Role: Senior UI/UX Designer | San Francisco | 2015–2018

Rakuten Rewards (formerly Ebates) is a leading cashback platform in the U.S. During my time on the mobile team, I worked in a fast-paced Agile environment, collaborating with PMs, engineers, and QA to deliver bi-weekly releases on iOS and Android.

Notable Projects:

“The Big Deal” Campaign Feature:
Designed a promotional in-app experience from concept to delivery, including custom animation handoffs and stakeholder alignment across marketing and product teams. Presented the concept to the CEO, leading to greenlight and successful launch.

Customizable Onboarding System:
Designed a modular onboarding flow with interchangeable components tailored to different audience types. Built a scalable structure to enable targeted experiences while maintaining design consistency across platforms.

Security & Edge Case Coverage:
Led the UX design for sensitive account and security features. Partnered closely with QA and developers to define all edge cases across platforms and ensure coverage during implementation.

Tools & Process:

Design Stack Evolution:
Introduced the design team to Sketch (pre-Figma) and InVision for faster iteration and clearer collaboration, replacing slower workflows in Adobe and PowerPoint.

Collaborative Workflow:
Started projects with paper sketches and stakeholder whiteboarding, followed by research using internal data and competitor audits. Conducted lightweight user tests via usertesting.com to validate flows and copy before handoff.

Cross-functional Sync:
Maintained close communication with PMs and developers. Regularly contributed UX guidance to product requirement docs and directly collaborated with engineers to clarify feasibility — particularly for animation and platform-specific behaviors.