I had the pleasure of working with Jay at Lively while we were a team of three. I have nothing but positive things to say about her work output and ethic. Start up environments are not easy but she was always willing to lend a hand, provide critical feedback, wear different hats, and produce designs against tight deadlines.
Jay began as an associate but quickly grew to lead our B2C experience which involved collaborating closely with several product managers and engineers to create multiple product lines. She managed not only the web experience but worked with our mobile team as well. In addition to this vertical, she was often tasked with producing designs for our internal tooling and providing assistance to our support sales and marketing team with demos, print work, etc. Despite all that was on her plate, she never failed to put the user first when coming up with designs, often pushing for user research/conducting interviews with customers and working closely with our member service associates to better understand our users.
I learned a lot from her as a colleague - from design principles to Figma tricks to better organization, she is always willing to share her insights and is always eager to learn. Anyone would be lucky to have her positive, can do attitude on their team!
Monica Oakes
B2B PRODUCT DESIGNER @ Lively
Jay stands out as one of the most intentional, adaptable, and proactive designers I’ve worked with. Jay’s strength as a designer stems from her growth mindset, which allows her to learn quickly and take action in the face of ambiguity.
When I hired Jay to join Lively as the third designer, she was able to take ownership of designing and shipping 0 to 1 features in the first four months. She learned quickly how to collaborate with engineers and product while being intentional about advocating for the user and balancing design tradeoffs, making her a valuable asset to our team. She soon began to own several areas of the product from web to mobile while executing with quality and efficiency.
However, my favorite thing about Jay is her dedication to improving herself as a designer and peer. Throughout my time as her manager and mentor, Jay always came to our meetings prepared with questions to problems she wanted to solve and ideas on potential solutions. She’s proactive on asking for feedback and prioritizes her career growth - even taking time to mentor designers outside of work.
I highly recommend Jay to any team looking for someone who can take ownership while being a team player and someone who can execute efficiently while balancing user needs and business goals.
Deanna Nguyen
Design Manager @ Lively
Upon joining Lively, I quickly realized that Jay was wise beyond her years of experience. Being her first job out of college, I expected to have more of a heavy hand in managing her, but was pleasantly surprised by her craft, drive, responsiveness and willingness to continue learning. This was echoed by all of the cross functional team she helped support in the many ways designers typically do. Even though our time together was short, I can tell Jay has many great years ahead of her in the design space and I believe any business would be extremely fortunate to have her on board. I told her many times she is lightyears ahead of where I was at that level in my career and I stand by that sentiment. Best of luck in everything you do. Go crush it.
Mat Hebert
DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT DESIGN @ Lively
Jay is a pleasure to work with, learns quickly, and has enormous growth potential. During her internship at Uber she ramped up instantly and took on a difficult and ambiguous project for the Seattle design studio. Jay worked through unclear requirements, external dependencies, and challenging stakeholders like a professional. She built on her solid industrial design base and added core product design experience throughout the term. Jay follows a solid UX process, works quickly, and requires minimal oversight. She is especially organized for a designer and is able to articulate her design decisions and timelines clearly. She delivered timely impactful work that met our bar for quality.
Jay was also a fantastic culture addition to the team and taught a skill share on story-boarding from an industrial design perspective for the entire studio. She’s fun, has a positive attitude, seeks out feedback, wants to help others improve.
Brad Monahan
PRODUCT Design Manager II @ UBER
I had the privilege of working closely with Jay during her internship at Uber. Her project was filled with ambiguity, unclear requirements and many external team dependencies. Jay tackled these problems professionally and provided the team with clear design solutions or offered numerous recommendations to improve product. She was iterative, applying a consistent approach to each problem and deliverable. Jay is extremely detailed as she documents and follows through on feedback from design and engineering reviews. And she’s highly collaborative with stakeholders, engineering, and remote teams. Jay’s background in industrial design was a natural fit for product/user experience design but still demonstrated a willingness to learn and grow. Along with her work contributions, her positive attitude and lively energy made a big impact to our team.
Vince de Asis
PRODUCT DESIGNER & MENTOR @ UBER
Jay invited me to join her team for Protothon's Hackathon. We worked together designing an app to bring children closer together during the pandemic.
Although we were crunched for time, Jessie was able to manage her share of the work flawlessly. She was incredibly detail oriented and able to quickly put together a path for our design process that leveraged her skills in design thinking. Her positive attitude and deep care for people is inspiring, as is her ability to think quickly under pressure. She will be a great asset to any employer.
Rosie Olaivar
SENIOR CONTENT DESIGNER, TEAMMATE @ THE DUBSTECH PROTOTHON
Jay is an absolute ray of sunshine and a powerhouse of productivity rolled into one. Jay served as the sole designer for the account owner experience, juggling a multitude of requests from the product team. Despite the constant stream of requests, we were consistently impressed by her capacity to turn around designs with exceptional speed and accuracy.
Jay's commitment to collaboration was evident in her approach to working with the engineering team. She actively sought input, frequently inquiring about feasibility, and valued the insights of her Product & Engineering colleagues. Her stellar communication skills and ability to seamlessly navigate across various ongoing initiatives ensured a smooth workflow and effective coordination.
