Headline

Product Design Lead | UX Strategy & Product Design | AI & Emerging Technologies | AR/VR | HCI – IIT Bombay

About

I’m a Product Design Leader with 8+ years of experience building digital products, scaling design teams and creating human-centred experiences across AI, fintech, SaaS, enterprise technology and emerging interfaces. My experience spans product strategy, UX architecture, design systems and end-to-end product development, with a strong focus on connecting user needs with business outcomes. A few highlights from my journey: • Built and scaled a 9-member design organisation across four product lines. • Led product design for B by Lenskart Smart Glasses, an AI-powered wearable ecosystem. • Contributed to growing PayNearby’s Saathi daily transactions from approximately 5,000 to 20,000. • Designed enterprise banking experiences for Infosys Finacle. • Built scalable design systems and introduced AI-powered design workflows using Claude. I enjoy solving complex product problems, mentoring designers, building design practices and partnering with product and engineering teams to turn ambitious ideas into meaningful experiences. Core expertise: Product Design | UX Strategy | Design Leadership | AI Product Design | B2B SaaS | Fintech | Design Systems | AR/VR | HCI HCI – IIT Bombay | M.Des – Graphic Design

Location

Mumbai

AI stack

claude code

claude

gemini

Work experience

Lead Designer at AjnaLens, Apr 2025 - Present · 1 yr 8 mos, Thane, Maharashtra, India, • Led end-to-end product design for B by Lenskart Smart Glasses, an AI-powered wearable developed by AjnaLens in partnership with Lenskart; owned the companion mobile app experience, interaction model and production-ready UI across platforms. • Built and scaled the design organisation to a 9-member team, leading hiring, mentorship and performance management across four product lines. • Designed the AI conversation experience from the ground up, defining interaction patterns, conversational responses, error handling and the underlying experience architecture. • Designed the AI conversation experience from the ground up, defining interaction patterns, conversational responses, error handling and the underlying experience architecture. • Established the company's first design process and governance framework, including documented standards, DesignOps practices and a design maturity model with regular audits, reducing handoff friction and rework. • Introduced the design team's first KRA/KPI framework aligned with company OKRs, connecting design performance to product outcomes and career development. • Owned the design roadmap and optimised team capacity through AI-assisted workflows and lean resource planning, delivering output equivalent to two additional junior design resources while managing AI token consumption and operational costs.

Design Manager at PayNearby, Mar 2023 - Mar 2025 · 2 yrs 1 mo, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, • Led the User Experience & Design team, providing strategic direction to product designers and UI developers while aligning user needs, cognitive computing capabilities and business objectives. • Spearheaded UX strategy and design architecture for flagship products across Lending & Credit, NeoDukan and Saathi, driving end-to-end product experiences from concept to launch. • Drove product-led growth for Saathi, introducing UPI payments and contributing to a 4x increase in daily transactions, from approximately 5,000 to 20,000. • Optimised customer journeys, increasing daily train and flight bookings by 12% and reducing the gold-loan and mutual-fund investment journey from 18 steps to 12. • Introduced Lean UX and Agile practices, strengthening design, product and engineering collaboration and accelerating production-ready deliveries. • Facilitated design thinking workshops with product teams and stakeholders to identify opportunities, solve user problems and drive product innovation.

Visiting Professor at Edit Institute, Feb 2020 - Dec 2020 · 11 mos, Mulund

Lead Experience Designer at Propellum Infotech, Oct 2019 - Mar 2023 · 3 yrs 6 mos, Mumbai Area, India, • Design Leadership: Managed a team of designers and led UX strategy, research and design execution across three products: Teno, ULearn and Practix. • Measurable Product Growth: Contributed to Teno's growth from 5,000 to 7,000 schools over two years by designing data-informed features for administrators, teachers, parents and students. • End-to-End Product Design: Led the UX design of ULearn, an online examination platform for universities, covering user research, exam workflows, proctoring experiences, wireframes and production UI. • Design System & Consistency: Created and implemented a unified design system across products, improving UI consistency, design efficiency and team collaboration. • Research-Driven UX: Owned the complete design lifecycle across web and mobile, including user interviews, information architecture, interaction design, prototyping and usability testing, collaborating closely with product and engineering teams.

Lead Experience Designer at Infosys Digital, Jul 2018 - Oct 2019 · 1 yr 4 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, • Enterprise Banking UX: Contributed to the design of Infosys Finacle, Infosys' SaaS banking platform, simplifying complex enterprise banking workflows through user research and structured UX design. • Design Systems: Developed comprehensive design systems and reusable UI components, improving design efficiency, consistency and scalability across digital products. • AR Learning Experiences: Created storyboards, visual narratives and character designs for Sanofi's augmented reality training experience, making complex learning content more immersive and engaging. • UX Research & Discovery: Conducted user interviews, product research and customer journey mapping, translating user pain points into actionable insights for product strategy and iterative design. • Design Practice Leadership: Helped establish and lead the Infosys Design Studio, contributing to the foundation of the organisation's design practice and collaborative design culture.

Education

Master's degree, Graphic Design, MIT Institute of Design

Master of Design, Graphic Design, MIT Institute of Design

Public links

animish93kolge.github.io: https://animish93kolge.github.io/Portfolio/