Hello! My name is Sara Tokarchuk, and I’m thrilled at the opportunity to connect with like-minded professionals, individuals, and industry leaders. Throughout the course of my professional career, I’ve worn many hats across various levels of accountability, leadership, and innovation.
Experience
2022 — Now
2022 — Now
Hayward, California, United States
Manage and mentor a small team consisting of full-time and contract product designers. Maintain complete oversight of team processes, projects, and systems. Responsible for user needs research to generate new product strategies and build product roadmaps. Keep stakeholders apprised of emerging project needs and overall progress. Charged with generating take-aways and developing full reports. Plan and engage in user interviews and prototype testing sessions. Test new features and code releases for accessibility compliance.
* Hired several in-house product designers and contract product designers.
* Provided mentorship for direct reports and for employees outside of the department.
* Created and documented in full the product design team’s best practices and processes to help all members adhere to department standards.
* Engaged with users in a regular cadence to facilitate product team understanding of user needs and motivations, directly influencing company and product strategies.
* Developed and managed a customer design partnership program that brought customers into the design process from early stage concepts to Beta releases.
* Led design and implementation of UI and UX for all new products and
product enhancements, including a redesign of the existing design system to meet
* WCAG 2.0 level AA compliance.
* Presented learning sessions to various company departments about design thinking for non-designers, recognizing and avoiding bias, and how everyone is responsible for accessibility.
2021 — 2022
2021 — 2022
Hayward, California, United States
2017 — 2021
2017 — 2021
San Mateo, CA
In this role, I maintained complete oversight of international multi-disciplinary teams. I also supported all facets of industry trend, new technology, and market needs research to effectuate new project strategies and drive product roadmap. In addition, I planned and executed performance acceptance testing for products and optimizations post-development. I also kept stakeholders apprised of emerging project needs and overall progress. Likewise, I was charged with generating take-aways and developing full reports.
The following details were my key contributions:
• Demonstrated keen ability to research, vet, and acquire new technologies and integration partners.
• Led design and implementation of UI and UX for all new and existing products and product enhancements.
• Served as Project Manager and led Engineering Team subsequent to design hand-off.
• Successful in creation of low- and high-fidelity prototypes for testing; utilized Sketch and InVision.
• Supported engineering and business teams in defining new product and existing product enhancement requirements and scope.
• Leveraged interview notes and details from key stakeholders to create and implement user journey maps.
• Facilitated creation of wireframe UX flows to drive internal and external usability testing.
2016 — 2017
San Mateo, CA
2010 — 2020
San Mateo, CA
In this role, I cultivated and delivered strategic creative insight to wide array of clients on UX and UI design for websites, applications, and mobile apps through expertise in wireframing and prototyping. I also directed sub-contracted web developers and designers across multiple projects simultaneously.
The following details are my key contributions:
• Led design, development, and implementation of UX and UI for A La Reg’s event registration application and Cerius Executive’s candidate search web application.
• Played key role in strategizing UX and UI design for Anapalan’s 2014/2015 conference site.
• Partnered with and supported contractors and internal employees on design projects, including design and coding of responsive HTML email templates for email marketing service providers.
• Utilized content management systems (WordPress, Concrete5, Evoq, & Wix) to design and code websites for multiple clients.
Education
San José State University