Marzhana — Product Designer, Founder & Systems Thinker

Present → foundations

Every chapter expanded the scale of what I could design.

Now · Judgment

Judgment is the new craft

I use AI to make output cheaper—and human judgment more valuable.

AI can generate fifty directions before lunch. The interesting work starts when you delete forty-nine.

My work now centers on the decisions beneath the interface: what deserves to exist, what should stay human, where complexity should live, and what will still work after the next fifty features.

The craft is not producing more. It is seeing more clearly, choosing deliberately, and building systems that remain coherent as they grow.

Ratio · Co-founder & CDO

I redesigned the invisible machinery of science

I designed a new publishing system to make science 90× faster and 10× cheaper.

As co-founder and CDO, I helped replace traditional academic publishing infrastructure with an AI-native system, then added social discovery so research could travel beyond static databases.

I brought together AI peer review, publishing, preprints, research discovery, debates, reading tools, scientist profiles, and Circles—the experience nominated by the UX Design Awards.

At founder scale, everything became design for me: product, pitch, pricing, trust, AI behavior, university conversations, marketing, and the discipline of deciding what not to build.

Pluto · Founding lead designer

I made financial complexity feel calm

I made the interface feel simple by giving the complexity somewhere else to go.

The product spanned Cards, Bill Payments, Petty Cash, Procurement, and Reimbursements—backed by permissions, compliance, operations, support, approval chains, failures, and edge cases.

I built the DesignOps system, scaled the design system from 124 to more than 2,100 components, shaped the roadmap, and shipped 30+ improvements and features monthly across Engineering, Ops, Support, and Compliance.

Pluto reached the Top 10 in enterprise and SMB expense management, the Top 50 globally in fintech on G2, and earned 400+ positive reviews.

Y Combinator startups · Design lead

I learned to lead at startup speed

I learned that speed is not moving fast—it is deciding what matters now.

My work included Cushion.ai, ZeroDown, Tola, Marcel.art.com, and Hi—often with multiple products, compressed timelines, and evolving business models.

I shipped 15+ features in six months, led two fintech products simultaneously, managed four designers, and helped interns grow into mid-level product designers.

Prioritization became part of the design craft: knowing what could wait, what needed proof, and which shortcut would quietly become expensive later.

European agency · Product leadership

Good design changes with context

I learned that a process protecting one team can suffocate another.

At an award-winning European agency, I moved from deep UI craft into product leadership across industries, markets, and company stages.

I learned that American fintech speaks differently from European fintech, that global brands require one kind of rigor, and that startups require another.

This is where I stopped following frameworks because they looked professional and began building DesignOps around the context in front of me.

Ubisoft & co-ops · Human-centered research

I learned to design for reality, not personas

I designed for real shoulders, fatigue, accessibility, materials, and public responsibility—not personas.

At Ubisoft, user research could mean talking directly with an Assassin’s Creed stunt performer about what felt wrong in a motion-capture suit—or hearing why a headset became unbearable after hours of use.

University co-ops at Ubisoft, the City of Toronto, and Noble Biomaterials brought physical constraints, accessibility, manufacturing, and public responsibility into the design process.

Before I designed flows, I learned to notice friction people could physically feel.

Along the way · Teaching

Teaching turned my instinct into a system

Explaining why something worked made my own thinking more precise.

I helped designers improve product thinking, UX depth, Figma hygiene, AI fluency, behavioral interviews, and case-study storytelling.

I turned my own DesignOps into reusable exercises: practical ways to train judgment instead of simply asking people to think more strategically.

Teaching converted instinct into language, structure, and repeatable practice.

Along the way · Art & community

Art taught me what analytics misses

I learned that a product can work perfectly and still mean nothing.

Through art businesses rooted in Kazakh culture, I created products, organized more than 160 workshops for 500+ people, built communities, and brought original work into premium retail spaces.

People rarely describe a strong connection in positioning language. They take a photo, bring a friend, buy it as a gift, and ask when the next one is.

That response taught me to value meaning as a product outcome—not decoration applied after the system works.

OCAD University · Foundations

I learned to see design beyond the screen

I did not learn one way to design. I learned how to approach unfamiliar problems.

At OCAD University, the disciplines were different, but the question underneath them was often the same: how can design change the way people behave, understand, move, or feel?

The range made it difficult to see products as isolated screens. A wearable is also behavior. A physical object is also communication. A digital product is also language, culture, business, and emotion.

That foundation made unfamiliar problems feel less like exceptions and more like invitations to understand a larger system.

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