# Sandra Sopol > AI Design Lead @ Apple Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/sandrasopol Sandra specializes in designing intelligent systems that make complex information feel intuitive. Over the course of her career, she's led AI, blockchain, and Search & Chat design initiatives across enterprise and consumer platforms. She takes pride in shaping vision, strategy, and execution with global multi-disciplinary teams, driving real business impact. In addition, she also enjoys coaching and mentoring early-career designers and students from under-resourced backgrounds and beyond. ## Work Experience ### AI Design Lead @ Apple Jan 2026 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area Decision Intelligence ### UX Consultant/Speaker/Mentor @ SSopol Design Jan 2017 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area UX Consultancy: Helping clients on freelance projects to create a delightful user experience with strong business outcomes. Speaking opportunities: I value the importance of being an active participant in the design community. That's why I enjoy sharing and discussing my experiences in UX, technology, and the industry as a whole. It gives me opportunities to make new connections, stay connected, and learn from others. Past speaking engagements: - IxDA Seattle, May 2023 - responsible AI panelist. - San Francisco Design Week, 6/25/20 Presented my blockchain work on Designing for Product Pivots. - Lecturer + Workshop facilitator, 2/17/2020 IBM’s design thinking workshop for visiting guests. - Guest speaker, 12/6/2019 Discussed UX design career path at Academy of Art University. - IBM Data & AI Panelist, 11/14/2019 Discussed UX design for students at California College of the Arts. - Women in Blockchain Panelist, 10/9/2019 Hosted by Model Expand in San Francisco - Design Thinking for Augmented Reality, 8/7/2019 IBM’s Pollinate - TED Talk-style event for IBMers to share their knowledge. ### Design lead - AI @ Benchling Jan 2025 – Jan 2025 | San Francisco, California, United States ### Senior Product Designer - AI Conversational Search @ ServiceNow Jan 2021 – Jan 2025 | San Francisco Bay Area + Specialized in consumer-grade AI design for search applications across ServiceNow platforms. + Led end-to-end design experience, including strategy, vision, scalability, feasibility, and consistency of the generative AI-powered search. ### Senior Product Designer | AI @ IBM Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco Bay Area ### Product Designer | Blockchain @ IBM Jan 2018 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco, California PROJECTS: 1. Design lead/coach/mentor for an optimization project on IBM Watson Knowledge Catalog, a cloud-based enterprise metadata repository. 2. IBM Sterling Business Transaction Intelligence, a self-correcting SaaS platform for supply-chain management with blockchain and AI capabilities. (Product successfully launched on May 26th, 2020). 3. IBM Sterling Order Management, an intelligent fulfillment platform. (First incremental modernization launch was on August 2nd, 2020). 4. IBMSterling Customer Center optimization, a cloud portal that offers a single location to access various IBM Sterling services. RESPONSIBILITIES: - Executing end-to-end design, from concept, user interviews, UX, IA, accessibility assessment, visual design, validation, UX audits and defects. - Collaborating with global teams in a dynamic and agile environment. - Advocating for IBM's Enterprise Design Thinking through speaking engagements, workshop facilitating. - Patterns cohort coach: One of 10 Cohort Coaches from around the world selected to join the Patterns 2021 Winter Cohort at the IBM Design Studio. In this six-week design education program, I mentor the next generation of IBMers and guide them towards success by understanding the patterns across design, technology, and business. ### UX Design Lead | consumer & eCommerce @ Rodan + Fields Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco, California UX Lead on 4 projects: 1) A behavioral-change and eCommerce web app, focusing on end-to-end customer journey: acquisition, retention, and commerce integration. 2) Checkout and subscription enrollment optimization for our current eCommerce website on all 3 breakpoints: mobile, tablet, and desktop. 3) An event app that allows attendees to maximize their experiences at Convention and other events, while simplifying the execution for in-house events staff. 4) Optimization of Salesforce Lightning Service Cloud, a personalized customer care (CRM) platform with machine learning, to fit with the R+F’s specific needs. + Lead end-to-end design process: discovery, design directions and ideation, interactions, and execution. + Conducted usability testing and hands-on with research process. + Advocate for users and communicate UX insights to a wide range of audiences at meetings. + Work closely with cross-functional teams in scrum process and sprint timelines. + Strong collaboration with product managers, project managers, visual designers, business stakeholders, and dev. team. ### UX Design Researcher @ Rodan + Fields Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco, California Web and mobile experience for America’s #1 skincare company. - Led, planned, and conducted 3 UX research projects. - Synthesized data from usability testing in readiness for go-to-market launch of a web app. - Worked closely with other researcher and designers, as well as cross-functional teams, such as marketing, design, and branding. ### UX Researcher (contract) @ Jiobit Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco Bay Area GPS-tracking wearables for children - Planned and conducted user interviews and diary study for the prototype research. - Studied users’ attitudes and behaviors for the long-term product roadmap. - The insights will identify opportunities from real usage to improve product before launch. ### UX Design & Research Consultant @ OpenROV Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco Bay Area Designed and tested solutions for the new mobile application, an interface for cockpit controller, and an onboarding experience for Trident, OpenROV’s newest model of underwater drone, by focusing on in-depth research, iterative process, and close collaboration with the engineering team. Methods: heuristic analysis, market research, user