Kelsey Thomas

Empathy-driven UX/Product Designer with 15+ years of professional experience in product operations, ideation, research, design, strategy, and management in the education & HR tech industries.

Senior Product Designer at Degreed (2023-01 – Present)

Forward-thinking design system creation, evolution, and maintenance through continuous ideation, research, and implementation working to bring a more cohesive user experience to the Degreed SaaS platform for end users, managers, and admins and improve design team efficiency.

• Lead the creation, documentation, implementation, education, and auditing of the new Degreed Apollo design system, bringing the system from 10% stable to 60% stable in 6 months
• Collaborate with a team of design system developers to ensure all coded components meet accessibility standards, design system standards, and guidelines and are implemented with integrity
• Build documentation files and AI prototyping tools using real coded components for easier prototyping with fidelity to system standards and guidelines
• Work with developers, designers, and product managers to ensure alignment with new design system standards for all product work
• Ensure all design system components meet accessibility standards and are usable by designers, developers, and AI tools for building and prototyping
• Proactively identify issues with design system components and make improvements to documentation and component structure as needed
• Design future-thinking wireframes, high-fidelity mockups, and prototypes based on research and analysis of user needs to propose improvement and efficiency across all product features
• Spearheaded the design spec file operational process in Figma and ensured alignment across the design team, increasing the amount of spec files fully up to date by 60%

Product Manager + Design at Degreed (2021-01 – 2023-12)

Managed and prioritized all pieces of the Degreed product impacting the client administrator persona such as organization setup, settings, permissions, and governance.

• Collaborated with product designer and engineering lead to ideate solutions to meet admin persona needs and pain points including mock-ups, prototypes, and user discovery
• Managed the Admin Experience product & engineering team priorities and focus areas to align with company and product OKRs and long-term vision, meeting 90% of product roadmap milestones
• Reduced bug backlog and technical debt by 75% in first year
• Completed and delivered 100% of client commits with all clients renewed before and after commits were released
• Planned and supported user research efforts for new features
• Led cross-functional efforts to ideate and design solutions to meet more mid-market client needs

Product Manager + Design at BloomTech (Lambda School) (2020-01 – 2021-12)

Managed all Student Relationship Management (SRM) products including Salesforce CRM, front- and back-end internal systems, and automation improvements to support school staff.

• Conducted user research and discovery and developed insights on problems to solve for the student/learner persona
• Created wireframes and mock-ups for new product functionality
• Led the effort to develop and manage a full SRM and Salesforce product & engineering team to develop products that aligned with company, school, and team OKRs

Product & Operations Manager at Stride, Inc (K12) (2016-01 – 2020-12)

Managed products and programs for school services team and led implementation of school lifecycle events and tasks across all nationwide K12 virtual schools.

• Developed simple wireframes for small product enhancements
• Managed the student support referral tracker product with ideation, ongoing maintenance prioritization, and gathering user pain points through research
• Owned overall development of communications, training, and implementation materials for all collaboration product tools and features

School Operations & Student Support at Stride, Inc (K12) (2010-01 – 2016-12)

Developed and implemented operational and advising process and procedure efficiency improvements for all K12 Kansas schools.

• Developed deep understanding of end users (students, teachers, administrators, and parents) and their unique pain points and needs in the online school space

Build a Website with HTML, CSS, & GitHub Pages Path – Codecademy (2023-01 – 2024-12)

Professional Certification in Google UX Design Professional Certification – Coursera (2021-01 – 2022-12)

Bachelor of Science in Family Studies & Human Services – Kansas State University (2004-01 – 2009-12)