Resume

Karl Schultz

Senior Product Designer and Product Design & Research Lead with 18+ years of experience designing complex digital products across B2B SaaS, fintech, insurance, cybersecurity, retail ecommerce, travel, media, and marketplace environments. Brings a broad combination of product design, UX/UI design, interaction design, user research, service design, design systems, prototyping, and cross-functional product strategy.

Recognized for turning ambiguous business and user problems into clear workflows, intuitive interfaces, research-backed product decisions, and scalable design systems. Experience includes launching zero-to-one products, building research practices, designing broker and policyholder workflows, improving e-commerce conversion, reducing design and development costs, mentoring designers, facilitating workshops, and partnering closely with product, engineering, analytics, marketing, and executive stakeholders.

Recent work focuses on high-trust, high-stakes product experiences, including cyber insurance, risk management, AI-assisted broker workflows, explainable recommendations, human oversight, and transparent decision support. Known for balancing strategic thinking with hands-on execution, from discovery and research synthesis through journey mapping, wireframes, high-fidelity Figma prototypes, usability testing, design systems, and engineering-readyndocumentation.

black and white picture of Karl

Karl Schultz

Email: uxkarl@gmail.com

Core Positioning

  • Senior product designer with deep experience across product strategy, UX research, UX/UI design, prototyping, design systems, and measurable business outcomes.
  • Strong fit for teams seeking a designer who can lead complex workflows, simplify technical domains, and design products for users operating in regulated, data-heavy, or decision-intensive environments.
  • Experienced in B2B, B2C, DTC, SaaS, marketplace, ecommerce, insurance, cybersecurity, fintech-adjacent, and enterprise product contexts.
  • Skilled at translating ambiguous stakeholder goals, customer pain points, research insights, and complex data into usable, trustworthy product experiences.
  • Experienced contributor in high-growth company environments, including Coalition's growth from approximately 75 to 750+ employees and valuation growth from approximately $890M to $4.36B.
  • Proven impact includes +11% ecommerce conversion lift, +3% purchase-flow conversion lift, 66% reduction in design/development costs through scalable design systems, and zero-to-one product launches.
  • Emerging AI design focus includes human-AI interaction, generative AI product design, explainability, trust, automation boundaries, user control, feedback loops, and AI risk mitigation.

Impact Highlights

AI & Emerging Product Design

  • Designed and prototyped a Generative AI Broker Assistant concept for cyber insurance workflows, balancing automation with human oversight, explainable recommendations, transparent decision support, user feedback loops, and broker control.
  • Defined 12 AI design principles, identified 15 risks, and created 28 mitigation strategies through Stanford Engineering Online AI UX Design Essentials coursework and capstone work.
  • Explored AI-assisted quote comparison workflows to help brokers evaluate complex policy differences across terms, limits, sub-limits, coverage, retention, and supplemental conditions.

Cyber Insurance, Risk Management & B2B SaaS

  • Designed and launched Coalition's Control risk management platform, helping brokers, policyholders, and security teams monitor cyber risk and take action on complex security insights.
  • Translated cybersecurity risk data into intuitive broker and policyholder workflows, supporting product innovation, customer trust, user satisfaction, and company scale.
  • Developed collaboration features connecting wholesale and retail brokers, expanding market access, and supporting higher quote submissions and policy binds.
  • Built the first dedicated user research practice for Coalition's product organization, establishing repeatable research operations and actionable insight synthesis.

Design Systems, Scale & Operational Efficiency

  • Built a modular UI pattern library and design system at Macys.com that reduced design and development costs by 66% and accelerated release velocity.
  • Implemented and contributed to design systems across Coalition, Atlassian, Macy's, CBS Interactive, and related product environments to improve consistency, quality, accessibility, and delivery speed.
  • Applied Object-Oriented UX methodology to structure complex product experiences and improve cross-team collaboration.

Conversion, Growth & Product Optimization

  • Improved Macys.com checkout completion and usability, achieving measurable conversion gains of +11% across desktop, mobile, and tablet experiences.
  • Optimized Atlassian purchase flows and UI refinements, contributing to a +3% lift in conversion.
  • Designed international travel marketplace interfaces at Hotwire, improving engagement and conversion by 3.5%.
  • Designed and launched CNET consumer electronics product finders, generating +10k visits and +84k page views daily while supporting advertising revenue growth.

