Amazon Design

Savannah K. works on the Books Team at Amazon. Her team researches how to make reading, writing and publishing easier for all. She came to Amazon from the healthcare space; pivoting to Amazon’s transportation and receipt experience team. When a role became available on the Amazon Books team, she jumped at the opportunity to help others in an area that is a true passion of hers - literacy and reading! Check out her perspectives below. 🎤 What do you love about your team? I work with the BEST people in the world. The researchers on the Books team are some of the smartest, effective, and bold people I’ve ever worked with. They’re not afraid to push new ideas and put themselves out there to support really important initiatives. 🎤 What has Amazon taught you? Amazon has taught me more about myself. It can often be seen as a “tough” place to work. I feel like a lot of people feel they need to change who they are to succeed, but once I found my team, I knew I was in the right place. That’s why I ALWAYS advocate for people to move teams - it’s such a “peculiar” thing to be able to change teams and I think we should take advantage of it! 🎤 How do you express yourself at Amazon? There’s so many wonderful opportunities outside our day to day work that Amazon affords us, affinity groups, volunteer programs, trainings - but what I really love is helping others! Two of my favorite programs I’ve engaged in is Class Chats and the UXDR Apprenticeship program - I love speaking and teaching and that’s how I express myself best - by ACTIVATING and educating others! 🎤 Share a fact that isn’t on your LinkedIn profile! Thanks to my career in med device design, my hand is cartooned and in MANY an instructional document for medication delivery systems. 🎤 What do you do after work? I love traveling, going to new places and exploring is one of my favorite things. The best way to travel is to just walk everywhere. When my husband and I travel, we walk 8-10 miles a day, immersing ourselves in a city and really living in it! 🎤 What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned in your career? That so many people will try to tell you to change who you are, and if you don’t, you won’t be successful. For those people I say, HARD NO. 🎤 What inspires you? I’ve always been intrinsically motivated. I’ve never needed outside motivators to push myself - I’m really lucky for that! But one thing that drives me is my motto, “I just hope every body has a good time”. Life is too short to be angry or upset - I hope we can all not take ourselves too seriously and just have a good time!

Kamille Dyan Fernando interned for Amazon’s Compliance team in the summer of 2022 and returned as a UX designer. Check out her story! 🎤 How did you get into design? I always loved creative spaces like painting, graphic design, and dance growing up. Ballet and ceramics were my favorite activities in school. While navigating through my undergrad, searching for creative opportunities, I reached out to one of my UX Design mentors from the Google Computer Science Summer Institute. She introduced me to the field of UI/UX design and research. From there, I encouraged myself to join a design consultancy called Berkeley Innovation on-campus, where I learned the foundations of human-centered design. I garnered first-hand experience as a consultant, working with different teams from Adobe and Target. In combination with cognitive science classes covering areas like philosophy, computing, and neuroscience, I also learned more about human behaviors and research. I eventually transitioned into my internship with Amazon, and am now a full-time designer with the company. Every day I strive to learn more as a designer and build delightful experiences for our sellers on the Amazon website. 🎤 What design challenge do you face in your role? Designing for different regions across the world is a challenge I often face. However, this broadens my perspective to better design for all of our Amazon sellers worldwide. 🎤What recharges your creativity? I love going to museums and concerts. I recently went to the Takashi Murakami: Monsterized exhibit, as well as the Joe Hisaishi: Studio Ghibli concert. I am always fascinated by how other artists create their work and execute them using various mediums outside of UX or digital design. 🎤 What do you do after work? I love traveling to explore new places, foods, and activities. Some recent adventures include: touring around the Grand Canyon and venturing around Oahu; Cebu and Kyoto have been my favorite places to visit too. I also love recreating matcha recipes in my free time and practicing photography. 🎤 What is the greatest career lesson you’ve learned? Never jump straight into the actual designs first. Take the time to understand who it is you’re designing for and why the project matters for them in the long-term. Keep in mind that you’re designing for other people, rather than you or your team members. Advocate for those who will actually be utilizing your designs once launched. 🎤 What advice do you have for designers? Over communicate your thoughts with your team and always ask questions. When you’re collaborating with team members, it’s incredibly important to understand the project space and their roles. If you’re ever confused, don’t be afraid to ask for support. Everyone is there to help move the project along. It is best to know, rather than assume. This helps you become more comfortable with ambiguity when you’re first starting out. #Amazon #design

