Robert Haverly
Founding and principal product designer
Summary
I show up where there’s no design function, build one, ship the product that justified hiring me, and leave the system behind. Seven times the first design hire; three of those companies acquired (Commonstock by Yahoo, Mustbin by LifeSite, oneID by Neustar). Twenty years across fintech, health, security and identity. Since 2024 I also build what I design: HexWatch is on the App Store, written in Swift with Claude Code and Codex from my own Figma files.
Working terms. Based in Vermont. Remote first; on site a week a month for teams in Boston or New York; domestic travel as needed. Open to full-time principal or staff roles and to founding-designer engagements of six to twelve months.
Selected outcomes
- PayPal Here: App Store rating from 2 stars to 4.5 in under a year; 15M+ downloads since. Built and staffed the team’s first user research lab.
- Commonstock: grew design from one person to three and rebuilt the component system the acquirer inherited. $34M raised; acquired by Yahoo, 2023.
- MainStreet: design system and six design hires in four months for a fintech at a $500M valuation.
- Twenty: the instant-meetup feature I designed from research held over 50% weekly retention on college campuses.
- HexWatch: a native iOS, iPadOS and watchOS app monitoring 20 services, shipped solo, with a zero-knowledge on-device security mode and no telemetry.
Experience
Principal Designer, contract
2025 – 2026
Eli Lilly · international pharmaceutical websites under FDA regulation
- Designed product and brand pages that work as marketing and as FDA-compliant medical information, inside Medical, Legal and Regulatory (MLR) review.
- Added the regulatory patterns to Lilly Design System 3.0: a fair balance module where claim and risk share one style, an Important Safety Information drawer fixed to the viewport, an HCP gate, and per-market variables with the approval stamp, so the rule travels with the component.
- Worked in a library of 88 published components, 1,021 variants and 735 bound tokens; documented decisions and their regulatory rationale for legal and medical reviewers.
UX/UI Design Lead, contract
2025
IAAPA · trade association for the attractions industry, 6,000+ member organizations in 100+ countries
- Sole design lead on the corporate site redesign: fixed the navigation and information architecture failures that kept members from finding events, resources and membership content.
- Restructured the legacy content library, led the Drupal migration, managed the agency partner end to end, and built the design templates directly in the CMS.
Product Designer, contract
2024
Sony · SoundConnect, firmware updates for wireless headphones and speakers
- Designed the update flow end to end: notification, preparation, upload and confirmation, with honest progress and no fake feedback, for users at every level of technical comfort.
Principal Designer, first design hire
Apr 2023 – Jul 2024
Photon Medical · HIPAA clinical communication for clinicians and patients, 20-person company
- Owned the product across iOS, Android and mobile web; built the design system from scratch and worked with engineering from wireframes to production.
- Designed both sides of the platform: clinician tools for patient data, secure messaging and imaging, and the patient-facing side of the same conversations.
- Established UX process, a research program and A/B testing where none existed, inside HIPAA requirements for both populations.
Founding Designer
Jan – Jul 2022
Prelude · continuous red team platform; $24M Series A led by Sequoia, April 2022
- First design hire at a company whose founders built CALDERA at MITRE. Designed the Operator desktop platform, centered on the attack chain builder, using progressive disclosure so operators see the chain and drill into procedure configuration on demand.
- Introduced documentation, a design review cadence and decision tracking that survived engineering velocity.
Design Team Lead
May 2021 – 2022
Commonstock · social investing with linked brokerage accounts; $34M from Coatue, QED and Floodgate; acquired by Yahoo, 2023
- Grew design from one inherited designer to a three-person team and set the rituals and standards that made it a function.
- Led the audit and overhaul of a component library spanning hundreds of components, triaged by frequency of use, shipped in parallel with feature work so it never blocked a release.
- Shaped the roadmap with the CEO and Director of Product for acquisition readiness; the system became the foundation the Yahoo Finance team inherited.
Design Consultant
Jan – May 2021
MainStreet · tax credits for startups; $60M Series A led by SignalFire at a $500M valuation
- Built the design system for a product with legal and financial stakes, starting with the form, status, confirmation and error patterns on the core journey.
- Hired six designers in four months and put a lightweight design review in front of engineering decisions.
Sole Designer
2020 – Sep 2021
Topology Eyewear · custom-fit eyewear measured with the iPhone TrueDepth camera; $18M raised
- Designed the consumer app, including the face-scan flow and AR try-on, and the clinical iPad tool for opticians, managing the components shared between them.
- Chose responsiveness over photorealism in try-on so frames updated instantly while browsing.
Mobile Design Lead, contract
2018 – 2020
Twenty · proximity-based social app backed by Accel, Maveron, Sound Ventures and Roc Nation
- Ran research and usability testing that drove a full overhaul of onboarding, geofencing communication and the meetup flow.
