ABOUT ME
Rooted in Purpose and Play
Nareg is a designer and design leader of a talented and diverse team of designers spread across the globe, focusing on creating groundbreaking digital products. Throughout his career, Nareg has developed experiences in the areas of data center management, enterprise product management, marketing, and educational platforms for consumer and enterprise products.
Systems thinking, human-centered problem solving, strategic design leadership, and a belief that clarity emerges when technology, business goals, and human needs are designed together.
MY STORY
I arrived in design through systems, not studios.
I started in infrastructure engineering, managing servers, hosting environments, and solving operational problems. Working close to complex systems taught me an important lesson early: technology succeeds when people can understand and trust it.
That realization led me into UX and product design, where I’ve spent nearly 18 years designing enterprise software across cloud infrastructure, operations, observability, security, sustainability, and AI-powered experiences.
At VMware, I grew from Sr. product designer into a Principal Product Designer, helping shape the user experience for large-scale multi-cloud platforms used by global enterprises. Along the way, I led strategic initiatives, mentored designers across multiple regions, partnered with executives and engineering leaders, and remained deeply involved in hands-on design.
The hardest design problems are rarely interface problems. They’re systems problems, organizational problems, and human problems that happen to surface through software.
Today, my focus sits at the intersection of enterprise UX, systems thinking, design leadership, and AI strategy. I’m most energized by solving problems where complexity, business goals, and human needs collide. The kind of challenges where good design doesn’t just improve an interface. It changes how people make decisions.
My career has always been about one thing: turning complex systems into products that people can confidently use, adopt, and trust.
The path to success is paved with experiments.
HOW I WORK
The beliefs behind the work
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Systems before screens
Before I design workflows, dashboards, or AI experiences, I work to understand the ecosystem behind them: the infrastructure, data relationships, operational processes, business objectives, and human decision-making. Great interfaces emerge from a clear understanding of the system they represent.
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Complexity is a design challenge, not problem
Enterprise products are often powerful because they're complex. The goal isn't to hide complexity. The goal is to organize it.
I focus on helping users understand what matters, make confident decisions, and move through sophisticated workflows without unnecessary cognitive effort. Good design creates clarity without sacrificing capability.
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Trust drives adoption
Users don't adopt products because they're beautiful. They adopt products because they can rely on them.
Whether designing operational tools, observability platforms, sustainability solutions, or AI-powered experiences, I prioritize consistency, transparency, and predictability. Trust is built when users understand how a system works, what it knows, and what actions it will take.
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Prototype early. Learn faster.
I believe in making ideas tangible as quickly as possible.
Sketches, prototypes, workshops, and user conversations uncover assumptions long before code is written. The earlier we expose uncertainty, the faster we learn and the better decisions we make.
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Lead through influence, not authority
Some of the most important work I've done involved leading without direct ownership.
Whether guiding designers across multiple teams, aligning product portfolios, or shaping long-term UX strategy, I focus on building trust, creating clarity, and helping others succeed. Sustainable impact comes from enabling people, not controlling them.
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Design is a team sport
The best products emerge when design, product, and engineering work as one team.
My role is often to connect perspectives, align stakeholders, and create shared understanding across disciplines. The strongest outcomes rarely come from individual ideas. They come from collaborative problem-solving around a common goal.
EXPERIENCE
Career timeline
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Enterprise UX-AI Strategy
- Leading and building a design system team for multi-platform design systems as reusable AI skills/knowledge bases, enabling consistency across platforms. This is helping us use quick concept evaluation and validation with users.
- Established Figma to AI agent (MCP) pipelines process, cutting design-dev cycle time 5 times faster and bringing quick alignment with cross-functional teams.
- Co-developed Agentic AI frameworks cross-functional trust & ownership framework (UX, eng, data science, PM) grounded in HCI research.
- Designing end-to-end specs for AI-driven features like personas, success metrics, and system architecture with cross-functional teams.
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Principal Product Designer
- Drive the product vision and UX strategy for the VMware VCF product. This effort focuses on meeting business goals and technical limits and creating AI/ML-powered UX by combining 8 overlapping products in one private cloud platform. As a result, admin gained a 70% reduction in time to complete critical workflows.
- Lead cross-functional (XFN) leadership-level partnerships/collaboration (designers, researchers, engineers, content strategists, technical PMs, and AI/ML scientists), shaping/influencing roadmaps, strategic co-decision-making and stakeholder influence. This accelerated/influenced the roadmaps to achieving goals.
- Create and contribute consistent, scalable AI and conversational interaction design patterns and create guidelines for the Clarity Design System team and accessibility (WCAG/US Section 508). This led to converting disjointed experiences into a unified platform for admins and drove adoption by 50%.
- Guide zero-to-one design ideas and decisions across capabilities by acting as the primary design bridge between capability leadership and AI solution engineering teams.
