Joe Velez

Lead UX Designer • Design Systems Specialist • Product Strategist

Experience

Sep 2025 – Present · Dearborn, MI

Contributed to a variable-driven, multi-platform design system spanning in-vehicle infotainment, driver information displays, and a connected mobile app across Ford and Lincoln brands.
Led design system AI initiatives, building an agentic design system that brings Ford and Lincoln components, styles, and principles into AI prototyping and coding tools for faster, more consistent prototyping and documentation.
Collaborated across design disciplines and engineering to align on component direction and maintain design-to-code parity between Figma and component libraries.

Mar 2024 – Present · Livonia, MI (Remote)

Joined as the first designer during a pivot from consulting to software, establishing the design practice — process, tooling, and cross-functional collaboration — from the ground up.
Built and maintained a design system from scratch ensuring consistency across four modules of an enterprise trade compliance platform.
Advocated for user needs in product planning, consistently steering features toward lean, viable solutions that balanced user value with business and technical constraints.

May 2023 – Mar 2024 · Allentown, PA

Led UX for a regulated customer migration, redesigning sign-up and onboarding flows to ease the transition for acquired RIE customers re-registering on the PPL platform without their legacy account data.
Collaborated with UX researchers and product leadership to identify user needs and define requirements, translating findings into detailed Figma and Miro deliverables.
Developed and presented executive-facing decks and presentations to justify and communicate the CX team’s design decisions to company leadership.

Sep 2022 – Sep 2023 · Norwalk, CT (Remote)

Joined as the first full-time designer, establishing a collaborative, cross-functional design process working directly with the CPO, product managers, and VP of Engineering.
Adapted MUI React components to build a design system tailored to Shibumi’s specific needs, evolving base components into larger, product-specific patterns in Figma.
Enhanced and introduced features for the low-code/no-code platform while consulting directly with enterprise clients to evaluate their instances and provide UX improvement recommendations.

Feb 2019 – Sep 2022 · Livonia, MI

Co-led the development of a design system supporting six product modules across three engineering teams, helping unify a suite grown through acquisition into a consistent, cohesive experience.
Drove improvements to cross-functional design processes, including how design work was scoped, tracked in Jira, and aligned with product and engineering.
Conducted user interviews, baseline testing, and usability studies as part of the Workforce Suite redesign, focusing on time and attendance workflows and expanding mobile support for frontline workers.

Feb 2015 – Feb 2019 · Brighton, MI

Led all design across the organization including a full redesign of the TPMS parts catalog and building a digital tire registration platform from scratch that replaced paper-based processes and integrated with POS systems.
Partnered with company leadership to define features, prioritize the roadmap, and implement right-sized agile processes in collaboration with the engineering team.
Supported business development efforts by creating pitch decks, conceptual prototypes, and product visionmaterials to help acquire customers, strategic partners, and investors.

Figma, Miro, FigJam, Jira, Azure DevOps, Notion, Confluence

HTML/CSS/JS, Tailwind CSS, React, Angular, Figma Make, Claude Code

UX Design, UI Design, Design Systems, Prototyping, User Research, Accessibility (WCAG AA), Cross-functional Process Design, Agile Product Development

Wayne State University

Bachelor of Arts — Dec 2009 • Detroit, MI