Jay also took a proactive approach to project management. She consistently went above and beyond to keep the team on track with important deadlines. Jay's designs were not only user-friendly, but also meticulously organized in Figma, effectively highlighting any potential challenges or changes for the engineering team.
In summary, Jay's dedication, exceptional communication, and meticulous design approach make her an outstanding team player. It's been a pleasure working alongside Jay, and I'm confident that she will continue to shine brightly in any endeavor she takes on.
Joanna Caballero
B2C & mOBILE PRODUCT MANAGER @ Lively
I was lucky enough to work with Jay for over 3 years at Lively as her product partner and never stopped being impressed with her outstanding design instincts and her remarkable sense of empathy! Jay approaches her work with a collaborative spirit, consistently engaging with cross-functional partners throughout the design process. Her willingness to explain her design rationale and discuss options not only enhanced the quality of our collaboration but also contributed to the collective growth of our team. Whether working on our flagship product or tackling 0 to 1 projects across our suite, Jay's unwavering commitment and enthusiasm for tackling challenges ensured a best-in-class user experience. Beyond her design prowess, Jay's passion for innovation sets her apart. I have no doubt that Jay's exceptional skills and collaborative approach make her an invaluable asset to any team. I would recommend Jay to any company looking for their next rising design talent!
Niharika Singh
B2C PRODUCT MANAGER @ Lively
Where do I begin with Jay? She is one of the brightest talents I've seen in the design space. She started as an associate designer and was quickly promoted to Product Designer. This promotion was self-driven as until recently, she did not have an actual manager. In my entire time at Lively, Jay was a star and for some time was the only designer in the company. She was able to handle a high volume of work while keeping the bar and quality very high. Jay was a great partner for the product team and was always prepared and came up with great ideas that moved the needle and answered our client's needs. On top of being a wonderful partner, Jay was a pleasure to work with and was always willing to lend a hand with culture-driven initiatives. I truly hope I get to work with Jay again in the near future.
Benjamin Cohen
B2C & mOBILE PRODUCT MANAGER @ Lively
Jay was a fantastic product design partner for the product team. She uses data and research to inform her work, and she is always in touch with how users think. She excels at bringing clarity to product problems and making complex experience simple. Most importantly, Jay brings a positive and fun attitude to any teams she is on. I highly recommend her for any product design role.
Angelina Carranza
TechNIcal PRODUCT MANAGER @ Lively
Over multiple years collaborating , I came to rely on Jay's work as a foundation for my own. She consistently provided clear and complete design for components, regularly accounting for my questions even before I thought of them. When compromises or obstacles blocked progress, Jay was always quick to meet to resolve those issues. Many times that resolution demanded that she make quick iterations to match a new goal, a process which she never failed to communicate through. Other times, Jay stood by her initial design, explaining why it accommodated my concerns and often leaving me better informed.
We worked together to bring outdated and unclear interfaces up to standard, and Jay's contributions were critical to our success. She delivered consistent improvements while keeping pace with a rapidly advancing set of features, components, and requirements. She also frequently collaborated with other teams while working with me, taking all perspectives into account and ensuring we got it all right the first time. Jay has worked incredibly hard to ensure her engineering colleagues can build excellent user interfaces, and I am confident she would be an asset to any team looking for a product designer.
Kerim Celik
Software engineer @ Lively
Over the three years I worked with Jay at Lively I was nothing but impressed by her design acumen, thoughtfulness in her collaboration across a range of teams, and attention to detail. I think one of the most important parts of any partnership between design and engineering is communication and deliberation, and I always felt that Jay exemplified these traits. Whether we were working on new initiatives, reviewing a new component, page, or feature I'd worked on, or discussing the feasibility of an approach, Jay was attentive to engineering concerns. At the same time, she was deftly balancing the needs of our users, the broader organization, and design best practices, and that attention always shone through in the final product. I knew that if I ever had a question or a blocker Jay would be responsive in addressing whatever I brought up, providing valuable perspective. I have no doubt Jay would be an asset to any team she was on.
Nick Howlett
Software engineer @ Lively
I've had the pleasure of working with Jay in different projects at Lively where she was the lead designer. Every interaction with her was a joy, any question about Design was quickly solved and she was always available. For several times, after a feature was completed, we conducted design review sessions and she really helped identify any issues and provide guidance on the how and why things are done design-wise. When any extra design needs surface, Jay quickly gathers all required inputs and comes up with what's required for the team to advance. Besides being highly professional, Jay fostered a positive team spirit while organizing team meetings and game sessions. Any team is happy having Jay on board for sure.
Rafael Pinto
Software engineer @ Lively
Jay is a very enthusiastic, self-driven designer. Jay was working in my team as a product designer, where she introduced a novel minimal aesthetic design for a fully autonomous arm exoskeleton device. The device went through many design iterations through which Jay introduced different designs at each stage and demonstrated strong communication skills while working with a team of mechanical engineers to ensure a full, convenient design of the device.
Jay is one the most talented designers I've come across and I'd recommend her for any professional setting.
Mohamed Eraky
CEO & LEAD MECHANICAL ENGINEER @ XBOOST