Britni Thompson is a UX Researcher at Amazon. She researches how to make Amazon’s payment experience more user friendly. Check out her story! 🎤 Tell us about your background, and how it led you to design. I have a non-traditional background, as I like to say I have done a little of everything! However, I’ve spent most of my career in customer service roles. I chose to be in the design space because I have always been a creative person, my first medium was expressing myself through styling clothes. That transitioned into modeling, acting, photography, and video production. I was at a crossroads in my life and wanted a change from the role I was in. I found UX design it seemed like the perfect fit for my creative and analytical sides. I chose to pivot into the industry by enrolling into a UX design bootcamp in 2020. Through the bootcamp I started leaning towards research and my customer service background helped me ask the right questions to uncover insights. It was really a case of curiosity, timing and opportunity. 🎤 Share more about the recent talk you gave on “Democratizing Customer Obsession.” As a solo UX researcher within a large organization, I support over 17 designers, countless product managers, and 20+ products. Given the scale and demands of my role, I realized that empowering designers to conduct research was not just a luxury but a necessity. The central problem I addressed was the overwhelming number of studies that one researcher could realistically manage. By delegating unmoderated studies and enabling designers to conduct their own research, we’ve been able to significantly increase our output and get designs in front of real customers more frequently, without compromising on quality. By doing so, we’ve been able to accelerate the pace of gaining impactful insights, foster greater empathy for our customers, and remain cost-effective—all while operating within the constraints of a single researcher’s capacity. By establishing the right guardrails, your designers can become valuable allies in conducting research. 🎤 What do you love about your team? I get to work with some of the smartest, coolest, passionate people I have ever met! Everyone brings something unique to the table that helps us innovate in the payments space. It’s great to be apart of a design team that really values research and includes me in the iterative process to help us focus on customer obsession. Especially since I am a solo UX researcher on a team with about 17 designers, countless PM’s, supporting roughly 20+ products. Having their support and willingness to jump in when needed really shows why they are at Amazon. 🎤 What do you do after work? I love traveling! There is just something about exploring a place I have never been and interacting with the people there, learning about their culture, and getting away for the US. It has helped me understand what is really important in life and when I need that reminder I take a trip. 

Randy Rajaram is a UX Designer on the AI/ML team, supporting Amazon Q Business at AWS. When asked what he does, he explains that he takes complex problems, and create simple solutions, using software as the means of communication. He shares more below. 🎤 Why did you join Amazon? I pivoted from another career. I don’t have a college degree and I’m largely self taught. I was fresh out of a boot-camp, a new Designer facing an impossible job market during the height of the pandemic. My last role before Design was an Auto-damage Adjuster, but there are a ton of parallels between my current role and my past experiences. From working with stakeholders from both B2B and B2C projects, to time management, prioritization, communication, story telling using different mediums, problem solving, empathy, critical & analytic thinking, active listening, and soft skills. I stay because I believe in the LP’s (leadership principles), I believe that we strive to do what’s right for our customers. I believe that the products we create and build empowers and enables customers to do what THEY want. I believe Amazon creates spaces for you to be who you are. I also believe Amazon is trying to figure it out, just like all of us are in our regular day-to-day lives. And it’s we Amazonians, who are shaping the way. 🎤 What is the biggest design challenge you face in your space? I feel like I’m playing an endless game of Design knowledge catch up, on top of learning how to work as a professional Designer, on top of learning AI/ML. My biggest design challenge is figuring out what to learn next, how and when without burning out. Now, it’s also how might I innovate in the generative AI domain. 🎤 How does Amazon Design surprise you? We have a lot, and I mean a lot, of Designers that have created or worked on products that have shaped and impacted the world as we know it, spanning decades of inventions and innovations. I think it’s super cool, an honor, and imposter syndrome inducing to know that I get to learn from and work alongside these individuals. 🎤 What have you learned here? “a lot” - 21 Savage. An important lesson was that my curiosity IS a superpower. Being comfortable with not knowing a topic in a room full of experts, to ask hard questions no matter how stupid I believe it sounds, and to find ways to become knowledgeable about it so I can help build the right thing. So far, I’ve tackled and solved for a lot of problems, and I know there are many more problem areas here at Amazon to fill over a life-time of curiosity. 🎤 How do you express yourself at Amazon? I’m mostly professional since I feel like this set’s the tone for the environment I want to work in. The “mostly” part is situational, where I’ll inject the different parts of me. Whether it’s slang, a reference, a saying... just flashes of personality. To be honest, I wouldn’t want my doctor, pilot, or police officer to be unprofessional when doing their job, why should I be when doing mine?

