Start with the outcome
Before anyone opens Figma, Miro or Claude Design, we agree what should change for users and for the business. Every critique and review comes back to one question: does this move it?
Who’s Roman?
Experienced Product Design & UX Leader
- 20 years
- User interaction experience (UX/UI)
- 18 years
- Leading web-based software engineering, and Agile/Scrum development
- 7 years
- Managing a team of remote UI designers and mentoring a team of product owners
Shaping the way people use and experience technology to interact with the world today and in the future, with a huge passion for intuitive user experiences
South Florida Miro Ambassador
Leadership Philosophy & Vision
An outcome-driven design leader who speaks product, engineering and business with a huge passion for delivering great user experiences.
I've been the developer, the product manager and the lead UX designer, and today I lead product design for enterprise healthcare SaaS used by radiology clinics. That lets me work with every team while keeping the user at the center.
Outcome
Hire for how people think
I look for designers who follow a real design process and know UX/UI best practices. A hands-on exercise then shows me how they think, not just how polished their work looks.
Feedback and freedom
I'm clear about the goal and the quality bar, and I give a lot of honest feedback. How to get there is the designer's call, and the credit is theirs too.
Raise the bar together
Quality is a team habit, not a final check: regular critique, a design system we keep up to date, and designs we check against WCAG accessibility standards.
Prototype and test early and often
A working prototype in front of real users beats a perfect spec. I stay hands-on in the design work, so the team knows I understand what I'm asking of them.
Leadership Operations & Team
Process
- Outcome
- Discover
- Define
- Design
- Sign-off: Design review
- Deliver
- Sign-off: Design QA
- Measure
Then back to Outcome.
Foundations
Design system
Figma library to Storybook to product. Emerging: Claude Design to Claude Code to Storybook.
Tokens and component rules
Accessibility
WCAG 2.1 AA for patient-facing software
Tools, including AI
- Figma
- Miro
- Claude Design
- Claude Code
- Storybook
- Datadog
Team
Hiring
A portfolio walkthrough, a working session on a real problem, and time with the Product and Engineering partners they'd work with.
Onboarding
The design system, the product domain, the people, and a small first project they own.
Mentoring
Regular 1:1s, a growth plan, and designers presenting their own work to stakeholders.
Workload
Balanced assignments, blockers removed, and scope creep pushed back on before it reaches the team.
Leadership Partnerships & Influence
Design
Up: with executives
Make the case
I bring ideas to executives as a business case, with the data behind them, whether they're my ideas or my designers'.
Advise early
I get involved in ideas from the start, to flag risks and better options before they become expensive.
Measure and report back
After launch, we measure against the success signal we agreed on at the start, using usage data, support trends and client feedback. Then I bring the results to executives: what moved, what didn't, and what we do next.
Across: with partners
Product
We agree on the problem and the success signal before anyone designs.
Engineering
Constraints get solved together, early, not at handoff.
Support
Complaints that keep coming back become design fixes on the roadmap.
Sales & Marketing
Prototypes and visuals that match the real product, and one brand across both.
Leadership AI in Design
AI hasn't changed why we design. It has changed who can prototype, and how fast we learn.
- Anyone with an idea Product Design Sales Support
- DESIGN.md AI tools Our design rules
- A working prototype
- Clients and stakeholders
- UX/UI review Designers refine
Anyone can prototype
Everyone on the Product team can build a working prototype, and people on other teams have started to as well.
Our rules, built in
Our design system and UX rules are written for the AI tools, so prototypes start on-brand and consistent.
Feedback, sooner and deeper
More complete, working prototypes, faster than before, so clients and stakeholders react to something real, earlier and more often.
Why experts still matter
Not everyone knows UX and UI best practices. That's where our designers come in: they review, refine and raise the bar.
How I lead it
I tuned our AI tools so they produce much better results for the Product team: a slimmed-down version of our design system they can build with, and a DESIGN.md with 3,000 lines of our design rules.
