Elina Rubuliak • Product Designer
I design solutions for real people.
- Highly-focused, data-informed Product Designer with over a decade of experience creating compelling web and mobile-based consumer applications and business SaaS platforms.
- Passionate advocate for user needs with an emphasis on developing empathetic experiences that delight, with a focus on intuitive layout and function over flash.
- An outstanding delivery track record for designing flexible and elegant work that serves customers in law, procurement, business, software engineering, life sciences, academia, publishing, education, social media, and public service.
- Committed to building products users love and having fun while doing it.
Core Competencies
- Managing holistic product vision while balancing many projects in a deadline-driven environment
- Collaborating with cross-functional teams, including leadership, external stakeholders, engineers, product managers, customer support, and sales
- Prototyping, wireframing, user interface, and visual design
- Customer expert through customer support, user interviews, and prototype testing
- Roadmap planning, competitive analysis, product strategy, and concept development
- Project management, team leadership, onboarding, training, and mentoring
- Data-informed troubleshooting and problem solving
- SaaS industry best practices, agile development, and thriving in a fast-paced, ever-changing business environment
Professional Experience
Senior Product Designer Apr 2008–Aug 2023
Concord Worldwide, San Francisco, California
A SaaS contract management platform that allows customers across all industries to collaborate on, sign, manage, report on, and store agreements in a single location
- Led platform design end-to-end, from initial concept to release, for features including AI (artificial intelligence) data extraction, document collaboration, e-signing, approval workflows, and deadline tracking, reporting, and dashboards with wireframes, flow diagrams, storyboards, mockups, and/or high-fidelity prototypes.
- Project managed, created specifications, defined success metrics, and prepared training resources for major feature releases and customer platform redesigns.
- Collaborated with cross-functional stakeholders including product managers, engineers, and leadership to define requirements, provide solutions, and refine team processes.
- Conducted user research and prototype testing with internal teams, customers, and prospects.
- Owned competitive and industry research and analysis and developed customer personas to define and support business requirements.
- Identified future opportunities and defined product roadmap, working as a key thought partner with counterparts in product and engineering teams.
- Onboarded new hires, managed internal product documentation, and mentored interns and colleagues.
Senior User Experience Designer Jan 2017–Apr 2018
Perforce Software, Alameda, California
Suite of tools serving software developers in all industries, which includes the Helix version control engine and applications and code collaboration tools for development teams, serving over 400,000 users globally
- Led design of new application for a SaaS platform for version-controlled file and asset management, project management, and code collaboration.
- Collaborated with leadership, product managers, and development teams throughout the product life-cycle to ensure designs are addressing user and business needs and feasibility.
- Defined design patterns that can be used across the entire product ecosystem.
- Created low and high-fidelity, annotated wireframes and pixel perfect visuals.
- Championed design thinking, UX principles, and industry best-practices to address user and business needs and streamline product management and engineering processes.
Principal UX Designer Jan 2014–Jun 2021
OpenOakland (www.openoakland.org), Oakland, California
A Code for America brigade of volunteer technologists collaborating with local governments to develop applications for residents to engage more effectively with their City Hall and public services.
- Designed lead and project management for the ongoing, long-term project Open Disclosure California, an online application to aggregate and visualize multiple data sources into a comprehensive picture of local campaign finance for voters of California.
- Worked closely with City of Oakland Public Ethics Commission officials to build a tailored experience leveraging their domain expertise on ethics laws and campaign finance.
- Collaborated with researchers and data scientists to develop an in-person user testing study of the Open Disclosure beta site to gather usability feedback from a diverse group of local residents.
- Liaised with existing online resources and organizations (including MapLight and League of Women Voters) pertaining to campaign finance disclosure to determine areas of public interest, competitive analysis, and long-term project direction.
- As part of the first state-wide volunteer civic brigade, developed an expanded, statewide application to facilitate city and county governments to publish their campaign finance data on a mobile-first environment to better serve residents and provide a resource to local journalists to increase election coverage.
Lead Product Designer Apr 2016–Dec 2016
Veeva Systems Inc., Pleasanton, California
Software as a Service (SaaS) enterprise platform offering a suite of applications built for pharmaceutical and life sciences industries, serving over 300 biotech customers globally
- Led the strategic design direction for emerging products for new markets, including an integrated Digital Asset Management (DAM) application.
- Drove the evolution of the existing visual design and functionality of the platform to serve applications and exceed industry expectations by creating the most simple, cohesive, intuitive product.
- Grew the UX Team with new hires and training to meet the needs of the expanding Vault product team.
- Evolved and matured UX design and engineering processes to align with an agile development model.
Visual Designer Dec 2012–Apr 2016
Veeva Systems Inc., Pleasanton, California
Software as a Service (SaaS) enterprise platform offering a suite of applications built for pharmaceutical and life sciences industries, serving over 300 biotech customers globally
- Led user experience and interface for Vault, a content management system (CMS) serving pharmaceutical and life sciences customers.
- Translated complex concepts into highly-functional, complete interfaces for search, reporting, dashboards, security, customizable data objects and relationships, configurable lifecycles and workflows, scalability, and integration with partnering applications.
- Evolved the early product interface and visual style into a mature, well-designed business platform.
- Evangelized design thinking and influenced product strategy and direction.
- Developed and implemented an intuitive visual component library, specifications, guidelines, and documentation to build a consistent experience and expedited development by cross-functional teams.
UI Designer Nov 2011–Dec 2012
Formspring.me, San Francisco, California
“Ask me anything” social networking service with over 25 million users worldwide; acquired by spring.me/Twoo
- Designed key social media product features with a focus on creating a robust component library for fast development and reuse as part of a collaborative design team.
- Prepared concepts, user-flows, high-fidelity mock-ups, prototypes, and performed user research and A/B and prototype testing to drive adoption and user retention.
- Refined and implemented marketing and product branding and guidelines.
Graphic Designer Jun 2009–Sep 2011
Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress.com), Berkeley, California
Open Access publishing and hosted institutional repository (IR) software serving over 400 academic institutions worldwide; acquired by Elsevier
- Led design of custom-branded digital academic journals and online institutional repositories.
- Worked with business stakeholders and engineering team to implement features and enhancements for platform institutional repository software.
- Designed and project managed the launch of Digital Commons, a repository showcase and subscriber resource center for the leading company platform.
- Managed and trained junior designers and cross-departmental team processes.
Graphic Designer Dec 2008–Apr 2009
Red Room Omnimedia Corp., San Francisco, California
Social media community and book sales platform for writers; acquired by Wattpad
- Oversaw the design of the user interface and experience for the entire application.
- Developed concepts, wireframes, and mock-ups for high-profile application features.
- Expanded brand visual identity and marketing materials.
Graphic Designer Aug–Nov 2008
Weldon Owen Inc. (weldonowen.com), San Francisco, California
Trade publisher of cookbooks, visual reference, lifestyle, and children’s literature; acquired by Insight Editions
- Designed concept and layout for proposal projects and sample books.
- Aided in the production and marketing of trade children’s books.
- Prepared photographs and illustrations for print.
Tools
Figma, InVision, Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite, Maze, Appcues, Intercom, Notion, GitHub, JIRA, Confluence, Trello, Slack, Hubspot, HTML and CSS, pencil and paper, and all your standard office software.
Education
Bachelor of Science in Graphic Design 2008
The Art Institute of California – San Francisco
- Graduated with cumulative GPA of 4.0