Vanessa Perez-Robles started at Amazon as an intern and then came back after she graduated as a full time UX designer. Check out her journey! 🎤 Tell us about your background and how it led you to design. I entered college focused on Engineering and Computer Science, but a freshman UI/UX Design course had me hooked. I combined my computer science studies with courses in art, psychology, and engineering, deepening my passion for design. I ultimately declined my Software Developer Engineer internship at Amazon to pursue a UX Designer role—and haven't looked back since! 🎤 What is the biggest design challenge you face in your space? As the only designer on my team, I wear many hats in designing tools for our customers. Balancing the full end-to-end design process, from research and user flows to UI mock-ups and developer hand-offs, can be a challenging. However, this challenge has strengthened my skills and confidence as a designer allowing me to lean into the greater Amazon community for support, and I’m better because of it. 🎤 What did you want to be when you were 10? Are there parallels to what you do now? As a kid, I aspired to be a neurosurgeon due to my fascination with the human mind. I’m not operating on brains,, but I still use psychological principles to understand customers and improve their interactions with products, shaping their broader experiences with the world. 🎤 Why did you come back to Amazon after graduating? After college, I sought a company where I could continue to grow. Amazon's vast range of innovative goals offered endless opportunities for skill development and connecting with like-minded individuals. With Amazonians eager to share their experiences, the community has greatly enriched my time here. There is just too much left to learn and discover at Amazon! 🎤 What’s your design superpower? My design superpower is being able to deeply connect with others. Part of what I believe makes design so special is the ability to understand someone so well that you can make something amazing for them. This drives me to really connect and advocate for customers to make exceptional products for them. 🎤 What do you do after work? I love going on walks around Seattle. Seems a little basic, but Seattle is such a cool and eclectic city that every walk is a new adventure with endless local gems waiting to be found. It’s a mindfulness moment of appreciation for the city I live in. 🎤 What’s something you want to do that you’ve never done? As a beach girl from Miami, I never hiked before moving to Seattle and went on my first one last October on Mount Baker. Being from Florida, I was naturally intimidated by a hike, but the views were so gorgeous I didn’t even realize I hiked 6.5 miles until it was over! 🎤 What advice do you have for designers? Constantly seek out and change your perspective! Be open to outside feedback and if you’re stuck, reframe until things look a little different.

Amazon Design is hiring! Check out these spotlight roles on our career page: 🔎Sr. Product Designer, Packaging, Ring - responsible for the user experience and design of Ring’s out-of-box-experience (OOBE); guiding global packaging design strategy to meet customer needs throughout their shopping journey. Apply here: https://bit.ly/4cMp31X 🔎UX Designer, Fire TV - drive the vision, definition and design for core experiences on Fire TV, an innovative entertainment experience used by tens of millions of customers.  Apply here: https://bit.ly/4g4hoPf 🔎Sr. UX Researcher, AWS Supply Chain - obtain impactful, actionable, and scalable research insights. You will work closely with product stakeholders, end users, and design team to ensure that new products, features, and enhancements are rooted in customer needs, while delivering the level of UX excellence that is expected. Apply here: https://bit.ly/3AIPrMO 🔎 Manager, Design - Retail Store Design, Worldwide Retail Growth & Development - responsible for the implementation and site adaptation of brand design standards, ensuring that their team is meeting regional code requirements as well as brand standards and guidelines. Apply here: https://bit.ly/4g6GkpB 🔎 UX Designer, Visual Innovation Services - Want to help build cutting edge immersive shopping experiences? The Visual Innovation Team is at the center of all advanced visual and immersive content at Amazon. We're pioneering VR and AR shopping, CGI, and GenAI. We are looking for a UX Designer who will help drive innovation in this space who understands UX problems the team may face. Apply here: https://bit.ly/3MnaQha --- Join us in creating experiences that delight and empower our customers. Discover all our open roles here, and feel free to share this with your network if you know someone who might be interested! https://bit.ly/3yiXNK3 #design #hiring #Amazon

Brian Barclay, Head of Design and Research, leads innovative projects focused on challenging delivery and local commerce solutions. With a family background in design, his journey reflects a deep-rooted passion for solving complex user problems with empathy and creativity. Brian’s approach, inspired by his extreme life experiences like competing in an Ironman triathlon, emphasizes starting with the end in mind and valuing the journey of continuous learning and community building. Check out more of his journey here - https://lnkd.in/gTXQhirh https://lnkd.in/gvwZSVYM #design #hiring #Amazon

