Envision boldly. Understand deeply. Strategize wisely. Iterate relentlessly.
2024 - 2025 · Lead Product designer
Built Raven — an AI job-search agent launched to 1,600+ beta users and 70+ paid subscribers. Led strategy, UX, and pricing experiments that reduced job search time from 10–40 hrs to minutes.
2023 - 2024 · Lead Product designer
Led product design for Wellfound's all-in-one AI-powered recruiter tool reducing candidate search friction and increasing match quality. This has become Wellfound's premier paid product.
2018 - 2021 · Lead UX designer
I led UX, conversion-rate optimization and mobile conversion for T&N’s cart and checkout and Serta Simmons brands. I also drove top-of-funnel promotional campaigns that achieved the 2nd and 3rd highest grossing revenue days in company history.
2018 · Lead Product designer
As a consulting Lead Product Designer, I overhauled Transplace's Transportation Management System (TMS). I embedded a full UX process across HQ and remote teams modernizing their core logistics platform with scalable, user-centered design.
2017 · Senior UX designer
I directed the entire digital overhaul and successful reveal of Trijicon’s newly acquired electro-optics line for the Shot Show convention (the country’s largest firearms and outdoor industries event). This included equipping Trijicon’s ambassadors with the tools they needed to captivate customers and secure arms-dealer partnerships before the convention.
2018 · Lead Product designer
Worked with the founding team at Snooz as part of a brand and partner collaboration between them and Tuft&Needle. I redesigned the UX in the Snooz white noise machine app, created new product enhancing features along with an iteration of that app for the Tuft&Needle brand.
2016 · Lead designer & Art Director
Redesigned the Oliver brand to reflect the company's 100 year devotion and quality within the market. Also created brand enhancing tools such as the retread selector and dealer locator to better serve the thousands of truckers and dealer customers nationwide.
2018 · Co-founder & Product designer
Functioned as Co-founder and product designer for an MVP skunkworks startup product: an Automotive Predictive Marketing Platform that enables dealerships to predict their next automotive buyer.
Curious about some other projects and clients i've had the privilege to work with? Click here
"I had the pleasure of working with Cristian Valdes for several years. As a lead product designer on my team, his UX strategy, visual design chops, business acumen, and entrepreneurial spirit made him an incredible asset! Cristian works at lightning speed with great attention to detail. I consistently depended on him to handle complex projects across multidisciplinary teams. His passion for product strategy and user advocacy is apparent in the high quality of his work. I can't recommend Cristian enough. I'm excited to see what he'll do next with his incredible passion and skill!"
"I’ve had the privilege to work with Cristian on a variety of different projects. Aside from being an outstanding visual designer, Cristian brings a deeper way of design thinking to every project that he engages in. His thinking goes beyond just what is best for the user and solves the business goals all while building solutions that are technically achievable. His enthusiasm and motivation to work together to produce the best solution would be an asset to any team looking for someone to lead and encourage others to do their best work."
"I had the privilege of working with Cristian Valdes on both the Growth team at Wellfound (formerly AngelList) and an innovation team where we built a candidate-focused project from the ground up. Cristian is easily one of the best teammates I’ve ever worked with.
His customer focus is exceptional. He doesn’t just design beautiful experiences—he builds thoughtful, effective solutions by deeply understanding user problems. His empathy consistently shaped our direction in a meaningful way.
Cristian’s work ethic is equally impressive. He shows up with drive, consistency, and a high bar for quality that elevates everyone around him. His energy and commitment helped push the project forward, especially during tough moments.
What sets Cristian apart most is his versatility. He’s a stellar designer who steps into leadership when it counts. When our team hit a point of ambiguity, Cristian led a full-scale customer research project that gave us clear, differentiated insight and reshaped our product strategy.
Cristian is a rare blend of creative talent, strategic thinking, and leadership. I’d work with him again in a heartbeat."
"I worked with Cristian as a Product Manager at Transplace. As part of a major product improvement project we ventured into hiring a UX expert.
Cristian open our eyes to the science and processes behind UX design. There is a world more to UX design, than simply creating screen mock ups. He spent time educating the team as well as the rest of the stake holders. Cristian brought a holistic UX design approach as well as countless ideas to improve the user experience and bring uniformity to our application modules.
Cristian is very methodical and detail oriented, he has excellent communication skills and is able to understand and map out complicated business processes into proper flows of screens that illustrate the "to be" user experience. Cristian is able to find the balance between a limited budget with a tight timeline and still deliver excellent quality work. I highly recommend Cristian to any enterprise looking to improve their software application's user experience."
"I had the privilege of hiring Cristian directly out of college into my team and watched him pick up web design quickly. He went from having little training in web design to consistently producing the best interactive visual design on the team while continuing to learn the deeper nuance of UX design. I wish Cristian nothing but continued success and growth."
"I had the great opportunity to work with Cristian on several projects, and he was professional every step of the way. He listened to every detail and captured the vision from the very beginning. He asked the right questions and was highly accommodating to our budget and project needs. I would recommend Cristian for any project."