Establishing a multi-division UX practice, scaling team operations, and architecting data-dense industrial platforms over three years.
Based in the Toronto corporate office, I joined GFL Environmental—a leading environmental services provider with a footprint of over 15,000 employees across Canada and the United States—as their first Product Designer.
At the time, the organization operated with low UX maturity, lacking centralized design systems, documentation, or established product guidelines. Over three years, I established the internal design function from the ground up, built and scaled an operational design team, and led the UX strategy across two major corporate divisions to transform how GFL builds digital products.
The Evolution of Design Maturity
Establishing the UX Practice
2023 - 2024
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UX Foundations: Arrived as the first product designer at GFL to establish the UX function in an environment with low design maturity.
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User & Business Discovery: Aligned with cross-functional teams and analyzed user data to learn the core operational workflows.
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Product Launch: Designed and shipped the inaugural Customer Portal, anchoring it on a new design system adapted from Material Design 3.
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Team Mentorship: Guided and onboarded a junior product designer through her initial months at the company.
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Maturity Shift: Moved the organizational UX perception from Absent to Emergent on the Nielsen Norman scale, gaining executive buy-in for user testing.
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Scaling Team & Process Optimization
2024 - 2025
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Team Expansion: Scaled the team by hiring a mid-level designer, successfully managing design delivery across six parallel enterprise projects.
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Process Standardization: Established a unified design process, including agile sprint cadences and weekly alignment meetings to solve shared friction points.
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Early AI Adoption: Pioneered team experimentation with AI utilities, integrating UX Pilot for structural concepts and Gemini to refine UX copy.
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Cross-Functional Alignment: Standardized handoff pipelines to keep design execution moving predictably ahead of engineering sprints.
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Data-Heavy Systems & Technical AI Integration
2025 - 2026
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Industrial Division Pivot: Transitioned to a fast-moving industrial services division as its sole designer, managing four highly complex data projects simultaneously.
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Field Research & Analytics: Conducted warehouse site visits and deployed Microsoft Clarity to optimize interfaces based on real-world heatmaps and operator behavior.
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Specialized System Architecture: Built an independent, rapid-deployment design system adapted from Shadcn UI to support high-density dashboards, complex tables, and mathematical data inputs.
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Advanced AI Implementation: Established and managed design system logic directly within Claude to maintain technical alignment across product triads.
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Maturity Shift: Accelerated this new division's design maturity from the ground up to Level 4 (Structured) within a single year.
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The Senior Toolkit & AI Integration
Enterprise-level product design requires a calculated balance between rapid stakeholder alignment and highly rigorous technical execution. My day-to-day methodology bridges the gap between AI-driven discovery and precise engineering handoff.
Discovery & Synthesis
Gemini (Gems), Spreadsheets, User Interviews
I take a flexible approach to uncovering operational context, combining direct interviews, on-site observations, and operational document analysis. I then leverage AI to synthesize high-volume quantitative feedback and support logs, rapidly identifying systemic friction points and defining data-backed personas.
Prototyping
Claude, Figma Make, Figma, Google Stitch, UX Pilot
Faced with tight product timelines, I utilize generative AI tooling to instantly generate initial structural layouts. This accelerates the early discovery phase, giving product managers and technical leads a tangible concept to react to on day one.
Technical Architecture & Execution
Figjam, Notion, Spreadsheets
The core of my practice is designing complex, high-density enterprise interfaces where information architecture, data tables, and strict input validation rules are central. Every design file is shipped with comprehensive edge cases, component states, and development notes to eliminate handoff friction.
Field Validation & Analytics
User Workshops, Site Visits, MS Clarity
Product performance is verified through real-world usage data. I combine quantitative analytics—such as analyzing warehouse floor heatmaps and session replays via Microsoft Clarity—with direct field observations alongside operators to ensure our systems measurably reduce operational error rates.
