Zaki Ahmed

Houston, TX (Remote) | January 2024 — Current

Mid-sized technology consulting firm, focusing on modern AI solutions.

• AI & Intelligent UX: Product design lead for a GenAI agent solution for a major banking and investment firm, defining user experience principles for AI-powered assistants.

• Enterprise Product Design: Led design for an enterprise level therapy management platform, overseeing two junior designers and a product manager, while developing an enterprise-level design system for consistency and scale.

• Workshop Facilitation: Facilitated pre-sales workshops to align clients on product vision and core problems, including Design Thinking ideation and Microsoft Power Platform Security & Governance sessions.

• UX Strategy & Vision: Defined core UX offerings in a tiered menu style to support the sales teams and align.

• Talent Development & UX Enablement: Developed and launched a national training program and UX portfolio, aligning skill development with team and market needs while supporting pre-sales and project engagements across the organization.

• UX Evangelism & Thought Leadership: Hosted regional lunch-and-learn sessions on UX in product teams, Power Apps UX for AI agents, and UX in Agentic AI.

• Pre-Sales & Business Impact: Contributed over $1.2M in first-year revenue by supporting sales with SOWs, team planning, UX-led solutions, and design thinking workshops.

Dallas, TX (Hybrid) | August 2022 — March 2023

Mid-sized trucking business for B2B SaaS products bringing efficiency to trucking through optimization & AI.

• Led a team of 5 designers, overseeing their daily workflow and driving the creation of high-quality design deliverables in an agile environment while also continuing to design impactful experiences to enhance user satisfaction.

• Established best practices and processes for ux research, interviewing, design QA, and design reviews to ensure consistency and quality across all B2B SaaS products.

• Facilitated cross-functional white-boarding sessions and workshops to define key product decisions and establish internal processes.

• Managed the front-end team’s workflows, ensuring accurate execution of features according to prioritization.

• Led the discovery and product design of Load AI, an artificial intelligence product for automated load and driver matching to optimize profitability.

Remote | December 2022 — February 2023

UX/UI Design bootcamp to guide students into beginning their design career.

• Provided guidance, counseling, and support to students enrolled in the Thinkful (Chegg) UX/UI Design Bootcamp.

Houston, TX (Hybrid) | October 2017 - May 2022

Large enterprise technology consulting firm, a joint venture between Microsoft + Accenture

• Designed experiences and led teams in ux research, user-centered design, interaction design, wire-framing, prototyping and usability testing over 17 projects for a wide variety of mobile and desktop applications across multiple industries (trucking, healthcare, management consulting, retail, beveraging and energy).

• Worked closely with cross-functional teams to ensure that the user's needs were at the forefront of our designs, while also ensuring that our solutions were aligned with our clients' budgets and business timelines. I also assisted the front end team with front end features using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

• Served as a career advisor to three junior designers, providing regular feedback on their work, mentoring them on client management, and facilitating their career growth with bi-weekly check-ins.

• Used Design Thinking techniques to facilitate workshops with c-suite executives and key stakeholders for 5 enterprise projects.

• Designed and helped develop a lightweight app in 24 hours in response to COVID-19 for a large cancer center.

• Hosted quarterly regional townhalls in association with C-suite executives for the South Region.

Tulsa, OK | February 2017 — July 2017

Mid-sized company offering a B2B SaaS product specializing in accounting software tailored specifically to the oil + gas industry.

• Developed, maintained, and upgraded accounting management software that was tailored specifically for the oil and gas industry. Working in an agile environment, I utilized a variety of technologies, including Ruby on Rails, Go Language, CoffeeScript, SQL, BackBone.Js, HTML5, and CSS3 to create software solutions that met the specificity of accounting practices.

Houston, TX | July 2016 — December 2016

Small civil engineering firm beginning to engage in software development in the e-commerce and job bidding space.

• Specialized in designing, developing and maintaining construction software, specifically in the e-commerce and construction bidding process space. I utilized a variety of technologies including Ruby on Rails, React, HTML5/CSS3 and Sketch to build and maintain software solutions that met the unique needs of the construction industry.

Figma, Adobde XD, Sketch, Mural, Miro, Adobe Illustrator, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Git/Github

Wire-framing, Prototyping, User Flows, Journey Maps, Design Systems, User Flows, Accessibility (WCAG 2.1), Design Thinking, Heuristic Evaluation

LUMA Design Thinking Facilitator

Houston, TX | April 2016

Houston, TX | December 2014

Remote | April 2023 — June 2023

Multi-million dollar hot chicken and burger restaurant based out of the New Jersey area

Using the restaurants existing design and aesthetic of graffiti and neon lights I designed and developed a creative experience that pairs the in brick and mortar restaurants aesthetic with the digital one including signage, event banners and website.