- Designed and shipped “Down for Something?”, an instant meetup feature that held over 50% weekly retention on college campuses.
Director of Product Design
2016 – 2018
Looplist · social shopping with AI recommendations, concept through public launch
- Set product strategy with the CEO and COO, designed the native app, built the design function and led three senior contract designers; presented to seed and angel investors.
Earlier
- Mustbin, Founding Designer, 2015 – 2016. Secure personal-storage app; $6M raised; acquired by LifeSite, 2017.
- Octopus Creative, Associate Creative Director, 2014 – 2015. Client strategy and delivery for Google, YouTube and eBay; embedded design lead for Google’s experimental product work, overseeing four senior designers and seven engineers.
- PayPal, Mobile Design Lead, PayPal Here, Oct 2012 – 2014. Owned the transaction flow, catalog, reporting, onboarding, hardware pairing and the card reader on iOS and Android; built and staffed the research lab. 2 to 4.5 stars in under a year; 15M+ downloads.
- oneID, Founding Designer, 2011 – 2012. Identity platform backed by Khosla Ventures; later acquired by Neustar.
- Design roles from the mid-2000s on LinkedIn.
Independent software
- HexWatch, 2025 – present. Native iOS, iPadOS and watchOS monitoring for 20 developer services; AES-256-GCM cloud sync or zero-knowledge on-device Keychain mode; no analytics. On the App Store. Android in development.
- Auric, 2024 – present. macOS high-resolution audio player, converter, and an open-source Rust terminal player (MIT): github.com/flntfnd/auric-tui.
- porkbun-mcp. Open-source MCP server for managing Porkbun DNS from any MCP client, local stdio only (MIT): github.com/flntfnd/porkbun-mcp.
Skills
- Practice Zero-to-one design functions, player-coach leadership, hiring, design systems, research programs, usability testing, regulated product design (FDA/MLR, HIPAA, financial).
- Design Figma, prototyping in code, iOS and Android native patterns, responsive web, design tokens, documentation.
- Build Swift and SwiftUI, Rust, TypeScript, HTML and CSS, Claude Code, Codex, MCP servers, Git, App Store publishing.
- Domains Fintech and payments, healthcare, security, identity, developer tools.
Career timeline
2025 – 2026
Eli Lilly · Principal Designer, contract
Product and brand pages across international markets under FDA and MLR review; patterns in Lilly Design System 3.0 that carry the regulatory rule.
2025
IAAPA · UX/UI Design Lead, contract
Information architecture, Drupal templates and agency management for the attractions industry’s trade association: 6,000+ member organizations.
2024 – present
Independent · Designer and builder
HexWatch on the App Store, Auric and Auric TUI, porkbun-mcp. Designed in Figma, built with Claude Code and Codex.
2024
Sony · Product Designer, contract
The firmware update flow for the wireless audio line, from notification through confirmation.
Apr 2023 – Jul 2024
Photon Medical · Principal Designer, first design hire
HIPAA clinical communication across iOS, Android and mobile web; design system and UX practice from scratch.
Jan – Jul 2022
Prelude · Founding Designer
First design hire at a red team platform born at MITRE. Sequoia led the $24M Series A in April 2022.
May 2021 – 2022
Commonstock · Design Team Lead
Grew design from one to three and rebuilt the component system. Acquired by Yahoo in 2023.
Jan – May 2021
MainStreet · Design Consultant
Design system and six design hires in four months for a fintech at a $500M valuation.
2020 – Sep 2021
Topology Eyewear · Sole Designer
The consumer face-scan app and the optician’s iPad tool for custom-fit eyewear. $18M raised.
2018 – 2020
Twenty · Mobile Design Lead, contract
Overhaul of a proximity-based social app backed by Accel, Maveron, Sound Ventures and Roc Nation. The instant-meetup feature held over 50% weekly retention.
2016 – 2018
Looplist · Director of Product Design
Social shopping app from concept to public launch; built and led a team of three.
2015 – 2016
Mustbin · Founding Designer
Secure personal-storage app, $6M raised. Acquired by LifeSite in 2017.
2014 – 2015
Octopus Creative · Associate Creative Director
Client strategy and delivery for Google, YouTube, eBay and startups; embedded design lead inside Google’s experimental product work.
Oct 2012 – 2014
PayPal · Mobile Design Lead, PayPal Here
Transaction flow, catalog, hardware pairing and the card reader. Built the research lab. 2 to 4.5 stars, 15M+ downloads.
2011 – 2012
oneID · Founding Designer
Identity platform backed by Khosla Ventures. Later acquired by Neustar, which TransUnion bought for $3.1B.