Robert Haverly
Founding/Principal product designer
Summary
I design interfaces, build software, and lead design teams for startups and enterprise technology companies. In my 20+ years as a professional, I’ve been the first or only designer on a product over 10 times. That usually means building the design function as well: the system, the research, the process, and the team that keeps it going. Three of those companies were acquired (Commonstock by Yahoo, Mustbin by LifeSite, oneID by Neustar). Most of my work has been in fintech, healthtech, security and identity, and for the last few years I’ve been neck-deep in agentic workflows and AI experiences.
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
Sole Designer, contract
2026
Forum Education · Forum Logbook, the tutor’s app for New York’s most selective tutoring firm; 45 tutors, under 2% of applicants accepted
- Defined the product with the CEO before drawing it, then designed it end to end for iPhone and Mac: session logging, mock-test scanning and grading, Lens reports, and the student record a tutor reads before walking in.
- Designed every screen in light and dark with its empty, offline and error states, as a set against the list of ways the back end can fail, so the edges were decided before the happy path was polished.
- Built the design system from nothing inside the contract’s window: semantic color by role, the Liquid Glass recipes for iOS 27 and macOS 27, a type ramp per platform, and spacing, radius and layout tokens named as engineering reads them.
Principal Designer, contract
Apr 2025 – Apr 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
Dec 2024 – Apr 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 for autonomous adversary operations: the attack chain builder, attack simulation, and real-time monitoring for security engineers, 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 – Jan 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 Manager, 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
Feb 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
Jan 2018 – Feb 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
Jun 2016 – Jan 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, Sep 2015 – May 2016. Secure personal-storage app; $6M raised; acquired by LifeSite, 2017.
- Octopus Creative, Associate Creative Director, Feb 2014 – Aug 2015. Client strategy and delivery for Google, YouTube, PayPal, eBay, Airbnb and Dropbox; embedded design lead for Google’s experimental product work, overseeing four senior designers and seven engineers.
- oneID, Founding Designer, Sep 2013 – Jul 2014. Identity platform backed by Khosla Ventures; later acquired by Neustar.
- PayPal, Mobile Design Lead, PayPal Here, Oct 2012 – Jan 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.
- Earlier: UX Design Lead, EF Education First (2011 – 2012) · Interactive Designer, Dealer.com (2010 – 2011) · Senior Interactive Designer and Front-End Developer, Propeller Media Works (2007 – 2010) · Great Auk Wireless (2004 – 2007) · Schneider Digital (2003 – 2004).
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 and converter, an AI music recommendation engine built on editorial signal, 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, leading while still designing, 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
2026
Forum Education · Sole Designer, contract
Forum Logbook on iPhone and Mac, with the design system under it: session logging, mock-test scanning and the student record, every screen in light and dark.
Apr 2025 – Apr 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.
Dec 2024 – Apr 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 – Jan 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 Manager, consultant
Design system and six design hires in four months for a fintech at a $500M valuation.
Feb 2020 – Sep 2021
Topology Eyewear · Sole Designer
The consumer face-scan app and the optician’s iPad tool for custom-fit eyewear. $18M raised.
Jan 2018 – Feb 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.
Jun 2016 – Jan 2018
Looplist · Director of Product Design
Social shopping app from concept to public launch; built and led a team of three.
Sep 2015 – May 2016
Mustbin · Founding Designer
Secure personal-storage app, $6M raised. Acquired by LifeSite in 2017.
Feb 2014 – Aug 2015
Octopus Creative · Associate Creative Director
Client strategy and delivery for Google, YouTube, PayPal, eBay, Airbnb and Dropbox; embedded design lead for Google’s experimental product work, overseeing four senior designers and seven engineers.
Sep 2013 – Jul 2014
oneID · Founding Designer
Identity platform backed by Khosla Ventures. Later acquired by Neustar, which TransUnion bought for $3.1B.
Oct 2012 – Jan 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.
2003 – 2012
Earlier
EF Education First (2011 – 2012) · Dealer.com (2010 – 2011) · Propeller Media Works (2007 – 2010) · Great Auk Wireless (2004 – 2007) · Schneider Digital (2003 – 2004).