AKSHAY
San Francisco-BASED DESIGNER with a camera, a passport, and too many hobbies.
Hey hey! I’m Akshay (duck-sh-hey — 🐥-🤫-👋 without the D), a T-shaped designer blending systems thinking, research, and design to turn complex problems into clear, engaging experiences.
By day, I'm at ClickUp designing tools that help teams cut through the noise and focus on what matters. By night (and most weekends), I’m chasing light with a camera, keeping my 50-yo car alive, or learning something new.
Curiosity keeps me moving. Craft keeps me grounded. And I’m happiest when making messy things feel beautifully simple.
Some details are under NDA but I'm happy to share more in a chat
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Some details are under NDA but I'm happy to share more in a chat 〰️
ClickUP
San Francisco, CA
Driving ClickUp's shift to AI-native — rebuilding the systems 20M+ people use to shape it around their work.
Shipping concepts as live, testable prototypes — closing the gap from idea to production. My toolchain: Claude to canvas, Cursor (w/ Figma & Storybook MCPs), agents wired to Amplitude and Canny to pull real feedback and metrics straight into the work.
→ This is quick sneak peek at my work. More coming soon!
PROTECTED BY NDA
AI-NATIVE INBOX
Conceived a new model for how people stay on top of their work: a single AI-powered feed that consolidates every signal (DMs, comments, task updates, docs) and prioritizes what needs attention before you go looking for it.
SYSTEMS AND AGENTIC AI
Rebuilt and scaled Custom Fields, ClickUp's business-critical engine, into a multi-surface system that 20M+ users rely on to shape the product around their work. Designed agentic AI in as a native capability: it reads intent, acts on the user's behalf, and defers when uncertain to keep trust. Cut task completion times in half & lifted task success to 92% in usability testing.
SMARTSHEET
San Francisco, CA
Redesigned Smartsheet’s people management tool to allow customers to easily plan projects and efficiently manage people.
DISCOVERABILITY AND MONETIZATION
Boosted product discoverability by 150% and unlocked $2M+ in quarterly sales pipeline by redesigning discovery, monetization, and upgrade journeys so Fortune 500 teams could find and adopt Resource Management, a startup acquired by Smartsheet.
PROTECTED BY NDA
AI-POWERed ONBOARDING
Accelerated new-user activation and product fluency by designing AI-powered, self-serve onboarding that replaced a weeks-long, multi-team setup — getting teams from sign-up to confidently using Resource Management on their own.
Cedar
New York, NY
Led early design and strategy for a 0→1 healthcare fintech product, shaping Cedar’s pre-visit payments experience from ambiguity to first prototype. Mapped patient psychology through qualitative research, defined core experience principles, and drove decisions across UX flows, product positioning, and roadmap priorities.
FOUNDATION STUDIO
San Francisco, CA
PROTECTED BY NDA
GENEMOD
Seattle, WA
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Enabled Genemod to close its highest-to-date fundraising round of $4.5M by re-designing electronic lab notebooks and lab inventory systems that scientists at biotech and pharma companies use to plan, conduct, and manage preclinical research.
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Genemod’s ELN was fragmented, buggy, and disconnected from its inventory system—making it hard for scientists to manage research efficiently. With no PM, tight timelines, and a $4.5M fundraising round in motion, we needed to ship a redesigned ELN that researchers actually wanted to use.
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I co-led a 10-week redesign effort across 5 sprints, partnering closely with design, engineering, and execs. We kicked off with user research and competitive audits, ran weekly design reviews, scoped features based on feasibility, and delivered a more intuitive, integrated ELN experience. I owned design for a key feature area end-to-end, from IA to implementation support.
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Tight cross-functional rituals beat top-down structure
Designing for trust matters more than just function
Our redesign helped close Genemod’s largest funding round to date
UW + Core77
Seattle, WA
Won Core77’s Social Impact Award ‘24 for designing a service that addresses food waste, climate-smart agriculture, and environmental stewardship for small- and mid-sized growers and everyday consumers. The study combined literature reviews, field research, interviews, and surveys with interdisciplinary co-design sessions and concept testing through narrative prototypes.