research, usability testing, ethnography, iterative designing, prototyping Deliverables for Phase 1: systems map, start guide, style guide, onboarding tutorial, cockpit controller interface, orientation indicator ### Health Coach @ Mabuhay Health Center Jan 2013 – Jan 2015 | San Francisco, CA Trained and certified by UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine and Mental Health First Aid USA to advocate for patients and facilitate their visits by providing one-on-one interaction at Mabuhay Health Center, a UCSF student-run free clinic in downtown San Francisco. Assess patient’s physical and emotional health; perform health screening: blood glucose, body temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate, and assisting with PHQ9 questionnaires for behavioral health. Present patient’s social history to the medical team during huddle and finalize action plans with patients at the end of their visits. Update patient's’ database on OpenEMR and help with clinic set-up and clean-up. http://www.mabuhayhealthcenter.org/ ### Clinical Research Assistant - Program in Women-Centered Contraception @ UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine Jan 2014 – Jan 2015 | San Francisco Selected and trained by UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine to assist researchers in Program in Woman-Centered Contraception: “Patient Centered support for Contraceptive Decision-Making: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of a Contraceptive Decision-Support Tool,” under Dr. Christine Dehlendorf. Assist researchers in conducting clinical trials at urban safety-net reproductive health clinics in San Francisco; helping participants complete questionnaires; helping with “MyBirthControl” application and using REDcap on iPads; keeping longs of the study; and ensuring confidentiality of participants. The study optimizes women’s decision in choosing the right birth control at the doctor’s visit. ("The Program in Woman-Centered Contraception is dedicated to the idea that women should be at the heart of all family planning efforts. Through listening to what women want in contraception and contraceptive care, we can best meet their reproductive needs and ensure their reproductive autonomy. To accomplish this goal, we engage in activities designed to develop, evaluate and disseminate innovative family planning interventions, as well as conduct formative research to deepen our understanding of women’s preferences around contraception. Our work focuses on low-income and diverse populations and includes research investigating provider-patient interactions in the family planning setting, women’s social communication around birth control methods, contraceptive decision-making, and family planning disparities.") -Dr. Christine Dehlendorf, Principle Investigator and Program Director http://fcm.ucsf.edu/program-woman-centered-contraception ### UC Davis Pre-Medical Surgical Internship, Mentorship, and Research Program @ UC Davis Medical Center Jan 2011 – Jan 2011 | UC Davis Department of Surgery Through an application process similar to that of medical school, I was selected by Department of Surgery at University of California, Davis (UCD) to participate in a unique Pre-medical Surgical Internship, Mentorship, and Research Program. At each seven-hour shifts at UCD Medical Center in Sacramento, I was allowed to scrub into all types of surgery and shadow surgical residents during medical procedures at clinics, grand rounds, and conferences at every surgical department in the hospital. Weekly reading and writing assignments on medical journals and healthcare systems gave me a structured knowledge on those topics and strengthened my medical terminology and physiology knowledge, in addition to weekly conferences with guest speakers, suture classes, and lastly, giving my thirty-minute presentation on a surgical procedure of nasal septum surgery to the entire program. ("The UC Davis Pre-Medical Surgical Internship, Mentorship, and Research Program is a unique and rigorous experience that exposes participants to the field of surgery by immersing them in a professional medical environment. Program components are designed to introduce the academic and clinical activities typically experienced by physicians and medical students. This competitive program is intended for individuals who have demonstrated their interest in pursuing a career as a physician. We pride ourselves in accepting participants who are responsible, mature, and committed.") http://www.premedsurgery.org/people/former-participants/interns/ ### Molecular Research Assistant @ University of California, San Diego Jan 2009 – Jan 2011 | Hampton Lab At Professor Randolph Hampton’s Lab at UCSD, I participated in the research of cytoplasmic quality-control of misfolded-protein degradation in yeast. Under the guidance of a Ph.D. student, I performed biotechnological techniques such as cloning, PCR, making competent cells, and transforming with plasmids. I tested bacterial and yeast cells for variances in proliferation and for their responses to protein degradation once injected with chaperone-assisted ubiquitination. As part of the collaboration, I attended the labs' weekly group meetings and presented my own participation in assisting with development of FLAG tag stGND 1 gene for studying of protein degradation and studying chaperone proteins in proteolysis. SKILLS: Micropipettes, Making a pH buffer; Quantitative Measurements, centrifugation, ammonium sulfate precipitations; prepare size exclusion column, Affinity chromatography purification, Size exclusion chromatography purification, gel electrophoresis, Western blot, SDS-PAGE and electroblotting, Immunodetection, ELISA, restriction enzyme digest, Make competent cells and transform with plasmid, Purification and analysis of fluorescent proteins, SDS-PAGE of fluorescent proteins ## Education ### (Honors) Biochemistry - Cell Biology in B.S., Biochemistry UC San Diego ### Massachusetts Institute of Technology ### Pre-medical in Post-Baccalaureate Formal Program San Francisco State University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/sandrasopol - Portfolio: https://www.sandrasopol.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/sandrasopol JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/sandrasopol/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13