tranhelen
🥰

tranhelen

Product Design Lead @ AngelList in SF & TO

Our team at AngelList is hiring!

2 months ago

Work Experience

2023 — Now
2023 — 2024
Remote

Design and consulting for early-stage and fast-growth companies.

2022 — 2023

We create Asian-inspired fitness-friendly snacks for people who don't take themselves too seriously.

2022 — 2023
Burlingame, California

Designing to 1) help entrepreneurs build the best businesses they can and 2) help investors pick the most exceptional founders.

2018 — 2021
Founder / CEO / CDO at Jupiter
Remote

Started a SaaS business to serve entrepreneurs in the beauty and personal care industry. I set the vision, hired the people, designed and created the product and go-to-market strategy, and a whole whack of everything else. A bunch of money was raised before closing down operations.

2014 — 2019
Product Design Educator at Bloc & Freelance

Taught students who are exploring Design as a new career path or looking to level up their technical and soft skill-set. Designed a curriculum with individual learning paths. My students have been placed in roles at Google, Looker, PartnerStack, HomeAway/VRBO, and various other companies.

2009 — 2018
Designer / Product Designer / Brand Designer / Art Director at Freelance
Remote

Design and consulting for early-stage and fast-growth companies. There isn’t one area of design I haven’t put my hands on from logos to billboards to way-finding to annual reports to websites. Sometimes I even code.

2013 — 2017
Toronto, Canada

Worked as a designer across a number of teams to help define what commerce looks like in the future from the Themes, to the API team, to the Sales Channel team, Channel Platform, and App Platform team. Eventually transitioned to management and technical leadership building a team from 5 → 30 designers and handled whatever that entailed.

2013 — 2013
Product Designer at Jet Cooper
Toronto

Worked with a small team creating design-focused products for small to enterprise level businesses. While I was there, I worked on on rSportz's Art Direction, Cineplex.com's redesign, and led Sobey.com's redesign. We were acquired by Shopify in August 2013.

2010 — 2011
Founder at Owl Studios
Toronto

Opened a photography rental studio with a partner. I shot for the biggest modelling agencies in Toronto: Ford, Elite, Next, etc., while I taught students how to shoot models and portraits.

Side Projects

2022

Wrote and filmed a course to help new Design students understand how to approach the job hunt.

2013
Solving Problems with Design at Design Our Tomorrow
Toronto
2021

Today we answer two burning questions. First off, as a female freelancer, should you pretend to have a male agent for negotiations? Is this the only way to get paid what you're worth? And secondly, what happens when you have golden handcuffs at work, but you're absolutely miserable? We tackle both of these issues with our special guest today Helen Tran, the founder of Jupiter App.

2020

Helen Tran is a designer, CEO, hobbyist writer, traveler and macaroon connoisseur (amongst other things). She's also a long-time friend of Funsize who can't resist making frequent journeys from her home in Toronto to visit us. We had a great time sitting down with her to talk about everything from software design, business ownership and bodybuilding, to wealth and weird Texan habits.

2018

Ever have that feeling where you have too many passions and not enough time to do it all? This week we address this question from a listener who’s been struggling with feeling as though she has too many passions and share our experience.

2017

From seasoned designers to up and comers, this list will highlight nine female designers who should be on your radar.

2017

Toronto-based product designer and hobbyist writer. She writes about the tech industry and surviving life as a creative professional. Dormant entrepreneur and aspiring vagabond.

2017

We sat down with Helen Tran, Design Lead at Shopify, to hear her thoughts on building trust with your team, writing about design, and the only time designers should work for free.

2017

Helen and Andrew discuss design leadership, what it takes to communicate well within a large product team, and using design to reach business goals.

2016

Today we caught up with Helen Tran, a design lead at Shopify, writer, and explorer. In this episode we dig into Helen's background, finding motivation, design management, bodybuilding, being interesting, and so much more.

Volunteering

2013 — 2015
Volunteer at TEDxToronto