Curriculum Vitae
Karolina Szczur (she/her)
Principal Product Designer
| Website | karolinaszczur.com |
| Contact | me@karolinaszczur.com |
| Resume | LinkedIn↗ ⋅ Read.cv↗ |
| Social | Mastodon↗ ⋅ Instagram↗ |
Experience #
Co-founder and Principal Designer at Calibre ↗ #
2017 – 2024
Calibre is a bootstrapped, profitable software as a service platform for measuring and improving web performance. I joined the company in a part-time capacity in 2017, and became a full-time employee and a co-founder in 2020. I used my hands-on skills and strategic knowledge to co-lead the business with sustainability and thoughtfulness in mind.
As a Principal Designer, I was responsible for design systems, branding, marketing, and product design. I established two design systems with accompanying documentation and usage principles. I designed and managed the end-to-end release process for numerous high-impact features.
Outside of design, I wore several other hats, including managing communication channels, support, product marketing and hiring. Within those areas, I ran newsletters, changelog, as well as marketing content strategy. I created a support framework that resulted in a consistent 97-100% satisfaction rate. I authored a hiring process and framework that received candidate feedback as one of the most considerate they have encountered.
Design Engineer at Help Scout ↗ #
2018 – 2019
Help Scout is a remote organisation building a robust platform for customer support. As a Design Engineer, I was the technical owner of Help Scout’s marketing site and its design system.
I reported to the Head of Design, working closely with the Design and Marketing teams to achieve company goals of effectively presenting Help Scout to the world. The most significant projects I successfully released were a rebranding with accompanying branding guidelines and a new help documentation design. I also managed stakeholders while leading the research on possible paths for migrating to a CMS to make it easy to contribute content. In between bigger initiatives, I significantly improved the performance and accessibility of Help Scout’s marketing, as well as reduced technical debt.
Front-end Developer at Envato ↗ #
2016 – 2017
Envato is one of the world’s leading communities for creative assets and tools. I joined the Envato Market team as a front-end developer to rebuild the search and results experience. In that effort, I established a new, modern design system and used it successfully ship a crucial part of Envato’s product.
Additionally, I used my designer expertise to coach designers on preparing effective deliverables for implementation, as well as authored front-end standards for other developers to follow, creating a culture of sharing knowledge and empowerment.
Design Lead at &yet ↗ #
2013 – 2015
&yet is a creative agency offering design and software development expertise as well as building their own products. Reporting to the CEO, my primary responsibilities were leading the design through mentoring, strategic decision-making and hands-on visual design work. This involved managing the design discovery process, conceptualising (through wireframes and prototypes), visual design execution and, in some cases, front-end implementation.
During my time, I’ve designed fun interfaces for several products, such as Talky↗ (a video chat and screen sharing platform) and And Bang (a pre-Slack team communication tool). I’ve also created a design system and authored the accompanying CSS framework to help the team building maintainable, cohesive products without prior design knowledge. Lastly, I remotely collaborated with other members of the design team, artists, and developers on &yet’s marketing for their consultancy offering and community events, such as Realtime Conference↗ and &yetConf↗.
Product Designer at Nodejitsu ↗ #
2012 – 2013
Nodejitsu (acquired by GoDaddy) was one of the first cloud platforms as a service, providing hosting for Node.js applications. As a Product Designer I reported directly to the CEO and CTO, translating their vision for the product, brand and marketing into reality. I’ve remotely collaborated with engineers to design and implement the front-end of the product dashboard, providing an easy-to-use way to deploy and run Node.js applications. I was also responsible for designing and updating Nodejitsu’s marketing website.
Career timeline #
| Year | Role |
|---|---|
| 2017 – 2024 | Co-founder and Principal Designer, Calibre ↗ |
| 2018 – 2019 | Design Engineer, Help Scout↗ |
| 2016 – 2017 | Front-end Developer, Envato ↗ |
| 2013 – 2015 | Design Lead, &yet ↗ |
| 2012 – 2013 | Product Designer, Nodejitsu ↗ |
| 2010 – 2012 | Front-end Developer, XFive↗ |
| 2010 – 2010 | Front-end Developer, AdTaily↗ (now Yieldbird) |
| 2009 – 2012 | Freelance Designer, Various clients |
Kind words about me #
“Karolina brings deep technical knowledge and a keen eye for detail to her work — which is always well considered and collaborative in approach. She’s also great at giving and receiving feedback... her input has always been extremely useful and welcomed.
Above all else, Karolina is a really great friend and colleague — she’s super humble, ethical and has exceptional style.”
Buzz Usborne
Principal Designer @ Help Scout
“Karolina is an extremely thoughtful and passionate designer. She always strives to do what’s right for the user. Her advocacy and care for principles like accessibility, experience, performance, and documentation improved how teams approached design, product, and engineering.
It was an absolute joy working with her!”
Jon Quach
Design Engineer @ Help Scout
“What we’ve enjoyed about Karolina is her clear vision for people-centered design, exceptional attention to interface detail, and the depth of experience from which she draws practical solutions to UI/UX problems.
We’ve been blown away by her ability to communicate and provide honest, valuable feedback.”
Adam Brault
CEO @ &yet
“Karolina is one of the most talented designers and humans I’ve had the pleasure to work with. She has remarkable design instincts and very distinct standards for the beautiful and intelligent user experiences she is able to create.
The discipline she demonstrates also extends to numerous other areas of her life, including how she structures projects and how she goes about modifying real life experiences to be more efficient, welcoming and inclusive.”
Jenn Turner
Chief Communications Officer @ &yet
I’m open to new opportunities
I’m currently looking for a new lead designer role. If you’re hiring remotely or within Australia, I’m up for a chat or a coffee (if you are in Narrm).
Get in touch