Professional experience
Total professional experience: 13 yrs
Principal Design Manager at Microsoft
Dec 2019 to Present
2020 - 21
Set up, led and help define the charter for the Stream Design team in India.
Lead the Modern Life Experience team.
Take on the Charter for the Microsoft Whiteboard and lead the Design team in India.
2019 - 20
Set up, led and help define the charter for the Design team for the Windows Experience and the Modern Life Experience in India.
Head of Design at Belong
Jul 2015 to Aug 2019 - 4 yrs 1 mo
Built the Belong Design Team from scratch.
Hiring: Setting up the hiring process, interview framework, evaluation criteria and scoring system.
Onboarding new Designers and preparing individual success-plan for every Designer in the team.
Establishing and running the Belong Design Community.
Setting up Task Relevant Maturity framework for Designers, having regular one-on-ones to help each individual Designer grow in their role and career.
As someone reporting to the CEO directly, a big part of my job is to actively analyse and present how Design can serve its function in building a successful organisation.
As part of the Core Leadership Team, I represented user and product perspectives in business level decisions.
Evangelise Design and spread Design awareness within the organisation.
Part of my job is to stay connected with other functions in the organisation. I would get actively involved in business pricing discussions, sales meeting, internal org structuring and governance policy discussions etc.
Took care of end-to-end design requirements and worked with multiple Product Managers and Engineering teams to develop the core of the Belong Product offerings.
Conducted Design Sprints for relevant projects.
Created the Belong Design System from scratch for the Belong family of products and implemented it across all products.
This involved creating an extensive Design guideline, Symbols and pattern library.
Figuring out team participation and buy-in, to ensure adoption of the Design System.
Figuring out a system for continuous improvement of the Design System.
Set up Design workflow allowing for team collaboration, version control and seamless developer hand-off.
Set up product analytics workflow and guidelines for the product development team.
Created guidelines and set up workflows for in-app on-boarding, walk-through, contextual help and Knowledge Base help.
About Belong
Belong is a 4+ yrs old Series B funded startup trying to solve the problem of hiring and employee engagement by leveraging Product, Design, Technology and Machine Learning.belong.co | recruit.belong.co | twitter.com/BelongCo
PS: I joined Belong before Series A funding was announced.
Core Founding Team Member at DesignUp
2016 to Present - 3 yrs+
As part of the core team, I’ve been a part of design workshops and every discussion to decide how the concept of DesignUp evolves over time.
I take care of all Photography and Videography aspects of all DesignUp events, right from the first one and every event ever since (A total of 4 major conferences and 6 smaller events across 5 cities in 2 countries)
I take photographs and capture all videos myself for every single DesignUp event by leading a team of additional volunteers.
I create event videos, motion design and event photographs for various usage including social media campaigns.
I interview potential speakers and review content for the event.
I also work with vendors to put together stage, screen and other technical audio/video aspects of the event.
I designed and maintained the first 2 event websites and put together ticketing systems, participant registration and event scheduling, before and during the event.
About DesignUp
DesignUp is a Conference and a rapidly growing community of Product Creators, Designers, Makers and Thought-leaders in India and SE Asia. DesignUp is community led and completely volunteer driven.designup.io | twitter.com/DesignUpConf
PS: I had already done 1 event with the founder of DesignUp before the first formal DesignUp event was conducted. Every single Designup member has a fulltime job and does this only as volunteering effort.
UX Designer at Projectplace
Mar 2013 to Jun 2015 - 2 yrs 4 mos
Revamped and designed a complete user conversation feed and commenting system of the Projectplace Project Management web app.
Created email guidelines and templates for all email communications with Projectplace users.
Reworked and designed the notification center to handle different types of notifications.
Redesigned the Settings page of the web app to include user access control, granular notifications and email settings.
About Projectplace
Projectplace is Swedish company that creates a project management tool comparable to Jira. Projectplace integrates features such as task manager apps, Kanban boards, and Gantt chart software.
Designer at TVS Motor
Aug 2008 to Mar 2013 - 4 yrs 8 mos
Designed vehicle graphics for all major motorcycles produced by TVS. Collaborated with vendors to get production supply in place.
Worked on speedometers and dashboards both for production vehicles and concept vehicles including electric hybrid vehicles.
About TVS Motor
TVS Motor is the third largest motorcycle manufacturer in India with annual sales of over 3 million units.PS: I trained to do professional Class-A surfacing for 9 months while in TVS. I built a full fledged Content Management System to manage Design Concept presentation and selection on a huge video wall at 1:1 scale of the motorcycle. This was not even my job description at TVS.
Education
Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Master of Design, Product Design
2006 to 2008
Activities and Societies:
Designed and maintained the Department website.
North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology (NERIST)
B Tech, Mechanical Engineering
2002 to 2006
Activities and Societies:
Magazine Club: Designed, printed and published the Annual College Magazine
Organiser: Sonabyss 2004 - Annual College Cultural Festival. Responsible for designing and executing all promotional campaigns by leading a team.
Info and Publication Secretary: College Student Union
What’s notable about my College (NERIST)?
NERIST is a college meant to give hugely subsidised education to talented but underprivileged students from the North Eastern part of India. Students have to clear a competitive entrance test to get admission.
Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Sandumba Achouba
High School and Higher Secondary Education
1995 to 2002
Activities and Societies:
Art Club: Did at least 3 murals for my school, the biggest one was 6ft x 40 ft
House Prefect
What’s special about my School?
Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya is an MHRD initiative to provide free education to the poorest population of India. The idea was to provide completely free education, books, food, stay and all other needs to 80 talented students from every district in India, every year till they complete Higher Secondary Education.