About Me

I work with early-stage SaaS teams as founding designer, build design functions from nothing, and ship products that get companies to product-market fit.

BIOGRAPHY

In a nutshell

My name is Michael, and I'm a designer based in New York. My Saturday mornings start with a long bike ride, followed by a visit to the market, and usually end three hours deep in something nobody asked for but everyone stays to eat. Cooking is where I slow down.

I'll spend a whole afternoon on a single dish, adjust it twice, and start a component from scratch if something feels off. The people around that table are the point: friends, family, whoever's around. Good food and good company are two things I never want to be too busy for. When I'm not in the kitchen, I'm on a bike or lending time to causes I believe in.

The Ride for Mental Health is one I keep coming back to. Same energy as the cooking, honestly: show up, do it right, don't cut corners. There's more to the picture than most people expect.

Things that tend to surprise people:

11 🇨🇺

My age when I move to Miami, FL from Cuba.

4

Positions held as a UCF varsity football player.

108

Number of total miles clocked on my favorite road bike. Best part it was for a charity I'm very passionate about

Donate

15M

New Yorkers have interacted with one or more products I helped design to bring connectivity to underserved communities.

Systems Thinker

I've always been fascinated by observing how people engage with their environment. Technology has played a major role in shaping my own experiences, evolving from something I interacted with as a tool to an integral part of how I approach problem-solving and design.

With over 15 years as a product designer, I've become a systems thinker by necessity: the most interesting design problems are never isolated. They're tangled up in workflows, constraints, and the people trying to get something done. That's what keeps me here. Solving complex problems that actually make the hard parts disappear.

BIOGRAPHY

In a nutshell

The Ride for Mental Health is one I keep coming back to. Same energy as the cooking, honestly: show up, do it right, don't cut corners. There's more to the picture than most people expect.

Things that tend to surprise people:

11 🇨🇺

My age when I move to Miami, FL from Cuba.

4

Positions held as a UCF varsity football player.

108

Number of total miles clocked on my favorite road bike. Best part it was for a charity I'm very passionate about

Donate

15M

New Yorkers have interacted with one or more products I helped design to bring connectivity to underserved communities.

Systems Thinker

Highlights

A decade of design leadership across enterprise security, civic infrastructure, and venture-backed startups.

I started at a design studio building MVPs for Y-Combinator, TechStars, and SoftBank-backed startups. That's where the 0-1 muscle developed. 60+ design sprints across mobile apps, SaaS platforms, and early-stage bets that had no design playbook yet.

From there: larger teams, more complex products. LinkNYC at Intersection reached 15 million users across New York City. At Density I led 5 designers during peak COVID demand.

The past 10 years:

Launched 20+ products for 12+ startups as founding designer and design leader.
Designed and launched Eino's AI-powered network planning platform for Bell Mobility.
Delivered Opal's Risk Center redesign: 97% reduction in approval time, 710% increase in access requests.
Accelerated development cycles 5x using AI-assisted research and rapid prototyping.

Scaled a 0-1 product design function from scratch for a compliance-tech SaaS.
Took the product from initial concept to $18MM Series A in 3 quarters.
Launched the MVP in 6 sprints working directly with engineering and founding team.

Led a team of 5 product designers improving shipping velocity by 58%.
Owned B2B data analytics and internal tooling across 3 product teams.
Key contributor to a real-time occupancy compliance platform that informed the $125MM Series D raise.

Led product design for LinkNYC and MTA, reaching 15 million users.
Increased Wi-Fi adoption by 38% through user research and community workshops.
Redesigned analytics tools for MTA and LA Metro, improving operational efficiency by 21%.
Built Place Exchange from 0-1. It was later acquired by BroadSign.

TOOLING