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GAINSystems — Enterprise SaaS Platform
Role: Founding Product Designer | Timeline: April 2021 – November 2024 | Industry: Supply Chain / AI/ML / B2B SaaS
The Problem
GAINS had been building supply chain software for 50 years. In that time, it had shipped nine versions of its platform — almost none of them documented. Engineers and consultants would implement whatever a client asked for, directly into the database, without wireframes, user stories, or QA. The result was a monolith. Screens overloaded with table grids. Functionality buried under functionality. A platform that required months to implement for new clients and that users — demand planners managing millions in inventory decisions daily — found slow, confusing, and impossible to configure for their own work style.
I was the company's first dedicated product hire.
My Role
I led design across the full platform overhaul — working directly with a team of 3 developers and 1 QA — and operated as product lead in daily stand ups, owning requirements, prioritization, and delivery accountability. An outside agency had completed an initial user report and produced early mockups before I joined. I took those as a starting point and drove everything from there: research, design system, interaction patterns, and production implementation.
The Research
The most important thing I did early was get outside the building. I established a monthly customer user group — meeting directly with 20+ users across 10 enterprise client organizations. Qualitative interviews. Usability sessions. Ongoing feedback loops. This became the foundation for every product decision we made.
What we heard consistently: users couldn't configure their screens for the way they actually worked. Half of all users never used the charts or graphs — but had no way to hide them. The interface was built for a superuser who knew every element by memory. Everyone else was left to navigate a wall of information they didn't need.
The insight was clear: reduce cognitive load. Give users control over their own workspace.
What I Designed
Design system — built and maintained the design system in Figma across the full platform overhaul, covering forecasting dashboards, inventory planning, supplier management, and BI reporting. Established shared components, tokens, and patterns that the engineering team could implement consistently across every surface.