A little bit about me šŸ‘€

Hello šŸ‘‹šŸ¼! Iā€™m David , a product designer from the UK, currently working at Deputy in Sydney, Australia. I specialise in creating digital products that help people be their best selves. Whether thatā€™s helping to improve someoneā€™s wellbeing, save some extra money, learn a new skill or just have fun. I truly believe in the power of technology to have a positive impact in peopleā€™s lives.

My background is in games and User Experience (UX), designing products that are simple for people to use, but most importantly, help them to achieve their goals. But what I really care about is shipping cool things, testing new ideas and making a difference to peopleā€™s lives. You can see a few of the products Iā€™ve worked on in my Portfolio.

History

The early days

Iā€™ve always been obsessed with games and technology, but it was getting access to the internet that made me realise that I could not just play games, but I could make them too. Online I met other enterprising teens who wanted to make games, forming a community where weā€™d share our ideas, creations and ultimately all our failures!

As we grew up our projects got more ambitious and one of those projects grew into Lasuni. With my internet friends Jason Bryan and Amber Discko: we designed, shipped, marketed and built an online community. We managed to grow a highly engaged audience, and it helped me to fund my Computer Science degree without any student loans.

Lasuni taught me a lot, but it also taught me how much I didnā€™t know. I had the creative bug, and wanted to learn as much as I could from actual professionals - thatā€™s when I found Mind Candy.

Mind Candy

While on holiday in the US, I created a hand-crafted application to Mind Candy and emailed it to recruitment and Michael Acton Smith, the CEO. Thankfully it was well received with Michael tweeting about my efforts ā€” landing me an interview at Mind Candy but also at 2 other start-ups. Everything worked out and I landed the gig at Mind Candy - during my time I was given the opportunity to work on a variety of projects from the core game and safety tools to the mobile-first future of Moshi.

Mind Candy  - 2013

At Mind Candy I learned tons: how startups work; what product management is; research (I ran play-testing every week); running an effective team; presenting to stakeholders; and the importance of team culture in building great things. In my last year I led UX and later product management for a new mobile, creative, community - PopJam, where I met Marcus and Dan.

Play

Working on mobile games, we realised how powerful game mechanics can be in driving behaviours. Play formed on the belief that we could use our games experience to build compelling products to help people and businesses achieve their goals. The dream team was back together with Marcus Thornley (CEO), Dan Atherton (CTO) and myself (CPO) heading up our respective skillsets.

Team Play - May 2016

With our first client we designed, built, shipped and ran Bupa Boost as a live service. With a lot of hard work we kept growing the business and we used our learnings of how these huge businesses work to create Totem, our attempt to productise good company culture. Over my 4 years there I grew my product team to 7 super talented individuals, and we designed and shipped tens of products for some of the biggest companies in the UK.

Travel

On the 27th June 2018, I took the heart-wrenching decision to leave Play, and I left the UK to travel with my boyfriend, Remi. We had an incredible 6 months travelling around SE Asia and Japan.

Chiang Mai - July 2018

Now

Currently, Iā€™m working at Deputy, helping to simpify shift work for 100,000s of businesses around the world.

And outside of work?

When Iā€™m not making stuff, I love to travel, take bad photos on my phone, run, and watch far too much Netflix. Other important things to note: Iā€™m a Ravenclaw, aspiring Pokemon Master and my favourite film is the Lion King. I get my games fix on-the-go with my Nintendo Switch, Iā€™m currently playing Super Mario 3D All Stars.

TL;DR

I like making stuff. Iā€™m also generally a bit of a nerd.

Business friends

I've been lucky enough to have worked with these forward-thinking companies

Deputy PricewaterhouseCoopers Mars Vodafone British Telecom Bupa Thames Water British Gas Sainsburys Volkswagen Clifford Chance Inmarsat SociƩtƩ GƩnƩrale Nedbank Mind Candy

Testimonials

Kind words from nice people

You made it to the end - go you!