
Diego Pinna
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
New York, NY, United States
Toptal member since November 26, 2015
As an experienced UX, UI, and interaction designer, Diego is always seeking new challenges to advance his career and build excellent products. A self-starter with an eye for detail and a passion for creating high-quality software, he can easily identify business needs and determine innovative, user-centered solutions.
Portfolio
Work Experience
Senior Product Designer
Point72
- Owned end-to-end design for an AI-powered discovery and exploration platform, setting strategy and vision for how analysts find, browse, and act on relevant information across large datasets.
- Designed AI-powered discovery instruments — clustering, classification, and semantic search — that surfaced relevant results with clarity and felt personalized rather than a generic content catalog.
- Built a 75+ component design system from scratch with front-end engineers, establishing WCAG 2.1 AA accessible patterns, interaction standards, and documentation that scaled across new feature areas.
- Designed trust and decision-making patterns, including transparent confidence signals, reasoning chains, and progressive disclosure, that helped users evaluate options and make informed choices.
- Raised the craft bar through hands-on contributions to key flows, structured critique, and strong design direction, setting a high standard for interaction quality and visual polish across all surfaces.
- Integrated AI-assisted design workflows (Cursor, Claude, Copilot) into daily prototyping practice, accelerating exploration and validation of key flows from days to hours.
Product Design Manager
NerdWallet
- Designed and iterated on consumer discovery and browsing experiences across web and mobile, optimizing for engagement, comprehension, and conversion against quarterly growth OKRs.
- Drove adoption of user research and experimentation practices across the product organization, grounding design decisions in real user insights rather than reactive problem solving.
- Shipped high-craft, accessible product features across SMB marketplace flows, partnering closely with engineering to maintain visual polish and interaction quality at scale.
- Ran 7+ validation tests per week at peak exploration, accelerating the team's ability to validate hypotheses and de-risk new product directions before full investment.
- Contributed reusable patterns and accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 AA) to the design system, ensuring consistency across consumer marketplace surfaces.
- Owned end-to-end product design for NerdWallet's SMB marketplace platform, contributing $100 million in revenue in 2023 through personalized discovery and product-matching experiences.
- Achieved 72% onboarding conversion through data-driven design iteration, A/B experimentation, and close partnership with Product, Engineering, and Data across critical activation flows.
- Managed and mentored 3 product designers as a player/coach, staying hands-on with critical flows while raising the team's craft bar through direction, critique, and structured feedback.
- Defined design strategy and vision for a personalized, content-heavy marketplace, shaping recommendation surfaces and matching experiences for small business owners across the funnel.
- Scaled the product into new verticals — lending, insurance, and business tools — by designing a flexible IA that accommodated new product types without full redesigns.
Senior Product Designer
Clear Street
- Designed the Clear Street customer portal and marketing website from zero — a multi-user platform where traders, operations, and compliance audiences access financial products through role-based experiences.
- Launched MVP customer portal in 2019, shipping a complex prime brokerage product experience with high-quality interaction design and visual craft from the ground up.
- Designed for trust and clarity in a high-stakes financial environment — contextualizing every data point, versioning compliance documents, and building for real-world credibility constraints.
- Operated with high ownership: set design strategy, aligned C-suite, product, engineering, and compliance stakeholders, and shipped quality work without waiting for perfect requirements.
- Shaped the design team by identifying skill gaps, supporting hiring, and establishing the first design operating rhythm — research, design, critique, and engineering handoff.
- Built role-based experiences for distinct user audiences (traders, operations, compliance), tailoring discovery and decision-making flows to each persona's workflow.
UX Director
Golin
- Designed a complex content marketplace for Unilever, supporting discovery, browsing, and publishing workflows for global brand teams across 190+ markets.
- Led UX direction on a multi-market platform that scaled into new verticals and content categories while keeping the experience coherent across hundreds of brand stakeholders.
- Partnered with content strategists, brand stakeholders, and engineering to translate complex Unilever brand operations into clear, usable workflows for global marketing teams.
- Defined IA, interaction patterns, and publishing workflows that powered a marketplace-style content discovery experience at enterprise scale across diverse regional markets.
- Established UX research and validation practices to ground design decisions in feedback from regional brand teams operating in diverse markets and use cases.
Senior Product Designer
Steeleye
- Designed the first MVP iteration for Steeleye, a fintech-seeded startup.
- Defined their design guidelines and worked with the development team using Agile methodologies to deliver features and iteratively add improvements.
- Helped prioritize the main feature flows and map them. Internal stakeholders could visualize feature development and understand the crossing points.
- Designed data visualization and feature dashboards to allow quick overviews of the platform usage and to ensure legal compliance with new regulatory requirements.
