Divya Krishnan
Design Leader, SquareYards in Dubai, She/Her
About
I am an Engineer turned Product Designer with over 8 years of diverse experience. Throughout my career, I have embraced the philosophy that design is not just about aesthetics, but about crafting solutions that genuinely work for users. My journey began as an embedded engineer at Qualcomm, where I honed my technical skills and gained valuable insights into product development. However, I soon discovered my true passion lay in creating human-centric designs that could positively impact lives.
This passion led me to co-found a social-impact startup called "Savemom," which is dedicated to providing quality maternal care in remote villages in India. This experience has been truly rewarding, and Savemom has already impacted the lives of over 100 pregnant women. Working with this startup has given me a unique perspective and the opportunity to collaborate with some of the best accelerators, startups, and mentors across the globe.
In addition to my work in the social-impact sector, I have collaborated with startups in the VR and Wearable space, designing innovative and cutting-edge products. This has allowed me to explore the intersection of technology and creativity, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the design world.
During my time at Amazon, I had the privilege of leading end-to-end design for critical teams, including the Amazon Vendor Experience and the Checkout Experience. I successfully introduced a data-driven design approach, enabling better decision-making through user metric analysis and fostering growth. I believe in fostering a collaborative and inclusive environment, empowering team members, and mentoring aspiring designers to help them reach their full potential.
Currently as the Head of Design at SquareYards, I spearhead initiatives aimed at revolutionizing the real estate technology landscape. With a team of talented designers and researchers under my guidance, I am instrumental in shaping the future of PropTech across Squareyards' diverse portfolio, spanning from Squareyards.com to the mortgage platform and beyond. My leadership extends to PropVR, where we're pioneering immersive AR/VR experiences to redefine how users interact with real estate offerings.
Beyond my professional pursuits, I find joy in photography, capturing moments through my camera lens, and expressing my creativity through painting. My Ukelele is a constant companion, and I love to unwind by playing soulful tunes.
I am up for a coffee chat about Music, Immersive Technologies, AI, Design and startups. :) ☕️
Work Experience
As the Head of Design, I spearhead initiatives aimed at revolutionizing the real estate technology landscape. With a team of 7 talented designers and researchers under my guidance, I am instrumental in shaping the future of PropTech across Squareyards' diverse portfolio, spanning from Squareyards.com to the mortgage platform and beyond. My leadership extends to PropVR, where we're pioneering immersive AR/VR experiences to redefine how users interact with real estate offerings. From conceptualizing digital twins to pushing the boundaries of 3D visualization, my team and I are committed to positioning Squareyards as a trailblazer in the realm of real estate technology.
I lead design for Amazon vendor experience teams, including user research , product discovery and driving north star product vision to improve onboarding and performance metrics visibility for vendors. I also drive design scalability using a reusable component framework, and partner with central platform teams to make the right design decisions for both seller and vendor experiences.
Amazon SELLING EXPERIENCE TEAM : Previously worked on creating seller backward experience for IN Marketplace across different products and contributed to the goal of on-boarding more than 7+lakh sellers at Amazon.
Amazon SHOPPING EXPERIENCE TEAM: Lead new customer shopping experience and designing customer centric features to enable the next billion users onboard and complete their purchase at Amazon.in
Social-impact startup that provides maternal care is remote rural villages via IoT. Oversaw the company and wore multiple hats from project management to Design. The project has impacted many lives and was a part of Google LaunchPad, Facebook Code for Billion, Uber Exchange and MassChallenge Israel.
Worked as an Engineer and was involved in development of WLAN 802.11ac protocol(Wi-Fi), memory optimization and implemented various features for WLAN 802.11ac stack
Volunteering
Worked as a mentor for a group of students of Class VIII to get their idea to reality. The students tried to solve a social problem via mobile app solution. This involved idea generation, intense customer interviews and market analysis, wire framing, product design, product development(prototyping) and video creation and final pitch. Multiple teams across the world participate every year in this competition. Technovation was mainly focused on bringing in more women in to STEM.