**#1 – Giving 110% to everything:** I give it my all to every task, consistently striving to go above and beyond to deliver exceptional work—whether it’s a small or complex project. I pay attention to the smallest details, ensuring that no aspect is overlooked. This approach allows me to produce work that is not only of high quality, but also demonstrates my passion, dedication and strong work ethic.

**#2 – Shipping:** I believe version 1 is the initial chapter of the story you’re telling with the product. I adhere to the principle of “First do it, then do it right, then do it better”—embracing the concept of iteration and ongoing enhancement in all facets of my work. Moreover, I understand that it is not always about adding new elements; sometimes, the key lies in subtracting and removing unnecessary components. This may mean that sometimes I value saying no more often than saying yes, prioritizing tasks and commitments to ensure focus on the most impactful and meaningful work.

**#3 – Continuous learning and growth:** I believe in continuous learning and improvement, both in my professional and personal life. In the workplace, I embrace shipping early and often and learning from both successes and failures. This approach fosters an environment which promotes growth and resilience. I thrive in a fast-paced product velocity and feel fulfilled in working within rapid build > ship > learn cycles. This enables us to deliver value quickly to our users and make an impact.

**#4 – Work-life balance:** I prioritize the health and happiness of myself and the team by fostering a supportive and trustworthy environment. I believe in an inclusive work environment where everyone feels valued and respected. I bring a positive attitude and a sense of fun and enjoyment to the workplace.

**#5 – Think globally, act locally:** I believe in thinking globally while starting locally, considering the broader context while taking practical actions to deliver meaningful impact to the product. Rather than designing for a hypothetical world or making decisions based on insufficient data, I prioritize making informed choices that align with the reality we face.

**#6 – Transparency and openness:** I value honest and open communication with my teammates and my lead. In a team setting, I believe everyone should feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas without any judgment. I always keep an open mind by embracing new ideas and perspectives.

**#7 – Trust, accountability and reliability:** I recognize that trust is established through fulfilling commitments. I take complete ownership of my actions, even in cases where mistakes occur or deadlines are not met. By holding myself accountable, I uphold trust and demonstrate my reliability. I hold the same expectation for my teammates, as I believe that mutual accountability is essential for maintaining a trustworthy team dynamic.

**#8 – Short and actionable meetings:** I prefer short and actionable meetings with quick decision making to respect everyone’s time. Long meetings can be very draining and should only be reserved to discuss critical irreversible decisions. I recognize the importance of implementing structure and processes (loose or rigid) at a certain point to enhance efficiency and ensure consistent results.

Things I care about

Hey! I’m Bilal, an experienced product designer driven by deep curiosity and passion for solving complex problems.

Personal blueprint

Consider this as a dynamic blueprint, which will constantly evolve and expand alongside my personal and professional development.

Instantly view and share pictures from event photo booths with a simple, responsive, and fast web application.

Galleria

Discover, share, and rank nearby courts for your favourite outdoor sports using a UI powered by Google Maps.

Sportsity

See the progression of your entire design process within a Figma file or specific layers through a custom-built solution leveraging the Figma API.

Process

Visualize a year-long journey using Google Maps, with data from Moves & Instagram.

Visualog

Staff Product Designer

As MyHEAT’s first hire, I single-handedly led the entire end-to-end product design and development. This included efforts for 3 key product offerings: a web app for homeowners to visualize home heat loss, API-enabled widgets for utilities to enhance customer engagement, and web-based QA tools for internal teams to improve data quality.

By overseeing the entire product design and development lifecycle, I scaled the web app from 10k homes in 1 Canadian city to more than 1.2 million homes across 15 Canadian cities. To ensure efficient project management, I employed agile methodologies, maintaining clear roadmaps through prioritized backlogs and executing weekly sprints. Additionally, I conducted thorough idea validation by creating wireframes and prototypes for testing new features and concepts with both internal and external users.

Finally, I played a pivotal role in crafting the branding and identity of MyHEAT while developing impactful marketing collateral to elevate and reinforce the company’s brand presence.

Product Design Lead

Currently at Shopify, I have successfully led the design of several ecommerce features that resolved high merchant frustrations such as merging customers and adding recipients to gift cards, resulting in overall decreased frustrations and increased adoption by large merchants.

Taking full ownership of the design, coding, and shipping process, I implemented various UX improvements that significantly enhanced the quality and usability of Shopify’s Admin. This experience allowed me to develop a comprehensive guide that empowered other designers to confidently ship PRs, establishing me as the go-to person for designers seeking guidance in code implementation.

Additionally, I proactively shared learnings with cross-discipline colleagues, fostering a culture of continuous learning. To further demonstrate my commitment to growth, I expanded my proficiency in React, ensuring my work met Shopify’s engineering standards and showcased my problem-solving skills through intersection of design and code.

Senior Product Designer

I was responsible for designing and developing product demos using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. These demos played a pivotal role in demonstrating AI and machine-learning capabilities to optimize forecast accuracy, inventory availability, and promotion plans for category managers. As a result, we successfully acquired a prominent North American enterprise retailer as a client.

Furthermore, I crafted high-fidelity code prototypes to support our Engineering teams, facilitating continuous UI enhancements. I also played a key role in expanding design system by collaborating closely with Product and Engineering teams, resulting in a comprehensive library of shared UI components for more efficient product development. Lastly, I advocated for the importance of design across various teams through engaging lunch & learn sessions and contributing to the company culture.

I shipped omni-channel product experiences for incident response teams using PagerDuty Analytics, ranging from web to Slack. As a result, the Analytics feature saw increased growth with mid-market and enterprise customers.

In my role as player-coach, I efficiently oversaw a team of 2 junior product designers, guiding their growth and ensuring project success. I also took the initiative to champion design advocacy efforts, initiating projects to improve product development processes and highlighting the importance of UX metrics for alignment across teams. 

Moreover, I played a crucial part in establishing design systems, working closely with both UX and Engineering teams to define processes and requirements for publishing UI components. Finally, I contributed to enhancing the efficiency of our UX team by streamlining design tooling, thereby facilitating improved design and collaboration throughout the organization.

Bilal Karim

2023