Hi, I'm Zay (/zeɪ/). Rhymes with ‘say’ or ‘pay’.
I'm a product designer who started as an engineer. I think about design in terms of systems, constraints, and what actually ships. With over seven years in product design, I have helped organisations to create better user experiences through user-centered design and a genuine love for solving complex problems.
Currently, I'm part of the Podium design team, where I own the Podium Design System and designing design automation tools for architects, engineers, developers, and suppliers in one platform. The design problems are genuinely complex, which is what keeps it interesting.
Outside of work, I run, cycle, boulder, and lift. I read a lot of design writing, watch YouTube explainers on design, movies and geopolitics, and follow F1 on race weekends.
Experience
Professional Highlights
My design career started in 2018 when I left software development. I'd spent two years as a web developer after school, before I pivoted to design.
I started as an design intern at Inspireo, where I worked with Xael Tan, Wenting Poh, Junze Zheng and others on a mix of platforms and applications including e-commerce, real estate, marketplace products. Continental Bookstore, Invade.co, and Auto-Website are the ones that taught me the most about navigating constraints and designing for different domains.
After three years at Inspireo, I joined Podium as a Senior Product Designer. I came on to own product design and eventually took on the design system as well. The work is genuinely difficult as well as interesting. Construction industry software has a lot of domain complexity and I find this a rare opportunity and a good challenge to help shape the next generation of design tools for the built environment. I had to work with incredible people like Ansell Chiu, Tyla Lim, Jesca Leibbrandt and many others who are sharp, driven, and genuinely enjoyable to work with.