Pavel Samsonov is a Sr. Design Architect at Amazon Web Services. Check out our conversation with him below! 🎤 Tell us about your background, and how it led you to design. In high school, I was the only kid taking both programming and arts classes. Design was my way of uniting the two topics. I started out in a classic graphic design program but then rounded out my education with a Human-Computer Interaction degree and a stint in the startup world where I did everything from product management to FE dev. That journey informed a lot of my thinking about what design is for, beyond the visual layer. 🎤 What’s your design superpower? I create clarity. Whenever I design, it’s content-first - and that content serves as a scaffolding for visuals, layouts, and flows. If we don’t have a sense of the content or necessary interactions, then I’m going to call attention to it. Otherwise (if you use Lorem Ipsum or make something up) it can be easy to miss that we haven’t addressed it until it’s too late. 🎤 Tell us something that isn’t on your LinkedIn profile! I’m a contributor & moderator on History Stack Exchange. The skill of hunting down sources and making an argument overlaps a lot with design research. Also it’s fun - I love reading about obscure things that happened a long time ago and how they shaped the world we live in today. 🎤 What do you love about your team? Most companies involve design teams too late, limiting their ability to research or innovate, as solutions are already promised to stakeholders. In contrast, my team engages at the "green field" stage, guiding customers to identify key opportunities. Design is involved from the start, owning the problem rather than just supporting. 🎤 What do you do after work? I spend a lot of time in the kitchen - cooking, baking, making cocktails and brewing tea. I like making something with my hands, and then whether or not it turned out well, it’ll be gone in a few hours, so I don’t have to live with any mistakes. I also travel a lot, so I’m always updating my repertoire with new sources of inspiration. 🎤 Have you ever given a talk or presentation? About what? I began using Twitter to reflect on lessons learned and improve my work. Over time, I expanded to writing articles and giving talks for design communities like Beyond UX and Productboard. While my primary motivation is personal growth, I also seized the chance to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine with one of my talks. 🎤 What advice do you have for designers? Design is a team sport. While the customer is our focus, many of our artifacts serve stakeholders and partners in Product and Engineering. Designing these interfaces is as crucial as crafting the product itself. A common obstacle to design progress is designers assuming sole responsibility for user advocacy. We should involve partners in the design process to create products people love, rather than creating barriers.

In the latest episode of Black Stories, we meet the inspiring Imani Ellis, founder of CultureCon and The Creative Collective NYC. In this episode, Imani discusses the importance of vulnerability and confidence in the black community and creative spaces. She shares her journey of finding her voice and realizing the value of her ideas in corporate meetings. Imani also delves into the origins of The Creative Collective and its mission to provide community, visibility, and resources for black and brown creatives. You can listen to the episode by searching Amazon Black Stories on all major streaming services or tune in directly here on the Amazon Design website: https://lnkd.in/e4whaHS8 #Amazon #AmazonDesign 

Jing Hu is a Senior UX Designer for our Video Shopping Experience. We chatted with her about her work in the space. Check it out! 🎤 What do you do at Amazon? I help people shop smartly with videos! Imagine you're shopping for a cat house on Amazon. With immersive video content, you can explore options from the comfort of your chair. Watch product videos introducing various styles and features. Then, see customer review videos of cats enjoying (or not!) their homes in real living rooms. You can even join an Amazon Live stream, ask questions, and potentially see the host's cat try out the product - if their fabulous feline is feeling cooperative, of course. These are some typical experiences that my team, Video Shopping Experience, contributes to designing. We help billions of global customers shop delightfully, across dozens of languages. Equally important, we also design how sellers, customers, and influencers contribute these videos with ease. 🎤 What’s something you’ve worked on that excites you? Due to the scale and diversity of our customers, accessibility has become a critical focus. I love designing for as many senses as possible. For example, designing how to control video with keyboard alone, consuming the meaning of videos without sound, or perhaps, without visuals. To design from a different angle is to live with a fresh perspective. When we open our minds to think inclusively, we get to appreciate that accessible designs are truly the best designs for all. 🎤 What advice do you have for designers? Esports players generally have careers spanning 5 years, but a living legend, “Faker”@T1, has remarkably competed at the highest level for 11 years. His career inspired mine in many ways. This longevity is a sweet fruit of the simple happiness that he keeps feeling in his work. A designer's journey is one of relentless challenges - be it navigating constant change, managing tensions, or simply finding the motivation to start each day. However, I've been fortunate that creating delightful experiences for others is a source of delight for myself. Therefore, it allows me to remain composed and tackle obstacles head-on. Most of us will spend a significant portion of our lives working, so I hope we can all find happiness in the work itself, in our own unique ways. Ultimately, happiness may be the most sustainable fuel for a long, and sweet career. 🎤 What do you love about your team? I’m always aware that I got lucky. My lovely team helps me reach potentials that I didn’t know were there, in terms of vision, collaboration, and leadership. I am grateful for their guidance and our loving “therapy” when things get difficult. I believe that when we open our hearts to the people we work with, creativity flows and our designs come to life. #Amazon #design