Research, Strategy & Leadership

  • Conducted user interviews, usability tests, surveys, card sorting, competitive audits, analytics reviews, funnel analysis, multivariate testing, and research synthesis across multiple industries.
  • Created personas, journey maps, service blueprints, scenarios, task flows, prototypes, and strategic design artifacts to align teams around user needs and business outcomes.
  • Facilitated workshops with product managers, engineers, researchers, executives, and cross-functional partners to clarify priorities and convert ambiguity into actionable design strategy.
  • Managed, mentored, hired, and onboarded designers, contractors, vendors, and interns while raising UX maturity across teams.
Professional Experience

Professional Development

Focused on AI product design, human-AI interaction, responsible UX patterns, advanced prototyping, design leadership, and cross-cultural experience research while preparing for senior product design opportunities in AI, fintech, insurance, SaaS, and complex workflow domains.

  • Applied AI UX Design Essentials: Human-Computer Interaction for Enhanced User Experiences education to design and prototype a Generative AI Broker Assistant capstone project, defining 12 design principles, identifying 15 risks, and creating 28 mitigation strategies to advance trustworthy, transparent AI adoption.
  • Designed AI-assisted broker workflow concepts for cyber insurance quote comparison, including recommendation rationale, weighting controls, structured policy comparison, feedback prompts, and escalation states.
  • Explored human-AI interaction patterns that balance automation with user control, human oversight, transparent recommendations, explainability, and trust-building interaction design.
  • Upskilled in generative AI product design and advanced prototyping tools, including Figma animations, CSS, and JavaScript, to create more dynamic and expressive product concepts.
  • Expanded AI design expertise through IxDF Master Classes in Agentic AI Workflows for Product Design and AI for Design Systems, building skills to architect multi-step AI pipelines for research synthesis and automate design system documentation, accessibility checks, and token optimization.
  • Strengthened research leadership and business case skills through IxDF Master Classes in The ROI of User Research and Demonstrating the ROI of Design Thinking, developing frameworks to align research with stakeholder goals and translate design investment into persuasive executive narratives.
  • Advanced design leadership and communication through IxDF Master Classes in Storytelling Strategies for Future Thinkers and Design Leaders and Storytelling That Sells UX Design, strengthening the ability to connect product narratives, future scenarios, and stakeholder decision-making.
  • Deepened product design expertise through IxDF Master Classes in Gestalt Principles in Action, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, Design Systems Documentation, and Learning Experience Design, building additional skills across cognitive load reduction, behavioral product design, scalable documentation, and impact-driven learning.
  • Conducted cross-cultural research across North America and Europe by studying museum experiences, service environments, wayfinding, and trust-building experience patterns to inform future product and service design work.

Senior Product Designer & Product Research Lead

Designed cyber insurance, broker, policyholder, and risk management product experiences for a high-growth company operating at the intersection of insurance, cybersecurity, risk management, and SaaS. Partnered with product, engineering, analytics, security, insurance, claims, broker operations, and leadership stakeholders to simplify complex workflows and translate risk intelligence into usable product experiences.

  • Built a user research practice from zero to one for the product team, aligning qualitative and quantitative insights into actionable product development and design strategies that increased product clarity, trust, adoption, and user confidence.
  • Designed and launched the Control risk management platform from concept to implementation, enabling brokers, policyholders, and security teams to monitor cyber risk, understand security posture, and take action on risk insights.
  • Translated complex cybersecurity risk data into intuitive broker and policyholder interfaces, improving product innovation, user satisfaction, and customer trust while supporting Coalition's growth from approximately 75 to 750+ employees and valuation growth from approximately $890M to $4.36B.
  • Designed compliance-driven insurance and risk management products to increase policyholder engagement, support policy renewals, and help reduce claims exposure through clearer risk mitigation workflows.
  • Developed broker collaboration features connecting wholesale and retail brokers, expanding market access, and supporting higher quote submissions and policy binds.
  • Designed UI flows, dashboards, interaction states, and micro-interactions to simplify complex insurance workflows and improve broker efficiency, task completion, and confidence.
  • Designed, built, and tested wireframes, workflows, and interactive prototypes with brokers and policyholders to align business goals with real user needs.
  • Led user interviews, usability tests, surveys, card sorting studies, analytics reviews, and synthesis sessions to identify user needs, clarify friction points, and inform product iteration.
  • Applied visualization methods, including journey maps, task flows, user scenarios, research readouts, and workflow diagrams to make complex product opportunities easier for teams to understand and act upon.
  • Facilitated cross-functional workshops to translate ambiguous goals into actionable design strategy, clarify roadmap priorities, and align product, engineering, and business stakeholders.
  • Implemented scalable design system practices across product platforms to improve design quality, accelerate development, and maintain UI consistency across broker, policyholder, and risk-management experiences.
  • Partnered with engineering and product teams to document interaction logic, design decisions, system behavior, edge cases, and handoff requirements for complex workflows.
  • Participated in hiring and onboarding new staff, including designers, to strengthen organizational design capacity and embed user-centered practices during rapid company growth.

