Past Collaborators

I’ve worked at Zello now for over eleven years, and had the privilege of working with a number of talented designers in and before that time. Thinking about where I’ll be next, I hope to be so privileged as to work with similarly talented folks. While I’ve worked now with many others, these folks truly stood out and I am aware of their impact in my daily work.

Every day it feels increasingly rare to find shared values amongst my peers in tech, and while by no means does everyone listed here see their-eyes-to-mine, I appreciate all of their influences and perspectives.^[1]

Alexander Maclean managed the team I interned on at Apple back in 2013, and helped me to evolve my working knowledge of visual and production design from that of an independent freelancer to that of an IC in a massive organization with a high bar.

Gary Gehiere was a visual designer on Xander’s team, and remains a mentor to this day. He is a shining example both of professional creativity and personal conscientiousness, and provides both an example of a conscientious worker and proud father that I hope to someday reflect in myself.

Matt Petri hired me on at Dell a few years later once I had started my Bachelor’s back in Austin. After we both moved on to brighter pastures, he continued roping me in for consulting work via his agency, Kinetic Theory. Matt’s ongoingly done me the kindness of keeping me in his professional rotation, and it’s done a lot to keep me flexible while taking over a decade with the same primary employer.

Alex Gavrilov, while not a designer by trade, is Zello’s first designer whose influence is foundationally felt through our products today. I’ve had more engaging discussions around UX and Product Design with Alex than I have with many others, and I hope that in our time working together I’ve internalized his product sense and strong decision-making.

Amy Roberts was Zello’s second design hire a couple of years following my start, and was responsible for bringing out Android app to Material 2. Amy’s regimented user-testing frameworks broadened my skillset, and her ideation around Zello’s Talk and History screens — particularly with regards to a user’s mental model for whether different messaging inputs contributed to a shared context or separate streams — remain relevant eight years later as we further expand the product.

Matt McDaniel was our third hire, inheriting the Zello Desktop app from Amy and me following a rapid and dense design sprint. He built an app from the ground up, reconsidering decisions taken for granted by stakeholders years before, and navigated design decisions that few parties wanted to own.

Daniel Inwas our fourth hire and took on responsibilities across our mobile, desktop, and web products. He was significantly more junior than past hires, but grew quickly into an already complicated and muddy ecosystem of competing products and systems.

Riley Sheehan was my hire for design engineer, inheriting hybrid responsibilities for zello.com from me as I moved into a directorial role. Riley’s enthusiasm and kindness preceded him into every room, and his thoughtfulness and meticulousness resounded through his work.

Angela Cerrillo first joined Zello as a Product Advocate while receiving her Associate Degree in User Experience Design. Angela continue on to bring her fresh and practical eyes to the design team, combining her academic knowledge for design heuristics with her lived empathy as a Product Advocate speaking regularly to trial users, new customers, and others seeking product support.

Andrew Domozych succeeded me as Product Design Manager while I moved into a staff IC role before I then relocated to Europe. Andrew exemplifies the concerns of a design team at scale, excelling in process and compliance. He translated organizational ambiguity and stress into actionable project plans and a sense of calm that enabled his ICs to do their best work.

Sam Valdez was hired at Zello before we had a centralized design team, and brought an incredible amount of creativity, thoughtfulness, and all-around good vibes. In an industry so heavily dominated by stoic men chasing the sharpest, cleanest, dark, burly (but also Tesla-iest?) aesthetic, I’ve watched Sam push back and remind others that people like fun and whimsy is good.