I Spent 20+ Years in UX. Got Laid Off and Built the Tool I Always Wanted
I’ve been working in tech for over 20 years. I got my start as a web developer and transitioned into UX design in the 2000s, back when most people hadn’t even heard of UX or knew what it meant. Honestly, many still don’t. That’s a post for another day.
Over the years, I’ve worked at startups, consultancies, agencies, and large companies. I’ve built and led teams, and I’ve been the only designer in the room. I’ve designed complex products used by millions of people, spoken at conferences, taught a graduate course on design and business innovation, and wrote a book about designing product visions.
About a year ago, I was laid off from a director role, leading a design team I’d built at a publicly traded company. After the initial shock wore off, I was still doing my best to manage the grief, but I did what most people do: I hit the job market.
I’ve been on the market before, but this time was so different. The massive wave of layoffs across 2023–24, a shrinking remote job pool, and the subtle ageism that creeps in when you have decades of experience on your resume all made for a tough environment. Tens of thousands of candidates were applying for very few roles.
I did my best to update my portfolio which isn’t easy when you’ve been leading teams and not designing hands-on for years. And let’s not forget: when you’re laid off, you’re immediately cut off from any files that might’ve made it into your portfolio. I even trained and deployed a chatbot on my personal site to answer questions about my experience and leadership style. I thought it was clever, anyway.
After months of rejection (or more often, silence), I pivoted. I thought maybe I could help other designers find jobs. Maybe I could help companies, especially those that don’t fully understand the many different UX roles, find their next great design hire. I built a business plan and a website, put together materials, and reached out to several companies, including people I knew from my network.
The universal response? “This is great. It makes perfect sense. I’d love to work with you!”
Followed by: “But… we’re not allowed to work with external recruiters right now.”
Meanwhile, AI was evolving rapidly: language models, image generators, coding copilots, agents, and more. These tools are already making employees dramatically more efficient, and they’re only getting better. While they still require a human in the loop, they’ve fundamentally changed how we work.
If one person can do 10–20× more with the help of AI, a company could theoretically reduce the size of a team by 90–95% and maintain the same output.
That kind of shift is like a tsunami that will unevenly impact different jobs, but ultimately touch everything. More and more companies are proudly announcing how they’re replacing headcount with artificial intelligence.
The realization that the job market was increasingly unpredictable & unstable while AI was quickly getting much better at writing code pushed me to stop waiting and try something new.
Solving a problem I’ve seen teams struggle with for years
I’ve spent several years working as a member of and consultant to software product teams, and I’ve consistently seen a recurring issue: the huge gap between user research and the rest of the team’s understanding of and access to it. A few people (researchers, PMs, sales, support) get to talk to users and build real empathy and insight. Most others are left with secondhand summaries, lost PPT decks, or outdated Notion pages. This creates real challenges:
- Research insights are siloed
- Research materials get buried and forgotten
- Product decisions are based on guesswork
To validate my experiences, I ran my own research. I surveyed designers, PMs, and engineers. 94% said they wanted easier access to user insights for the whole product team, and 88% believed they’d make better product decisions if that access existed.
I’d been toying with an idea on how to address this for years, but it wasn’t until I began experimenting and witnessing the real capabilities of AI as a development partner — especially Claude Code— that I could actually build the tool. I leaned on everything my years of product & design experience taught me: how to define a vision, break it into stories, write clear success criteria, iterate, and give feedback that moves the product forward. I had some missteps and anxious moments along the way, but it turns out that the same skills that make someone a strong product designer also make them a great collaborator with AI. AI is capable of writing the code, but it needs clear direction. That’s where product-minded design skills really shine.
My partnership with Claude Code led to the launch of my latest project: Rooost.
Your team has user data — but it’s buried in folders, forgotten in Notion, or locked in someone’s brain. Rooost turns that scattered research into chat-ready personas anyone can talk to. Now insights are accessible, cited, and usable — whether you’re planning a feature, writing copy, or onboarding a new teammate.
Stop guessing. Start asking Rooost.
If you’ve read this far, thank you! There’s more to come. More to learn. More to figure out. This isn’t the end of the road.
Progress over perfection.
If you’re also building (or curious about building) something in this emerging era of work, especially related to AI, product, design, or research ops, I’d love to hear about what you’re working on. And if you’re part of a product team that wants easier access to your user data & insights, give Rooost a try.