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Staff Product Designer
- Led the UX strategy and execution for VMware's enterprise infrastructure and cloud management products by aligning design, product, and engineering teams to ship unified experiences at scale. This reduced fragmentation and improved task completion by 50%.
- Advocated and tested an AI-based Copilot UX design in cross-functional groups and customers, built trust with the engineering leads and hands-on users, and influenced product direction.
- Led research and usability testing, from discovery to launch, resulting in an increase of UX-Lite to 83%.
- Contributed to shaping the UX process with the VP of UX by setting up a unified product process optimization and scalable design systems, making design delivery more efficient across distributed teams.
- Promoted from staff designer to management by building a globally distributed design team, scaling design operations and workflows, and increasing design impact by 50% through getting recognition from customers.
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Sr. Product Designer & Developer
- Conducted continuous interviews and surveys of platform users to identify needs and pain points and validated design decisions through prototyping and usability testing.
- Implemented the design system alongside development teams to optimize collaboration efficiency between teams and deliver a cohesive experience for end users.
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Web Developer
- Designed and developed a marketing website based on customer focus, awareness, and business needs.
- Developed a UI pattern library based on the internal stakeholders' requirements and feedback, resulting in better delivery of artifacts.
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UX Architect & Developer
- Designed the product adoption for stock market brokers that helped in increased adoption by 20%, and this influenced sales by over 10% every quarter.
- Created design guidelines and style guides for UX and development teams that led to consistency and uniformity in design implementation across projects.
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Co-founder & Managing Partner
- Led and championed the development and design process from idea generation to the initial launch of school management software.
- Offered comprehensive online e-learning strategic solutions tailored to local public and private schools, utilizing platforms to optimize education experience and administrative efficiency. Driving sales by 32% YoY.
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Design & Technical Lead
- Designed and built web applications for early-stage startups.
- Facilitated the designs and development of outsourcing to global companies.
- Managed Linux CentOS-based servers and supported customers, which was awarded for two consecutive years as the best web hosting company in the region by WebHosting.info. Driving sales by 50% YoY.
TESTIMONIALS
What Others Say
Nareg is a detail oriented, innovative and careful perfectionist – his ideas, skills, creativity and understanding of change requests made every client pleased. He has an extensive knowledge of latest trends and technologies, and his unique approach to every project could not be ignored.
It was a great experience to work with him even though it was for a very short time. I would recommend Nareg anytime.
Armic Esfahani
Lead UX Design
Nareg was managing hosting and domain accounts for the Sitech company; he was showing a great deal of expertise in solving problems and giving fast responses to any issue. He has profound knowledge of his job.
Razmig Youssef
Sr. Engineering Manager
I believe Nareg to have the knowledge and talent that make him an outstanding Web Designer and Information Architect in addition to a hands on understanding of Management in the Web Development industry.
Ahmad Fahad Al-Shagra
Chief Platform Offices
Working with Nareg has been an absolute pleasure. He brings a rare mix of deep experience, technical knowledge, and strong design instincts grounded in empathy and design thinking. He doesn’t just design — he thinks through the why, the user impact, and what PMs and stakeholders are trying to achieve.
One of the things I really appreciate about Nareg is how quickly he picks things up. I could explain a problem in five minutes, and he’d come back with a smart, well-thought-out solution — often anticipating things I hadn’t even mentioned. He’s incredibly fast, calm, mature, and always professional.
Karthic Kumar
Lead Product Manager
I have had the pleasure of working with Nareg on a number of projects here at Adobe Workfront and he has been a pleasure to work with. His development skills are excellent. Nareg has a strong eye for design and usability that has been a real benefit to our work.
Kirk Eisele
VP Product & UX
Nareg is one of the most patient and hard-working colleagues I have worked with. He was always dependable, and very loyal to his work. He is very good source of the latest news and technologies in the web development domain.
Samer Baydoun
Software Architect
CONTRIBUTION
Giving Back to Community
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Mentorship
2022 – present · ADPList
Mentoring designers on adplist.org facilitates networking opportunities, career advancement, and the exchange of valuable knowledge within the design community.
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Coaching & Tutoring
2022 – 2023 · Product Academy
Local, in-person bootcamps offer mentorship and training opportunities to elevate aspiring designers, providing hands-on guidance and practical skills for future success in the field.
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Design Community Creator
2015 – 2019 · IxDF Yerevan Chapter
Initiated the establishment of the IDF Yerevan local group, where the Yerevan Chapter is open to connecting with anyone interested in the area of Interaction Design, User Experience.
BEYOND WORK
Outside the studio
When I'm not designing enterprise systems, I'm usually being interrupted by a golden retriever with strong opinions about my schedule. I mentor early-career designers through ADPList, read obsessively about cognitive science and organizational behavior, and occasionally attempt to grow tomatoes with mixed results. I believe the best design thinking happens at the edges of what you're supposed to be doing.