Senior Designer

Designed and optimized SaaS purchase, billing, and product experiences for Atlassian's cloud business. Worked in cross-functional design pods with product managers, engineers, researchers, analytics partners, and design system contributors to improve purchase flows and support scalable product design execution.

  • Optimized purchase flows and UI refinements to reduce friction and improve adoption, achieving a +3% lift in conversion.
  • Visualized design concepts through sketches, storyboards, wireframes, flows, and high-fidelity prototypes to accelerate stakeholder alignment and product decision-making.
  • Built and tested prototypes for usability research and post-launch iteration, validating product hypotheses and reducing abandonment across key purchase moments.
  • Collaborated in cross-functional design pods to align product decisions, evaluate tradeoffs, and solve complex customer experience challenges.
  • Implemented and contributed to Atlassian's design system to ensure accessibility, quality, consistency, and scalable design execution across product surfaces.
  • Partnered with analytics and research teams to evaluate user behavior, validate assumptions, identify friction, and prioritize data-informed design improvements.

Principal UX & Senior UX Designer

Led UX, interaction design, service design, and design system initiatives across large-scale ecommerce, omnichannel retail, checkout, and responsive web experiences. Worked with product, engineering, analytics, merchandising, operations, and accessibility partners to improve shopping journeys across desktop, mobile, and tablet experiences.

  • Led the redesign of omnichannel Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (BOPIS) flows to improve customer convenience, support operational efficiency, and create more seamless cross-channel shopping experiences.
  • Streamlined and iterated checkout flows for consumer retail platforms, improving usability and achieving measurable conversion gains of +11%.
  • Built a modular UI pattern library and design system from zero to one, reducing design and development costs by 66% while accelerating release velocity and reducing design debt.
  • Designed modular, responsive, accessibility-compliant UI systems across desktop, mobile, and tablet retail platforms, improving consistency and reducing technical complexity.
  • Applied Object-Oriented UX methodology to systematize product design processes, clarify domain objects, and strengthen cross-team collaboration.
  • Created journey maps, personas, scenarios, task flows, and experience maps to identify user pain points and optimize multichannel touchpoints.
  • Defined design principles and strategic UX direction to guide near-term improvements and long-term platform growth for major retail initiatives.
  • Drafted product hypotheses, prototyped solutions, and tested concepts to validate assumptions, reduce delivery risk, and improve decision quality before scaling.
  • Produced Axure high-fidelity prototypes, interaction specifications, responsive layouts, and micro-interactions to guide engineering handoff and improve execution quality.
  • Partnered with analytics teams to conduct funnel analysis, evaluate user behavior, and guide checkout redesign iterations.
  • Led end-to-end service design initiatives that transformed omnichannel shopping journeys and improved engagement across digital and operational touchpoints.
  • Applied WCAG 2.0 AA standards and introduced screen-reader and keyboard testing practices to support accessibility compliance and improve usability for diverse users.
  • Synthesized user research, analytics, and organizational capabilities into strategic customer experience plans that aligned teams and shaped long-term experience vision.
  • Supported junior designers through mentorship while advancing UX best practices, design system adoption, and evidence-based design decision-making.

Senior UX Designer

Designed nonprofit fundraising, corporate giving, and activism product experiences while helping teams adopt Lean Startup and user-centered product validation practices.

  • Developed and executed product design strategies, aligning cross-functional teams around user needs, business growth, and product validation.
  • Applied innovation accounting to maximize resources, track feedback, and increase operational efficiency.
  • Facilitated Lean Startup adoption by hosting workshops, accelerating user-centered design practices, and promoting product validation methods.
  • Led workshops to spread best practices and enable consistent, high-quality design across teams.
  • Managed user research logistics, recruited participants, conducted interviews, and synthesized insights to inform product decisions.
  • Analyzed surveys, multivariate tests, and weblog metrics to deliver insights that shaped product direction.
  • Conducted competitive audits and market research in corporate giving and activism sectors to identify opportunities and guide product strategy.