Guardrails: Real users stay in the loop Patient privacy, HIPAA and SOC 2 Nothing ships without design review
Resume Career Timeline
-
Present 2019 7 yrs
Head of Product Design & UX
AbbaDox · Aventura, FL
Clinical HealthTech
Leadership & organisation
- Scaled the Product Design team by 260% and spearheaded a departmental pivot to a high-output, remote, Agile DesignOps workflow
- Maintain the long-term product roadmap and UX vision in direct partnership with executive leadership
- Mentor a remote team of POs and Designers, helping them mature from novices into superstars
- Drive enterprise value by re-engineering complex clinical workflows to maximize efficiency with great UX
Systems & craft
- Build and oversee maintenance of a robust enterprise design system in Figma
- Pioneer the Design Thinking approach to deliver high-quality, intuitive features with Engineering, Design and Client Success
- Ensure WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance to deliver inclusive healthcare experiences
- DesignOps
- Design systems
Figma
Miro- WCAG 2.1 AA
- Agile / Scrum
-
2026 2024 2 yrs
UX/UI Course Instructor
SimpliLearn · Online · Caltech and Purdue bootcamps
Education
- Cultivating the next generation of UX talent by teaching weekend Bootcamp courses for adults covering Product UX/UI Design, Design Thinking, UX Research, Wireframing, Prototyping and Usability Evaluation
- Design Thinking
- UX Research
- Wireframing
- Prototyping
- Usability evaluation
-
2019 8 mos
Sr. Software UX Designer
NextEra Energy · Juno Beach, FL · contract
Energy
- Design a NAESB compliant gas pipeline software for transportation of natural gas
- Create wireframes, hi/low fidelity mockups and design diagrams using Figma
- Collaborate with Product Owner, Business Analyst, front-end & back-end Agile Scrum development team
- Figma
- NAESB
- Wireframing
- Agile Scrum
Resume Earlier Career
-
2019 2007 12 yrs
Product Manager (formerly Lead Software Developer)
The PGA of America · Palm Beach Gardens, FL
Sport & Events
Product & business impact
- Lead development of a near real-time online golf scoring system used in 150+ tournaments with live leaderboards, admin tools, mobile scoring devices, bulk SMS and data feeds
- Reduce scoring costs by over $200,000 per major event such as the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup
Scale & operations
- Support 28,000 Golf Professionals and 11,000 Golf Facilities by developing custom websites and reports
- Manage and train walking scorers and scoring control staff for major championships
- Product Management
- Live scoring
- SQL Server
- Reporting
- Bulk SMS
-
2016 2015 1 yr
UX/UI and Web Development Instructor
Palm Beach Code School · Palm Beach, FL
Education
- Teach User Experience, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery in 3.5 hour evening classes to groups of adults
- User Experience
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- jQuery
-
2007 2005 2 yrs
Multimedia Developer
Web Power, Inc. · Palm Beach Gardens, FL
Digital Media
- Develop a multi-user, ColdFusion and MS-SQL database driven enterprise level web-based software solution to organize and meta-tag thousands of video clips for search and distribution
- Integrate Sony Vegas with ASP.NET and MS-SQL to automatically edit and encode video files into multiple formats with bumpers, overlays and fades
- Develop Visio mockups and wireframes of user interfaces with functional specifications driving UX
- ColdFusion
- MS-SQL
Sony Vegas
Visio
Resume Skills & Education
Primary domain
Product Design, Product Management & UX/UI
Tools
- Figma
- Miro
Jira
Confluence- Businessmap
- Deque Axe
Claude Design
Skills
- Design systems
- Wireframes
- Interactive prototypes
- Accessibility
- Hi/lo-fi mock-ups
- Personas
- Flow charts
- UX diagrams
Visual craft
Photography, Video & Digital Media
Tools
Photoshop
Lightroom
Premiere Pro
Audition- Final Cut Pro
- Sony Vegas
Skills
- Professional photography
- Real-estate & automotive
- Corporate headshots
- Video shooting & switching
- Streaming
- Editing
Enterprise alignment
Leadership, Strategy & Ops
Leadership
- Team building & scaling
- Mentoring & coaching
- Remote team management
- DesignOps
- Executive partnership
- Design Thinking facilitation
Tools
Microsoft Office- Visio
SharePoint
Teams
Google Analytics
Slack
Skills
- Software strategy
- Product roadmapping
Technical foundation
Software Development & Engineering
Tools
VS Code
GitHub
GitKraken- SQL Server
Storybook
Skills
- Software architecture
- Database architecture
- Code writing
- Code review
Hackathon
Led a team to 1st place at the 2016 UX-Dev Summit Hackathon / Design-a-thon
Education Dual degree
Stetson University
DeLand, FL
CS research Automated categorization of video, based on audio content
Digital Arts research A toolkit for real-time audio and video processing
Landmark Education The Landmark Forum graduate
Activities & honours
- Contest winning photographer
- University Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra scholarships (violin)
- University Dean Scholarship and multiple academic awards
- Vice President, Association of Computing Machinery — Video, Photography and Math Clubs
- Citizenship
- United States
- Languages
- English & Russian
Resume Plain Text
Roman Smolkin
Product Design & UX Leader
Phone: (561) 247-3146 E-mail: resume@pixeltrics.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pixelwiz Location: West Palm Beach, Florida
Personal Mission Statement
Shaping the future of technology with my leadership, creative talents, technical skills, analytical thinking, and a huge passion for great user experiences, while leveraging design as a primary driver for business growth.