- Created a design system to ensure future development and product expansion.
Senior UX Designer
London School of Economics (LSE)
- Worked with the LSE (www.lse.ac.uk) to structure the redesign of their public careers website and web app for LSE students, alumni, and current staff.
- Collaborated with internal stakeholders to define the project KPIs, map the content currently available online, and create a content strategy to structure their online communication.
- Prioritized and mocked up the information included in the page with wireframes.
- Created an interactive prototype to interview real users and gain enough feedback to optimize CTAs and information included in the page.
Senior UX Architect
RAPP
- Helped identify and prioritize business problems that were raised by user satisfaction surveys for the Virgin Media UX team, improving the understanding users had about their current offering and helping them compare their premium packages.
- Reviewed post-sales customer experience for Mercedes-Benz together with the launch of new test drive services aimed at their most loyal customers. I identified the most important touch points and how to improve their communication across media.
- Parallelized multiple projects, delivering updates and managing timelines in close collaboration with account managers, product managers, and engineers.
Senior UX Architect
Spark44
- Helped deliver the new Jaguar Formula E website, working within the UX team at Spark44, to celebrate the return of Jaguar to the racing world.
- Contributed to the design strategy for the online platforms for Jaguar (www.jaguar.com) and Land Rover (www.landrover.com).
- Collaborated with a larger team of UX architects and visual designers.
- Coordinated closely with another visual designer, splitting each feature to be able to speed up the UX effort and quickly develop our designs for client feedback.
- Utilized the brand's strong design frameworks, enabling me to integrate and extend the current capabilities.
Lead UX Designer
Kukun
- Reviewed some of the existing features and identified quick wins to improve the user experience.
- Designed new features and flows, integrating with the existing platform. Every design was structured so that future development would be easy to support.
- Reviewed the information architecture and proposed a new naming convention that would improve internal communication and ease of adoption with users.
- Crafted interactive and responsive prototypes to indicate to developers and stakeholders what my vision of the platform was.
Senior UX Designer
H-ART
- Served as the UX evangelist for the H-ART team, presenting best practices and innovative solutions for different ongoing projects and pitches.
- Worked directly and in close collaboration with the clients, allowing myself to deeply understand the business problems and challenges.
- Set up an end-to-end UCD UX process and proposed new designs for a variety of projects.
- Handled a project with Maserati, an Italian car manufacturer (www.maserati.com). Worked to re-design the global website and create the framework for 61 national websites in preparation for a new car model launch and marketing campaign in Winter 2015.
- Worked with Maxus Global (maxusglobal.com). Analyzed with the client stakeholder how to update their website's functionalities and how to make it accessible from different devices (launched in July 2015). .
Senior UX Designer
Analogfolk
- Joined the team of UX designers at Analogfolk to help them achieve the best UX practices in two different projects.
- Completed a web redesign project for a new marketing campaign for Lucozade (lucozade.com), to be delivered on a tight schedule.
- Worked with the internal stakeholders of HSBC USA based in New York. Helped to define the UX concepts for a user's registration flow to allow them to open a new account and to request new services from the bank’s website.
- Collaborated with a team of UX designers, which allowed me to lead junior members and give feedback on their work.
- Took the opportunity to receive honest feedback on my designs and present more mature solutions to the client.
Senior UX Designer
Hogarth
- Worked with Hogarth (www.hogarthww.com) to help them deliver two of their most important projects.
- Handled a project for Santander (www.santander.co.uk) that included a redesign for their personal banking calculators to be responsive and to be used on every device.
- Designed a solo project for Apple (www.apple.com) and improved the UX in specific internal-only security resources.
- Collaborated closely with clients to define their requirements and obtained feedback on my designs.
- Quickly created multiple design iterations to present different designs and options to the client.
Interaction Designer
RMA Consulting
- Contributed to a broad range of interaction design and UX projects within RMA Consulting (www.rma-consulting.com).
- Designed the NHS Kids Sleep Disorders Analysis iOS application (St Thomas' Hospital Trust). Worked on the initial ‘finger-painting’ concept and designed the iOS application. (http://kidssleepdr.com/).
- Handled designs for HSBC Online Business Banking. Redesigned different features for the “HSBCnet” product to support different national versions and localizations. Developed multiple interactive prototypes for user research and stakeholder reviews.
- Designed the HSBC Business Banking mobile application. Helped deliver the first HSBCnet mobile application (iOS and Android) for Saudi Arabia (Arabic and English localization) and Hong Kong.
- Worked closely with the client, allowing me to create custom solutions and gain a deeper understanding of their banking challenges (HSBC) and communication issues with patients (NHS).
