In my current role as a Lead UX Designer at Expedia Group, I help people enjoy their time with friends and family when they travel around the world. My team helps explore, build and deliver a satisfying car rental experience that meets their travel needs so they can go places!
Before, I worked with various startups to build and scale their products for the Indian consumers. A market ripe for explosive growth in e-commerce with over 500 million internet users (reported by McKinsey).
In 2019, after living in India for close to three decades, I migrated to Canada and picked the west coast to continue my adventures.
My first project was plagiarizing a website for dad in Microsoft Frontpage. Motivated, he enrolled me in a web designing course at a local training center when I was 15 years old. I caught on — I spent my spare time creating keyframes in Macromedia Flash and Photoshop. Life was slow with dial-up modems.
I dabbled in things that brought me joy. Design posters, fix tech issues for family and friends and head the computer club at school. As a clueless teenager hoping to make their Indian parents proud, I decided to write software to become an engineer.
<aside> 👉🏻 Starting out, did a bit of freelance web design. I learned to monetize my skills. This helped me pay bills and tuition fee for a masters degree in Computer Science. It was great! I had found a career which I was excited about.
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How designing websites online helped me find an interesting career
<aside> 🎓 In 2013, I joined a fast-paced startup that accelerated my learning curve. With the help of a few mentors, I gradually carved out a space for myself in product design that was both professionally challenging and rewarding.
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<aside> 👨🏻💻 I also benefited from my experience in writing code. This helped bridge the gap with engineering and design teams. In the years that followed, I was able to connect the dots from the early explorations in Photoshop. Now, replaced with modern tools — Figma and Sketch.
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<aside> 🔥 The web design course was a great idea. Thanks Dad.
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🌍 Working at the world's largest travel platform
I joined Expedia Group in 2015 to build and grow design expertise for the Gurgaon office in India. As the first designer in a remote team, I helped grow the strength of the design team to more than 20 full-time designers in under 2 years.
I have been fortunate to work with amazing teams and wonderful people across Asia, North America and Western Europe. Working with distributed teams helped me learn and improve collaboration across timezones and geographies.
The new found appreciation and respect for different cultures and work ethics has enabled me to create more connected and cohesive experiences that are tailored for a global audience. Later, these skills helped shape up my remote-work routines, when COVID disrupted life, work and travel, the world over.
Last minute checks in the research lab
ON AIR with UX Research in progress
Map observations with user needs and pain points
Synthesis and prioritize key observations for next-steps
Successful research day!