Senior Interaction Designer

Designed travel marketplace experiences for international audiences, focusing on search, booking, conversion, experimentation, and customer decision-making across complex travel purchase flows.

  • Designed UX/UI interfaces for international travel marketplaces, improving engagement and conversions by 3.5%.
  • Drove innovation strategy by developing test environments that reduced product risk and accelerated concept adoption.
  • Led user research and usability testing to optimize products, uncover user needs, and identify high-value business opportunities.
  • Mapped user experiences to align customer needs with business goals, stakeholder priorities, and delivery constraints.
  • Prototyped and validated concepts to reduce uncertainty, accelerate iteration, and improve design outcomes.
  • Collaborated in Agile sprints with product managers and engineers to streamline processes, clarify requirements, and deliver faster.
  • Applied Lean Startup methods to rapidly prototype, mitigate risk, and deliver validated product features.
  • Improved cross-functional workflows and team collaboration, strengthening development outcomes and design delivery.

Manager UX Design

Managed UX design for media and broadcast digital experiences, leading designers, contractors, vendors, and interns while improving design consistency, prioritization, and delivery processes.

  • Led and mentored a cross-disciplinary UX team of designers, contractors, vendors, and interns, strengthening design delivery and team effectiveness.
  • Developed and managed tracking plans with task sizing and prioritization to ensure projects consistently met deadlines.
  • Standardized page layouts and streamlined design processes, reducing development effort and improving operational efficiency.
  • Implemented reusable design systems, pattern libraries, and style guides to improve collaboration and accelerate releases.
  • Designed navigation flows and wireframes for broadcast media sites, increasing discoverability and user engagement.

Senior UX Designer

Designed consumer technology, content discovery, and product finder experiences, combining user research, information architecture, buying advice, and interaction design to help users make better purchase decisions.

  • Uncovered unmet consumer needs through targeted user research, shaping product direction, and prioritizing opportunities.
  • Created personas, flows, and scenarios to guide designs aligned with existing and emerging consumer goals.
  • Explored and developed innovative product concepts with new UI models to inspire future design directions.
  • Developed wireframes integrating information architecture with buying advice, improving content clarity, comparison support, and usability.
  • Built and tested rapid prototypes to validate features, accelerate adoption, and refine design solutions.
  • Conducted usability tests to uncover issues, optimize workflows, and finalize product designs for launch.
  • Designed and launched consumer electronics product finders from zero to one, driving +10k visits and +84k page views daily.
  • Increased advertising revenue by applying research-driven design improvements that elevated engagement, discovery, and product usability.

Skills

Product Design & UX/UI Design

Product design, UX design, UI design, interaction design, information architecture, visual design, service design, responsive web design, mobile web design, tablet interface design, dashboard design, workflow design, complex systems design, enterprise UX, ecommerce UX, B2B SaaS design, marketplace design, omnichannel experience design, high-fidelity design, engineering-ready design documentation, micro-interactions, product storytelling, design critique, and design QA.

User Research & Insights

User research, UX research, design research, qualitative research, quantitative research, user interviews, usability testing, moderated testing, surveys, card sorting, competitive audits, market research, research synthesis, insight translation, concept testing, hypothesis drafting, iterative validation, analytics reviews, funnel analysis, A/B testing, multivariate testing, weblog metrics, user behavior analysis, and evidence-based design decisions.

AI & Emerging Technology Design

AI design, generative AI design, chatbot design, human-AI interaction design, AI ethics, explainability, trust design, human oversight in AI workflows, transparent recommendation design, responsible automation, AI risk identification, AI risk mitigation, AI-assisted workflow design, advanced AI prototyping concepts, feedback loops, decision-support UX, and human-in-the-loop interaction patterns.

Design Systems & Scalable UI

Design systems, pattern libraries, UI libraries, component standards, Figma libraries, reusable components, object modeling, Object-Oriented UX, accessibility, WCAG 2.0 AA compliance, cross-platform design standards, documentation, component consistency, scalable design operations, and design/development efficiency.

Strategy & Product Thinking

Design strategy, product planning, strategic planning, concept development, concept modeling, product hypothesis validation, business outcome alignment, roadmap influence, conversion optimization, adoption improvement, engagement improvement, risk reduction, cost reduction through scalable design systems, translating research into roadmap priorities, stakeholder alignment, and long-term platform growth planning.

