Hi, I'm Mika!

(pronounced mee-cah)

I grew up near the foggy beaches of Northern California, and now spend my days in Brooklyn, NY. When I’m not working, I’m either running, practicing guitar, or drinking copious amounts of coffee.

MY EXPERIENCE

TLDR: Customer Experience taught me empathy, QA taught me to break things thoughtfully, and Product Ops trained me to see systems, edge cases, and friction.

Customer Experience

My career began in a high-stakes customer support role at an insurance company, where I spoke daily with stressed users confused about their policies. Hearing their frustration firsthand made me realize how unclear language and complex workflows directly erode trust. That experience sparked my commitment to designing products that are intuitive, transparent, and genuinely supportive of users.

QA & Product Operations

As a QA contractor, I'd conduct UAT and tear through features to find what would confuse or frustrate users. Moving into product ops, I zoomed out to untangle messy workflows, both internal and user-facing, and got hooked on fixing friction at the systems level. That curiosity/ overall bias against clunky experiences led me straight into a UX bootcamp.

Product Design

At Compound, I officially stepped into product design, partnering with the sole designer and eventually leading end-to-end tax experiences for 200+ clients. I redesigned login flows that cut duplicate accounts and reduced engineering cleanup time by 80% (from 50 to 10 minutes per week). What began as advocating for users in support evolved into designing scalable, user-centered solutions from discovery through launch.

Although the road wasn't linear, my experiences ultimately shaped me into the designer I am today.

Let's work together.

I'm currently looking for new opportunities in product design. If you have a project in mind, let's connect!

Contact Form

Let's work together.