The company that really started my career was Code Authority Inc. In my 6 years there, I rose from just designing and building websites to becoming the sole UI/UX designer for the Websites and Software teams, and eventually the Lead Creative Designer, a role I created after being frustrated at the quality of work I was producing. Being the only designer while also still building websites, I was often either over-looked by the managers or I had to many projects to do at once. So I wrote out a proposal after a lot of research and presented it to the President of the company who accepted my plan and allowed me to hire a second designer, and focus solely on creating and managing the best UI and UX across all of our products.

During that time, I also designed all of the branding and marketing/event materials for CodeLaunch, the app startup competition Code Authority put on every year. The branding is still being used, and can be seen in the new CodeLaunch TV show on YouTube. On the 3rd year I became the event manager for the competition, running the showroom floor and stage managing the competition itself. While the latter is not a design highlight, it remains one of my personal favorite highlights. Helping manage CodeLaunch taught me a ton about working with a wide array of people in a fast passed environment while remaining calm and professional.

Another, more recent highlight in my career was while working at PDI Technologies, as a Sr. UI/UX Designer, Our biggest customer, CITGO, wanted to upgrade their rewards app to have a mobile payment feature. The apps had a bank payment feature in the past, but the UI was very outdated and didn't include debit/credit, so I was asked to design the new feature. The project wound up becoming much larger and more complicated than anyone anticipated, leading to many late nights and weekends. I worked directly with CITGO iterating on the UI and UX, while at the same time implementing completed screen designs into the app. It was chaotic and went through many revisions, but after a year we completed the project with much acclaim. The project tested every corner of my design repertoire from user experience puzzles, to branding implementation, to graphic motion design. I'm a much stronger designer having worked on that project, and I learned many invaluable lessons during the process.

My most recent highlight that taught me a lot was while also working at PDI Technologies, I was offered to lead and manage the UI & UX overhaul of their white-labeled fuel and convenience retail mobile app. The first 5 years I was with the company, I designed and implemented customer's mobile apps, so I was proud to be given the opportunity to run the redesign process. In that role, I created a timeline breakdown of what needed to be completed by when based on the timeline I was given, scheduled and ran all of our meetings, as well as created the Figma library and framework we used to stay organized as a team. I can proudly say that we completed the redesign exactly on time, and the result came out even better than I had hoped. It reminded me that organized teamwork and respectful critique can create great things, and it really helped me grow as a team player and as a leader. I'm very proud of that team.