Prototyping & Validation

Wireframing, rapid prototyping, high-fidelity prototyping, interactive prototypes, Figma prototyping, Axure prototyping, paper prototyping, storyboarding, concept validation, usability testing prototypes, workflow simulation, and iterative validation.

Leadership & Collaboration

Product design leadership, research leadership, team management, mentorship, hiring support, onboarding support, building research practices from zero to one, establishing organizational UX capabilities, cross-functional facilitation, workshop facilitation, stakeholder alignment, design pod collaboration, project management, task sizing, prioritization, design process management, and translating ambiguous goals into actionable design strategy.

Technical Tools

Design & Prototyping

Figma, Sketch, Axure RP, Proto.io, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects

Collaboration & Workflow

Jira, Miro, Notion, Airtable, Confluence

Analytics & Development Fluency

Google Analytics, weblog metrics, CSS, JavaScript, front-end fluency for design implementation, and design handoff documentation

Methodologies

Design Thinking, Service Design, User-Centered Design, Goal-Directed Design, Agile/Scrum, Lean Startup, Innovation Accounting, Listening Labs, Object-Oriented UX, journey mapping, task-flow modeling, prototyping, research synthesis, usability testing, design systems practice, accessibility review, and evidence-based product iteration.

Domain Knowledge

Insurance & Risk

Cyber insurance, broker workflows, policyholder workflows, insurance quoting workflows, wholesale and retail broker collaboration, compliance-driven insurance products, risk management platforms, claims reduction support, renewal-support workflows, quote comparison, and policy decision support.

Cybersecurity

Cyber risk management, security posture monitoring, outside-in risk understanding, vulnerability and risk signal interpretation, cybersecurity data translation, and user experiences for technical and non-technical security stakeholders.

SaaS, B2B & Enterprise Workflows

B2B SaaS product experiences, enterprise workflows, role-based permissions, collaboration workflows, operational dashboards, complex task flows, data-rich decision support, and workflow simplification.

Retail & Ecommerce

Checkout optimization, conversion-rate optimization, omnichannel retail, Buy Online Pick Up in Store, responsive retail UI, funnel analysis, customer journey optimization, merchandising-adjacent workflows, and accessibility for commerce experiences.

Travel, Marketplace & Consumer Decision Support

International travel marketplaces, booking flows, product finders, comparison tools, content discovery, media experiences, consumer buying advice, and marketplace conversion optimization.

Education

California College of the Arts

Bachelor of Fine Arts with Distinction, Graphic Design / New Media

Certifications

Stanford Engineering Online Education

  • AI UX Design Essentials: Human-Computer Interaction for Enhanced User Experiences

Interaction Design Foundation, Master Classes

  • Agentic AI Workflows for Product Design
  • The ROI of User Research: Prove the Value, Get Buy-In, Stay Relevant
  • AI for Design Systems: How to Stay Ahead and Lead
  • Design Systems: How to Write Documentation People Will Actually Use
  • Demonstrate the ROI of Design Thinking and Win Stakeholder Support
  • Storytelling Strategies for Future Thinkers and Design Leaders
  • Storytelling That Sells UX Design: Define Requirements and Engage Leadership
  • Gestalt Principles in Action: Design Better UIs and a Stronger Career
  • Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
  • Learning Experience Design That Delivers Impact

Scrum Alliance

  • Certified ScrumMaster

Publications

Cindy Alvarez. 2014. “Lean Customer Development: Building Products Your Customers Will Buy” (Hotwire Hotels featured as a case study)

Keywords

Senior Product Designer, Product Design, UX Design, UI Design, UX/UI Design, Interaction Design, UX Research, User Research, Product Research, Design Systems, Figma, Prototyping, High-Fidelity Prototypes, Usability Testing, Service Design, Journey Mapping, Task Flows, Information Architecture, Accessibility, WCAG, Agile, Scrum, Lean Startup, Design Thinking, Object-Oriented UX, B2B SaaS, Enterprise UX, Fintech, Insurance, Cyber Insurance, Cybersecurity, Risk Management, Broker Workflows, Policyholder Workflows, Dashboard Design, Conversion Optimization, Ecommerce UX, Omnichannel Retail, AI UX Design, Generative AI, Human-AI Interaction, Explainability, Trust Design, Responsible AI, Human Oversight, Stakeholder Alignment, Cross-Functional Collaboration, Design Leadership, Research Leadership, Workshop Facilitation.

Latest revision: Jun 2026