Interaction Designer | UX Architect
The Frameworks
- Worked with The Frameworks (www.theframeworks.com) on different UX/IA projects.
- Designed the D’Assault Systems commercial contract pitch, including IA/UX proposals to redesign the client's websites.
- Worked with Kreston Reeves Consultants, creating UX designs to update the client's brand and content for their international group.
- Worked with Polaris Insurance Policy Brokers, creating UX designs for their client's website and support website, including a policy search engine.
- Made use of access to rich analytics on all projects, helping me to understand the current behavior of users within the systems in production.
Interaction Designer
Workshare
- Collaborated with three Agile teams. Managed the suite of Workshare desktop applications (£20 million annual revenue).
- Redesigned the iOS app (iPhone/iPad) that registered an increase in user engagement from 3% to 42%.
- Designed and wrote new software features (described by using acceptance criteria), working with clients and the agile team.
- Gathered feedback from clients to design new features and improve existing ones.
Education
Master's Degree in UX Design
New York University - New York, NY, USA
Certifications
Being a UX Leader: Essential Skills for Any UX Practitioner
Nielsen Norman Group
Skills
Tools
Sketch 3, Adobe InDesign, Balsamiq, Balsamiq Mockups, Adobe Illustrator, Marvel, Axure RP Pro, InVision, UXPin, Sketch, OmniGraffle, Apple Keynote, Adobe Photoshop, Claude, AI Tools, Adobe, Zeplin, Adobe Experience Design (XD), Principle, FigJam, Usertesting.com
Languages
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Swift
Platforms
Android, Web, Mobile (Tablet), Mobile, iOS, Figma, Axure, Mixpanel
Industry Expertise
Healthcare
Other
User Flows, Visual Design, Mobile UX, Prototyping, UX Design, Wireframing, Web Design, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Dashboard Design, UI Design, Enterprise SaaS, User Experience (UX), iPad, Mobile App Design, Mockups, AVFoundation, Angular Bootstrap, User Requirements, Design Strategy, Interactive Prototypes, A/B Testing, Pen & Paper, Conceptual Design, Persona Design, User Stories, Dashboards, Finance, Software as a Service (SaaS), Interaction Design (IxD), Data Visualization, Mobile Design, Product Design, Design Systems, Storybook, Artificial Intelligence (AI), User Interface (UI), User Onboarding, Desktop App Design, Web Applications, Complex Web Systems, System Design, Web App Design, AI Design, AI-powered Product Design, User Testing, User Research, UX Testing, UI Testing, Remote User Testing, Design Validation, UX Research, Qualitative Research, Qualitative User Research, Big Data, Consumer Insights, Executive Communication, Product Strategy, Stakeholder Management, UX Wireframes, B2B, B2C, Conversational UX, Web App UX, Marketplace Design, Product Owner, Project Management, AI Chatbots, Large Language Models (LLMs), SaaS, CRM, Personas, Web Application Design, Mobile UI Design, Web UI Design, Fintech, Fintech Design, User Journeys, Journey Mapping, Design Workshops, Customer Journey, UI Prototyping, UX Prototyping, User Interviews, Research, Early-stage Startups, User Behavior, Research Synthesis, React, Enterprise Software, Onboarding, User Journey Maps, Workflow Design, Agentic AI, Claude Design, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Front-end Development, Design, User Experience Design, Design Thinking, Systems Thinking, Systems, Service Design, Design Leadership, Competitive Analysis, Market Research, Market Research & Analysis, jQuery, Customer Experience, Usability Analysis, Information Architecture (IA), Bootstrap, Responsive, Sitemaps, Content Management Systems (CMS), Template Design, Mobile UI, Apps, UX Analysis, Web UX, WebApp, Sprints, SaaS Design, Intellectual Property Law, Creative Coding, 3D Art, ARKit, AI Agents, Cursor AI, Accessibility, MVP Design, Money Transfers, Investment Funds, Trade Finance, Hedge Funds, Responsive UI, Design Management, Revenue Strategy, Content Design, Web Content, Career Coaching, Colleges & Universities, Audience Segmentation, Human-computer Interaction (HCI), Medical Applications, Compliance, Search, Location Services, Health Insurance, Enterprise UX, Enterprise, Provisioning Engines, Web Marketing, Intranets, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), User Self-service
Experience
- User Experience (UX) - 12 years
- Axure RP Pro - 6 years
- Android - 6 years
- Web - 6 years
- Interactive Prototypes - 6 years
- iOS - 6 years
- Mobile - 6 years
- Design Strategy - 5 years
Tools
- Axure RP Pro
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