Carlos Montoya
Principal Product Designer and Design Engineer
Principal product designer and design engineer. I turn ambiguous product questions into working software, then build the evaluation systems that make judgment observable, debuggable, and testable. My current independent practice combines product design, native and web prototyping, design systems, and AI-native workflows. Sole inventor on a patent filing in AI context engineering.
RESUME FILES
EXPERIENCE
Principal, Independent Design Practice
- Built a taste-evaluation pipeline that accounted for 165 Figma files; 124 yielded 21,678 candidate nodes, 592 first-run review tiles, and a separate 116-tile labeled gate.
- Benched the calibrated judge against frontier models and kept the disagreement log as the calibration asset. The rubric is versioned like code because it is treated like code.
- Rebuilt and shipped production marketing sites for select clients on Next.js and Vercel, migrating them off Webflow for speed and editability.
Principal Designer
- Built a native SwiftUI prototype in roughly two days because static prototypes could not prove the state and motion model. Leadership reviewed it hands-on, iOS engineers asked for the repository, and the app circulated internally. The public evidence uses deterministic demo data by design.
- Built four coded onboarding directions that made an AI-led first-run thesis testable and converged on a clear trust model: the system proposes; the human approves.
- Set the bar for what prototyping looks like at Dropbox, moving high-stakes design review from slides to working software.
- Mentored and coached 25+ designers from AI trained to AI native through open working sessions, critique loops, and agent-assisted design practice.
- Sole inventor on a patent filing in AI context engineering.
- Developed principles for AI and workflow systems, covering how users move from search and reading into action, organization, transformation, routing, and automation.
- Regular interviewer on the design hiring loop, running Making and Thinking deep dives and portfolio reviews.
Founding Design Lead (fractional), then Advisor
- Helped define and ship an AI-native product workspace for teams building with agents, from brand identity through MVP product design, design system, and marketing surface.
- Set up agentic design operations and principles for a team working alongside AI from day one.
- Company shipped to early access; I remain an advisor.
Design Director, Principal Designer
- Designed the first end-to-end iOS and Android contact-tracing solution for the State of Utah, from concept to launched app in 28 days during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Supported a product with a 4.9 App Store rating and 220k+ reviews across iOS and Android, on a platform now serving 5M+ people. Second state in the nation with a COVID app, first to launch on iOS and Android on day one, and the first state app using Bluetooth proximity tracing.
- Led a team of four senior designers, hired as the team grew, and merged two design organizations after an acquisition.
Staff Designer, Creative Director
- Took consumer social products from conception to production and matured design capability across the product team.
Senior Web Designer
- Led creation of web design platform systems for marketing at scale.
Product Designer
- Led product design across iOS, Android, Windows Phone, desktop, and web for Pinger, TextFree, Sideline, and more.
RECOGNITION
- Twenty featured in the Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and CNBC.
- Healthy Together recognized by GovernmentCIO as a leading contact-tracing solution.
- Sole inventor, patent filing in AI context engineering.