’m Merv – a product designer with experience launching and scaling digital experiences across SaaS, HR tech, workforce transformation, and consumer products. I got my start as a founder (building a social discovery app called Hangify), which has fueled a business-impact-first approach to design that has been at the center of my career.

Whether I’m managing a 4-person team at a startup-within-a-company (RiseSmart at Randstad) or serving as an individual contributor as one of the first designers at an early stage startup (Bambee, HR tech backed by Softbank, Greycroft, etc), it’s about a data-driven and revenue-oriented approach to user needs.

That usually means I’m getting my hands dirty with the product and engineering team, engaging with customer success and sales, and diving deeper to understand our organization’s revenue breakdown. I then bring that context back to the design work in Figma, from user research practices to UX, usability, A/B testing, and high fidelity visual design.

And if you want the TLDR of products I’ve helped design:
• RiseSmart at Randstad, consumer-facing career coaching app (B2B2E)
• HR automation and usability UX at Bambee, HR tech startup
• SaaS UX overhaul for Fortune 500 while at CrossLead
• Social discovery and experiences platform for college students (Hangify)

## Work Experience
### Sr. Director, Product Design @ Ignis AI
Jan 2025 – Jan 2025 | Boston, Massachusetts, United States
• Hired along with senior leaders for other functions, tasked with building design team and launching product.
• Built a team of 4 (one junior designer, two senior designers, and a senior UX researcher).
• Initial efforts focused on understanding potential customers, pain points, current workflows, etc. and
progressed into concept testing design solutions and early validation.
• Established team culture and processes, including uses of AI to accelerate design and research workflows.

### Head of Product Design, RiseSmart @ Randstad Enterprise
Jan 2021 – Jan 2025 | San Jose, California, United States
• Managed a 4 person product design team for RiseSmart, a career coaching platform (iOS, Android, Web) offered in 100+ countries and 28 languages, featuring coach matching + video chat, AI interview practice, concierge services, and more.
• First design leader, built out design practice, including new user research function, sprint-based processes, collaborative rituals (retrospectives and reviews), career development, and design systems.
• Designed and launched a complete redesign of the onboarding experience based on customer journey and retention data, resulting in massively increased conversion across key metrics (2.5x to activation, 25% to 60%).
• Pioneered pre-validation process for design concepts through A/B testing with look-a-like audiences (no-code), deploying business-impact thinking to product development processes across RiseSmart teams.

### Senior Product Designer, RiseSmart @ Randstad Enterprise
Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | San Jose, California, United States
• Hired to help conceptualize and bring greenfield career development offering to fruition – launching a new line of business with new mobile app, brand and design system.

### Product Designer @ Bambee
Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | Los Angeles, CA
• Hired as second designer at venture-backed HR tech startup (backed by SoftBank, Greycroft, QED, and more) targeting SMBs with automation, SaaS, and services.
• Developed early prototypes and feature suites in close collaboration with key clients and pilot customers.
• Led embedded user research on usability, design experiments (Maze), and user session monitoring.
• Drove design and product team understanding of HR compliance, including customer cohorting and outcomes across employee onboarding, HR operations, and performance reviews.

### Product Designer @ CrossLead
Jan 2016 – Jan 2019 | Washington, DC
• Early designer at management consulting startup with SaaS platform, spun out of Gen. Stan McChrystal consulting group.
• Led an enterprise-wide UX overhaul for SaaS platform used by Fortune 500 companies and top hedge funds including key logos like Comcast, GE, and Third Point.

### Founder & Head of Product Design @ Hangify Inc.
Jan 2013 – Jan 2016 | Philadelphia, PA
• Built a mobile-first social experiences discovery platform ($200K from Techstars mentor, PennApps accelerator)
• Managed a remote product development team of 26 across the country.
• Led growth across launch campuses, achieving 50,000+ users within 3 weeks of iOS launch; drove consistent user growth (+32% MoM) and rapid release process to discover PMF (released 30+ versions in 6 months)


## Education
### Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Psychology
University of Pennsylvania


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/amerv
- Portfolio: http://merv.works

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Source: https://flows.cv/merv
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/merv/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-13