# Yeawon Kim > Design Lead @ Tiktok | Ex-Uber, Product+Design System Location: San Jose, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/yeawon Yeawon (Yea) is a product designer currently serving as the Design Lead at TikTok. Yea specializes in system design, UX research, and brand strategy. With a passion for understanding human behavior, she thrives on collaborating with diverse entities, from early-stage startups to established enterprises. With over 12 years of experience in pioneering companies such as Uber, Aurora, and Cloudkitchens, she adeptly blends creativity with data to devise design strategies that prioritize user needs while fueling business growth. ## Work Experience ### Principal Design Lead @ TikTok Jan 2024 – Present Lead end-to-end design strategy to improve complex monetization workflows across global product teams, driving consistency, scalability, and measurable business impact through system-level alignment. ### Director of Design @ Kite Jan 2023 – Jan 2024 ### Design Consultant @ Unknown Jan 2011 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco Bay Area + Provide design strategy consulting for early-stage startups in VC incubations to established enterprises. + Help establish a strong design culture for teams through research, workshops, and brand and product experiences + Lead concept development to create cohesive brand stories and product experiences that align with business goals and values + Build design systems to ensure consistency and efficiency in product development, tailored to the maturity of the business. ### Head of Design, Product Localization @ CloudKitchens Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | Los Angeles, California, United States + Conducted workshops and interviews with executives and employees from acquired startups to integrate the products successfully. + Defined product design visions and strategies for a set of core products offered in both Korean and global markets. + Coached and mentored product designers to create local product outputs that aligned with global design standards + Searched and interviewed product candidates and design agencies in Korea to build a strong product design team and establish partnerships. ### Design Lead, Design System @ CloudKitchens Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 | Los Angeles, California, United States + Leading global design system at Cloud Kitchens. + Developed a strategy to apply the centralized design system to multiple products on various platforms: mobile, tablet, desktop, and kiosk. + Established a system foundation from 0 to 1 by defining practices, components building methods, tokens structure, and UX patterns for developing consistent visual language. + Directed workshops and collaborative projects to solidify a sustainable working model for the product and system teams. + Coached and managed designers with multiple skillsets and backgrounds + Educate system principles to product designers across the US and APAC regions. ### Principal Product Designer @ Aurora Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 | Mountain View, California, United States + Responsible for delivering end-to-end user experience for Aurora’s fleet management product to build autonomous truck services. + Led all processes of design execution from ideation, prototyping, and user testing, to final production. + Worked with engineering managers and product leaders to define systems to create scalable design frameworks for Aurora, when Aurora was going public. ### Senior Product Designer @ Uber Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco Bay Uber ATG (Advanced technology group) focused on autonomous vehicles and the self-driving car business. ATG was acquired by Aurora technology. + Led design system by working cross-functionally with product design, product management, and engineering. + Responsible for designing and launching the B2B platform (Partner Portal) + Help deliver and refine storytelling around product needs and opportunities + Contribute to the overall strategy and decision-making for system direction across ATG’s SaaS product tools. ### Product Designer @ Matternet Inc Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | Menlo Park Responsible for end-to-end design processes such as interaction, user research, and visual concept development for the Matternet products including drone station and native terminal app operated in both the US and Switzerland. ### Product Designer & Researcher @ Honda R&D Americas, Inc. Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Pasadena + Advanced Product Planning: Proposed new product design concepts to ensure sustained product desirability, customer satisfaction, and market share. + Researched competitive trends analysis regarding environmental and economic influence on the automotive market. ### Brand Designer @ VSA Partners, Inc Jan 2014 – Jan 2015 | Greater New York City Area Worked on branding, marketing, interaction, and event experience design projects for IBM Watson, Aldo, and Serena Del Mar. ### Interaction Designer @ Samsung Electronics Jan 2009 – Jan 2009 | Seoul, South Korea + Worked on UX design for IP TV pairing service and early smartphone applications in android. + Vision project collaboration with the think tank team in Samsung composed of engineers, project managers, and researchers. ## Education ### Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Graphic Design Rhode Island School of Design ### Master of Fine Arts (MFA) scholarship student in UX design, Human Computer Interaction ArtCenter College of Design ### Samsung Art and Design Institute (SADI) ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/yeawonkim - Portfolio: https://yeawon.xyz --- Source: https://flows.cv/yeawon JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/yeawon/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13