# Sajid S. > A seasoned design leader enabling organizations to build, grow, and nurture design teams | Ex Google / SAP / Philips Electronics Location: United States, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/sajids I am a seasoned design leader who is passionate about enabling organizations to build, grow, and nurture design teams that are highly motivated and driven to design and ship game-changing products that delight the users. I achieve this by creating an environment for my team to experiment, innovate, fail, and learn without fear. I bring a unique perspective that is shaped by having worked in diverse industries across the globe coupled with a strong design education which has shaped me into a curious mix of designer, tinkerer, maker, artist and a geek. Started my carrier as an Architect and later diversified to UX design. So I have built products inside which people live to products people keep inside their pockets. This range of experience has allowed me to train myself in evaluating design solutions from macro to micro level. My design process is highly informed by user research methodologies that helps build empathy for users. I am an advocate of iterative design process and rapid prototyping. I am also a detail oriented person, so I like things that are well documented and neatly specified. Last but not the least, I love working closely with engineers, data-scientists and developers to solve any design problem that I am working on. Speaker: 1. Speaker at the "Interaction08 - Savannah" (Feb 2008) 2. Workshop on "Playful Thinking" at IxD14 @ Amsterdam. Links: Portfolio: https://sajidsaiyed.com My Writings: http://bit.ly/ss_medium Awards / Recognition: IxDAwards 2015 shortlisted - "SAP Ganges": http://bit.ly/sapganges ## Work Experience ### Head of Design @ Vianai Systems, Inc. Jan 2023 – Present | Palo Alto, California, United States ### Sr UX Design Manager, Google Ads + YouTube Ads @ Google Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 | Mountain View, California, United States ### UX Design Manager, Google Cloud + Google Ads @ Google Jan 2018 – Jan 2021 | Mountain View ### Director UX Design @ SAP Jan 2012 – Jan 2018 | Palo Alto As part of SAP Innovation Center Network (ICN), I am involved in conceiving path breaking innovation backed by extensive user research. Manage and led UX professionals, Evangalised Design Thinking and Insight Generation. - Led the user experience design for SAP's conversational applications platform. - Explored Conversational Interfaces: http://bit.ly/2a6cPXn - Conceptualized the user experience design for intelligent and adaptive remote collaboration tool and associated user interface solutions for a system that incorporates voice recognition, speaker identification, gesture recognition and face recognition. - Provided creative direction and design for last-mile retail solution called 'SAP Ganges’ - A cloud based HANA offering that connects the CPG companies with their distributors and retailers, and gives then real time information to improve their supply chain efficiency everyday. (https://www.firstpost.com/business/sap-aims-to-transform-36-8-bn-indian-fmcg-biz-with-ganges-1282095.html) - Conducted a design thinking workshop with a Shanghai based client to identify their needs and eventually turning those needs into a solution (a supply chain management application). The effort included user research, design thinking workshop, concept development, user experience design and prototyping. The client liked the proposed solution and eventually purchased the product from SAP. - Designed and Developed a physical board game for conducting effective brainstorming sessions. The game was showcased in two workshops which I conducted at IxDA 2014 Amsterdam and UXIndia conferences. (http://bit.ly/VUwDRi) - Designed user experience solutions (Tablet and Mobile interfaces) for 'Health Central' - a rural healthcare solution based on first of its kind "unique ID" based system in India called 'Aadhaar'. (http://onforb.es/1pP1sDn) ### Senior UX Lead Designer @ Philips Design Jan 2008 – Jan 2012 | Singapore As Sr. UX Lead Designer, I was involved in defining the user experience for Philips Consumer Electronics products like Smart TV's, Home Appliances, Home Theatre Systems and Media Players. 1. Conceptualized, Designed and Prototyped the user interface for Philips Smart TVs. 2. Conceptualized and prototyped a user interface demo for a touch sensitive remote control for Philips TV and Blue-ray products. 3. Conceptualized, Designed and Implemented user interface for Philips Home Theatre systems. 4. Conceptualized, designed and prototyped the first of its kind Induction Cooker for Philips (Hybrid analog and Digital Interface). 5. Designed and Prototyped the user interface for Philips portable touch screen music player. 6. Did ergonomic study to determine the optimum comfortable viewing angle for bedroom television. 7. Conducted various usability studies for Philips remote controls, television user interface and Home theatre systems. 8. Developed a couple of futuristic concepts for Philips products. One of them also got implemented and helped Philips decrease the support calls by more than half. 9. Conceptualized and designed Philips iPhone remote control app. 10. Also acted as creative director and mentor for fellow designers. ### Manager - Interactive Design @ Philips Design Jan 2005 – Jan 2008 Managing Philips Design studio at Bangalore, INDIA. Core responsibilities include: 1. Studio Management 2. Client meetings and CRM 3. Interaction Design 4. Visual and multimedia design 5. Usability studies ### UX Lead @ Convergys Learning Services Jan 2003 – Jan 2005 I joined as a Sr. Designer and soon moved on to become the lead designer. At Convergys I worked with many big clients like HP, Microsoft, North Face, Clorox, ADP, Cisco etc. I was leading a group of Interaction and Visual designers to develop E-Learning solutions for these clients. I provided the creative Direction and mentoring to this team of designers. ### Proprietor @ ssdesigninteractive Jan 1996 – Jan 2003 Started my career as a partnership firm providing design services for: 1. Architecture 2. Furniture Design 3. Urban Design 4. Visual Design 5. Web design 6. Multimedia design 7. Interaction Design 8. Product Design 9. Corporate Identity development This was the stepping stone for my career in User Experience Design. I had 7 employees working in the Marketing, Software Engineering and Design. Most of us were just out of university, some were still studying and working part time. These 7 years taught me a lot about Customer Relationship Management, Technical support, Getting customers, Retaining customers, Profit making, dealing with losses and working late nights too. ## Education ### Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurship Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship Stanford University ### Research Fellowship in New Media National Institute of Design ### Bachelor's degree in Architecture Institute of Environmental Design ### HSC in CBSE Kendriya Vidyalaya ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ssdesign --- Source: https://flows.cv/sajids JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/sajids/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13