Strategy sets the boundaries
I define the design strategy and the framework decisions get made against. Inside it, product designers decide without waiting on me.
Strategic design, measured in business results.
I’m John DeSouza, a Director of Product Design. Thirteen years in product design, the last six leading distributed teams through 0→1 products in consumer lending, blockchain infrastructure and enterprise identity.
Case studies
Viewing as
Agentic design system audit and remediation
Built the agent that audited Best Egg’s whole design system and directed the remediation: 86% fewer button variants, and the component picker cut 66%.
Agent workflow2 senior product designers · 2 quarters
Cross-Sell: Vehicle Equity & Home Secured Loans
Turned a loan decline into a second offer instead of a dead end. A 0→1 feature across two secured products shipping on separate release cadences.
0→11 senior, 1 product designer · 5 months
Staking v0.1
Put pool capacity, reward rate and eligibility next to the stake action, so nobody had to leave the page to decide.
1 product designer · 3 time zones
How I lead
I set strategy clearly enough that the team can make its own calls, then spend my time on feedback and quality rather than approvals.
Coaching and autonomy
Feedback is the job
Most of my week goes into feedback: weekly reviews, structured critique and time on specific work with specific people. I’d rather give a little every week than a lot at once.
I hold the quality bar
I review against a standard the team can apply without me: spacing and layout, design system usage, color and contrast, accessibility.
I lead with every function
I work with product, engineering, insights, compliance and marketing to define what the products are trying to achieve, so design has a say in the roadmap it works from.
AI in the process
My teams build agents for the slow, repetitive parts of the work. One audits our Figma library every month and writes the exact fix for each issue it finds. Another turns a flow into a prototype customers can try while it’s still cheap to change.
Every agent works from a brief and a set of rules, and someone on the team reviews what it produces.
I’m deliberate about what we adopt. A new tool has to fit a real need before the team takes it on, and we drop it once it stops being useful.
Cursor
Figma MCP
ChatGPT
Claude
How I track design
Design is accountable at three levels at once, and they feed each other. Good craft changes how people behave, and that shows up in the numbers the business already reports. Any surface I own carries all three, so a decision can be traced end to end.
Design quality
Spacing and layout QA, design system component usage, color and contrast, accessibility violations. These keep quality from drifting once a team is moving fast.
It shows up as a design decision
Experience metrics
Completion rate, time to decision, drop-off at each step. At least one has to be perceptual, like effort or confidence, or the layer only measures speed.
It shows up as a behavior change
Business outcome
Conversion, activation, retention. Design is measured on these, the same as the rest of the business.
It shows up as a business result
About
John DeSouza
Director of Product Design II, Best Egg
I lead five product designers at Best Egg, across the loan application, the mobile app and the design system.
Before that I directed the design of Staking v0.1 at Chainlink Labs and the no-code login tools at Auth0. In between, I was Head of Experience at a pre-Series A startup.
Recent experience
-
Product Design Manager
7 product designers
Globally remote–
-
Senior Product Design Manager
4 senior product designers
Globally remote–
-
Head of Experience
Pre-Series A startup
Globally remote–
-
Director of Product Design II
5 product designers
Remote, US– Present
Senior leader“Thank you for leading by example and rolling up your sleeves to get this effort across the line.”
Peer feedback“Your energy, insight, and calm-in-the-chaos approach have made this journey not only possible but genuinely fun.”
Senior leader“Your passion for elevating the experience our customers have and how we show up in the market keeps the bar high and keeps us pushing for more.”
Senior leader“Thank you for opening a valuable conversation around our CX that engaged the team and generated new ideas.”
Peer feedback“I know it wouldn’t have happened without your support even through all the twists, turns, and curveballs this product idea has thrown our way.”
Get in touch
I’m happy to walk through any of these case studies in more depth, or share the full presentation.
Bonus level
Press to aim, press to swing, and near the cup one press putts. Par 27, and the wind counts. Space, Enter or tap.
Best round
Leaderboard, fewest strokes first