BuildingLink
Lead feature design across BuildingLink’s core platform and new verticals driving significant gains in user engagement, reducing support volume, and sustaining strong annual retention.
Prototype in code with Claude Code and the Figma MCP server, cutting time from brief to prototype from weeks to days and increasing feature throughput across the team.
Designed and launched an integrated digital tipping platform that now processes tips for thousands of users, with a 90% staff activation rate within the first month.
Partner across five departments, including executive, product, engineering, CX, and marketing, keeping design decisions tightly connected to business goals.
Scale a shared design system adopted across the entire product organization, standardizing components across all product surfaces and accelerating design-to-development handoff.
Conduct ongoing customer interviews and monitor daily product analytics to shape roadmap priorities, translating user insight directly into shipped product.
Mentor the design team through regular critique sessions and hands-on coaching, establishing design standards that raise the quality bar across the team.
Decisionary Media/DailyMail
Defined the product design vision and UX strategy for a content-driven platform, contributing to a successful launch that attracted millions of users and supported the company’s acquisition.
Led user research, interaction design, visual design, and functional prototyping across web and mobile products.
Collaborated with product managers, engineers, stakeholders, and external vendors to define product requirements and shape the product roadmap.
Established a shared design system that unified products, improved design consistency, and streamlined cross-functional collaboration.
DirectLync
Grew a B2B SaaS platform from 0 to 1,200 users, including a campaign-building workflow that unified marketing and sales data and drove measurable increases in user adoption and engagement.
Defined product strategy, UX direction, and design vision as founding designer, guiding the product from initial concept through launch and seven years of iteration.
Built a design system covering 30+ product surfaces across desktop and mobile, improving consistency and scalability as the platform grew.
Led product discovery and user research to translate business and client goals into design decisions that shipped across web and mobile products.
Mentored 2 designers through critique sessions and standards-setting, raising the design quality bar as the team and product scaled.
Everything else
2014 - 2015: Almo Corporation, Art Director
2013 - 2014: McNeil Media Group, Art Director
2010 - 2013: NAPCO Media, Art Director
2007 - 2010: Chadick+Kimball Agency, Senior Graphic Designer
2004 - 2007: National Association of Broadcasters, Graphic Designer
Education
University of Maryland, College Park
Bachelor of Arts
UX & UI Design
AI-Assisted Workflows / Wireframing and Prototyping / User Interface Design / User Experience Testing / Responsive Design Solutions
Product management
Strategic Roadmapping / Cross-functional collaboration / Data-Driven Decision Making
Research
Branding
Branding Strategy and positioning / Visual and Verbal Consistency / Audience Connection
Design
Figma
Figma Make
Figma MCP Server
Claude Code
ChatGPT
Sketch
Adobe XD
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustration
Adobe Indesign
Premier
After Effects
Product management
Jira
Confluence
Asana
Miro
Airtable
Azure
Development
Storybook
HTML & CSS
Wordpress
Elementor
Analytics
Pendo
Hotjar
Google Analytics
© 2026 Brian Needles. Designed in Philadelphia.