Girl with glasses illustration

Experience

Sounding Board LLC

March 2023 - March 2025

Led product strategy and design initiatives with a human-centered approach, fostering collaboration, clarity, and shared vision among cross-functional teams. Balanced business needs with user experiences, creating impactful solutions that resonated with both stakeholders and end users.

Product Manager & Lead Designer

  • Cultivated a space for collaborative problem-solving, ensuring diverse perspectives were valued and integrated into decision-making.

  • Encouraged open communication and iterative feedback, reinforcing a culture of trust and continuous improvement.

  • Clarified complex product decisions, guiding teams through design thinking processes and ensuring alignment on vision and execution.

  • Explored AI design principles and best practices, beginning the discovery process for integrating AI strategy in meaningful, impactful ways.

  • Designed wireframes and prototypes (low-fi and hi-fi), translating ideas into engaging, user-friendly experiences.

  • Worked cross-functionally with engineering, design, and stakeholders, driving seamless collaboration and execution.

  • Presented solutions with clarity and strategic insight, demonstrating impact and fostering buy-in at all levels.

  • Authored detailed user stories, epics, and technical requirements, streamlining development in Jira for efficiency and precision.

  • Led internal and external product demos, shaping compelling narratives around new releases for teams and end users.

  • Defined and executed go-to-market strategies, adapting success metrics to meet startup constraints while driving tangible results.

  • Leveraged user feedback, business goals, and data, ensuring each product decision was intentional, impactful, and user-centric.

EstateSales.NET

June 2012 - May 2022

Established and built the product department, which pivoted the company direction to become a more user-centric organization, helping grow from 1.2M dollar market value in 2014 to 6M dollar market value and from 1.3M monthly users to 3.6M monthly users.

Product Design Manager & Product Manager

2021 - May 2022

  • Served as the central point of contact for cross-departmental projects. Facilitated meetings, kept everything on track, and helped executive staff craft their vision into reality

  • Initiated a video review process that resulted in increased dev/product productivity and improved company communication

  • Mentored designers and encouraged professional growth. Regularly supported side projects and promoted a healthy work-life balance

  • Protected my team’s collective energy as the filter for time and attention requests so that the team could have the space to create great experiences

  • An active participating member of the team contributing to different design deliverables, design discovery, and workshops

Lead Product Designer

2014 - 2021

  • Participated in user research, both quantitative and qualitative, and leveraged findings artfully that influenced the business to prioritize features that drove our NPS score to 77 (out of 100)

  • Successfully led multiple projects, delivering complex and scalable designs for mobile, desktop, and web applications for the leading estate sale advertising platform, contributing to the company's broader efforts to improve user experience, design culture, and processes across my team and organization

  • Helped translate ideas and feedback into their underlying problems and created solutions in varying levels of fidelity using whiteboard sketches, wireframes, flow charts, and interactive prototypes

  • Made compromises that respected scope, effort, and user experience in a fast-paced, agile environment

  • Continually improve the product strategy and process. An example is including the dev team more in discovery to help gauge effort and insight. This enabled us to focus on low-effort, high-impact solutions over the high-effort, low-impact ones and created a better relationship between the teams.

  • Spearheaded the adoption of the Material Design System, which sped up production since we were no longer maintaining and creating a custom style guide

Customer Support Agent

2012 - 2013

  • Used empathy when hearing and spotting customer complaints to provide quick workarounds related to the customers’ pain points

  • Maintained a high level of customer satisfaction through effective verbal and written communication

What is it like to work with me?

  • Farrah Underwood

    Senior Technical Program Manager

    “Jess is an exceptional product manager and a true force of nature. With her unique blend of UI design, UX research, SaaS expertise, startup savvy, and sharp problem-solving skills, she brings unmatched depth and perspective to every project she touches.

    She is highly collaborative, working cross-functionally with grace and intention, always ensuring that every voice is heard and every perspective is considered. Her ability to bring teams together is a superpower in itself.

    What truly sets Jess apart is her humility, kindness, and relentless curiosity. She approaches challenges with a calm, inquisitive mindset that creates a safe space for innovation and creativity to thrive. I had the pleasure of working closely with her on several feature launches and they were some of the smoothest, most rewarding launches of my career. I also had the joy of partnering with her on a standout presentation for a company-wide event, and it was genuinely one of the most fun and inspiring collaborations I’ve had.

  • Aaron Miles

    Senior Manager, Product Delivery

    “I had the pleasure of working with Jess in her roles of product designer and then later as she transitioned to product manager. She excelled in both roles, bringing excellent attention to detail, design thinking, creative solutions to complex problems and diligent user-centered product management through all phases of the product life cycle process. In both roles, I appreciated her focus on user research and stakeholder collaboration. As a product manager, I was very impressed by her ability to not only write product requirement documents, but to translate those into detailed users stories and lead collaboration with engineering (she could even be a product owner if she wanted). Equally important are her soft skills, Jess is so great to collaborate with, and leads with empathy and understanding in ability to manage cross-functionaly stakeholders and gain alignment. Work with Jess, you won't regret it!”

  • Steve Haar

    Senior Lead Developer

    "Jess is a rare designer who can demonstrate incredible pragmatism without ever compromising user experience. Jess' work philosophy revolves around empathy. Empathy for the user, the stakeholders, and her fellow teammates. She is an amazingly talented yet humble designer with uncanny leadership ability. As an engineer, it was always a pleasure to work with Jess. During my tenure at EstateSales.NET, Jess and I were able to put together perhaps the most effective cross-functional team I have ever been a part of. We were able to accomplish so much, and it would never have been possible without Jess leading our design department."

  • Michael Skinner

    Senior Product Manager

    “When Jess joined the team, it was the first time I got to work with an expert in UX, and it freed me up to focus on other parts of the product development process. It's a game changer to have someone you can trust completely to either make the right call based on industry patterns and best practices or bring the team in to collaborate on a decision. Jess knows the product process and has good instincts, and she's poised to make a jump past UX into broader product responsibilities.”

  • Erica Hendrix

    Marketing Team Member

    "Ridiculously talented is what comes to mind when I think of Jessica. I have had the pleasure of working with Jess for nearly eight years. I am part of the marketing team and collaborate with her and her team often. She leads with grace and empathy, making her one of the most effective leaders in the company. What I admire most about Jess is her eagerness to grow and continue to learn. Jess is reliable and quick to think of creative solutions for problems. I can't recommend her enough."

  • Amy Baker

    Customer Support Manager

    "Jessica is a superbly talented and thoughtful designer. She and I have worked together over the last 5 years in various capacities. Always with the customer journey at the forefront, she propels projects and teammates with her extreme organization and communication. Countless times I've asked, how in the world does she get all done and do it so well? Her ability to design, manage and lead makes her a dream to work alongside. Jessica is the ultimate designer and our website shows it. She makes it easy to be proud of our company's product!"

  • Mattie Jo Graham

    Product Designer

    "Jessica is a human-first designer, manager, and friend. I’ve been lucky to work with Jess in several capacities, most recently as a product designer on her team. Jess’s superpower lies in her ability to hone in on what is most important, the why. Every design and user experience is thoughtfully crafted with grace, humility, and empathy. Her commitment and involvement to the professional development and mentorship of her team is unmatched. She takes a holistic approach to management and design, creating delightful user experiences. I’d without a doubt recommend Jess as a product designer. Additionally, she’s a great mentor and example to designers that are new to the career."

Product & Design Work