About
Hello there! My name is Diego Fernandez, and I specialize in product design and strategy, currently leading the Product Design & Research team at Balto.
I've spent the last 12 years working as an individual contributor and served as a design leader at several companies, including Salsify, Bansho, and Welcome Commerce, to name a few.
My philosophy in establishing and evolving design teams is rooted in three key principles:
❋ Emphasizing User Research: By understanding the needs, preferences, and behaviors of our users, we are able to build responsibly and resonate deeply with the people we advocate for.
❋ Cultivating Scalable Design Systems: This involves creating flexible, coherent design operations that adapt to the growing demands of the environment where we implement them, so we can ensure a consistent user experience across platforms.
❋ Implementing Ethical Practices: By focusing on practices that prioritize the well-being of our users, our community, and ourselves, we build products that have a meaningful and positive effect on people's lives.
Thanks for stopping by!
Work Experience
At Balto, we harness the power of AI to empower agents to reach their full potential.
As the Director of Product Design & Research, I am responsible for building the Design team and establishing foundational design and research practices that contribute to our success.
I joined Salsify as part of the acquisition of Welcome Commerce, and began working across various existing and new product areas, including Workflow, Product Information Management (PIM), and Data Insights.
I was later promoted to Design Lead for the Content Activation product area. This new role provided the opportunity to directly collaborate with teams to establish metrics, baselines, and mechanisms for measuring the impact of UX and our engineering investments.
Simultaneously, I led the design, evangelization, and establishment of Habanero, Salsify's Design System.
During my tenure at ChatID, our team developed an innovative interface called Chatbar. This tool transformed the way shoppers interacted with brand representatives from companies such as Samsung, Acer, and Lenovo on popular retail websites like Walmart, Target, and Newegg.com. This pioneering solution bridged the gap between brands and customers, enabling shoppers to address their questions and concerns in real time.
From the inception of ChatID and its suite of chat-based products, our team placed significant emphasis on user research. We also cultivated a collaborative environment within our small yet highly skilled group of professionals. This approach allowed us to create a user experience that surpassed that of most chat providers of the time, delivering seamless functionality across both desktop and mobile platforms.
Our commitment to innovation and a deep understanding of the shopping experience did not go unnoticed. In late 2018, Salsify, a leading product experience management platform, acknowledged the value of our products and the potential opportunity, leading to an acquisition.
Side Projects
Sensive originated as an experimental project to share design work-in-progress through a stream of self-updating artboards, leveraging the innovative Figma API. Our initial concept resonated with the Product Hunt community, earning us a spot among the Top 3 products of the day. This achievement demonstrated the potential to address the transparency challenges that many design teams face during their iterative processes.
Encouraged by the positive response, we refined our initial concept. Over time, Sensive evolved into a specialized project management tool for creatives, with a focus on efficient asset delivery. This development allowed us to better meet the needs of our target audience while staying true to our founding vision. We chose to sunset the project in 2021 to reflect on the lessons and experiences from an entirely bootstrapped venture.