Hello!
I’m Lindsay, a Toronto-based design leader and founding design leader at Moderne. I joined at Series A and have shaped the company’s evolution from an emerging refactoring platform into enterprise AI infrastructure for large-scale code estate intelligence, deterministic transformation, and remediation.
As Head of Design, I lead design across product, developer experience, documentation, web, and brand, working closely with founders, engineering, and go-to-market leadership to turn deeply technical systems into clear, intuitive experiences. My work spans design strategy and product direction through to emerging AI development workflows and how they are changing the way software gets designed and built.
My career spans early-stage startups and global technology organizations, where I’ve built and led teams at VMware, shaped complex enterprise developer products, established design systems and practices, and brought new technical products to market.
Outside of work, I’m a book lover, cyclist, and generally happiest when I’m outside walking my dog Udo. I’ve also recently found my way back to horseback riding and am having fun being a beginner at that again.
A snapshot of my experience
Head of Design → Moderne, Inc. · Oct 2023–Present
Founding design leader, joined at Series A
Product Design Lead → Tetrate · Oct 2022–Oct 2023
Product Design Manager → VMware, Toronto · 2019–Oct 2022
Staff Product Designer, R+D → Pivotal, Toronto · 2016–2019
Product Designer → Pivotal Labs · Toronto, Berlin, Los Angeles, Washington DC · 2013–2016
Case Study 1: Developer console: Evolution to the Tanzu application service platform
Case Study 2: Concourse: Solving the problem of pipeline monitoring
Case Study 3: Pivotal Labs consultant
My key strengths
I turn complex technical systems into clear product experiences
I specialize in deeply technical enterprise products where the underlying concepts, workflows, and constraints are complex.
I can move between systems thinking and detailed interaction design, translating engineering capabilities into experiences that make sense to users.
I work across the entire product ecosystem, including SaaS applications, developer tools, CLI experiences, documentation, design systems, websites, and marketing.
I work from product thinking through production
I take ambiguous problems from early framing and exploration through prototyping, implementation, and iteration.
My workflow has evolved beyond traditional design handoffs. I use AI development tools, including Claude Code, to prototype in HTML and work directly in production code alongside engineering.
I’m comfortable working without a rigid playbook, creating enough structure to move quickly while maintaining coherence and quality as a product evolves.
I combine design leadership with hands-on execution
I’ve built and led design teams while staying close to the product, maintaining the context and craft needed to make strong decisions.
I’ve built design practices and operating systems across organizations at very different stages, from Pivotal and VMware to establishing design at Moderne as its first designer.
I partner directly with founders and engineering leaders to shape product direction, translate strategy into execution, and maintain experience quality across the organization.
Design Leadership
At Moderne, I’ve led design through several stages of company and product growth, evolving the practice as the way we build software has changed.
I established design across the organization, built the systems and standards needed to create consistency across a complex technical platform, and led designers while remaining deeply involved in product direction and execution.
Today, that model is evolving again. Design is increasingly embedded directly in development. I work with founders and engineering from product framing through implementation, using AI development tools to prototype, iterate, and contribute directly to production rather than relying on a traditional design handoff.
The result is a leaner design practice that operates closer to engineering, moves faster, and maintains experience quality across product, developer tools, documentation, web, and brand.
Scaling design at VMware:
Scaled the design organization
Helped grow the Developer Experience design team to 22 product designers, adding seven designers as the organization expanded.
Managed and developed three of the four designers promoted into leadership roles in 2021.
Embedded customer insight into product
Established ongoing customer research and usability testing across enterprise product initiatives.
Led design-partner sessions with customers ahead of the Tanzu Application Platform general release.
Built systems for design at scale
Helped establish Tanzu platform design principles and the Tanzu design system, creating greater consistency across a complex product portfolio.