Qualifications Summary
- Dependable leader and mentor, effective communicator, intelligent planner and problem solver
- 20+ years of driving product vision, design strategy, design systems, product management & UX/UI
- 15+ years of leading digital product design and architecture in agile environments
- 10+ years of photography, video editing, camera operating, live streaming and switching
- B.S. in Computer Science & B.A. in Digital Arts from Stetson University
Professional Experience
(2019 – Present) Head of Product Design & UX
AbbaDox, Aventura, FL
- Scaled the Product Design team by 260% and spearheaded a departmental pivot to a high-output, remote, Agile DesignOps workflow leveraging Figma, Miro and other collaboration tools
- Mentor a remote team of POs and Designers helping them mature from novices into superstars
- Drive enterprise value by re-engineering complex clinical workflows to maximize efficiency with great UX
- Maintain the long-term product roadmap and UX vision in direct partnership with executive leadership
- Pioneer the Design Thinking approach to deliver high-quality, intuitive features while collaborating with Engineering, Design and Client Success teams
- Build and oversee maintenance of a robust enterprise design system in Figma
- Ensure WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance to deliver inclusive healthcare experiences
(2024 – 2026) UX/UI Course Instructor for Caltech & Purdue Bootcamps
SimpliLearn (California Institute of Technology & Purdue curriculum), Online
- Cultivating the next generation of UX talent by teaching weekend Bootcamp courses for adults covering Product UX/UI Design, Design Thinking, UX Research, Wireframing, Prototyping and Usability Evaluation
(2019) Sr. Software UX Designer — 9-month contract
NextEra Energy, Juno Beach, FL
- Design a NAESB compliant gas pipeline software for transportation of natural gas
- Create wireframes, hi/low fidelity mockups and design diagrams using Figma
- Collaborate with Product Owner, Business Analyst, front-end & back-end Agile Scrum development team
(2007 – 2019) Product Manager — formerly Lead Software Developer
The PGA of America, Palm Beach Gardens, FL
- Lead development of a near real-time online golf scoring system used in 150+ tournaments with live leaderboards, admin tools, mobile scoring devices, bulk SMS texting, reporting tools, and data feeds
- Manage and train walking scorers and scoring control staff for major championships
- Reduce scoring costs by over $200,000 per major event such as the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup
- Support 28,000 Golf Professionals and 11,000 Golf Facilities by developing custom websites and reports
(2015 – 2016) UX/UI and Web Development Instructor
Palm Beach Code School, Palm Beach, FL
- Teach User Experience, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery in 3.5 hour evening classes to groups of adults
(2005 – 2007) Multimedia Developer
Web Power, Inc., Palm Beach Gardens, FL
- Develop a multi-user, ColdFusion and MS-SQL database driven enterprise level web-based software solution to organize and meta-tag thousands of video clips for search and distribution
- Integrate Sony Vegas with ASP.NET and MS-SQL to automatically edit and encode video files into multiple formats with bumpers, overlays and fades
- Develop Visio mockups / wireframes of user interfaces with functional specifications driving UX
Education
B.S. in Computer Science & B.A. in Digital Arts
Stetson University, DeLand, FL
- CS Research: Automated categorization of video, based on audio content
- DA Research: A toolkit for real-time audio and video processing
The Landmark Forum Graduate
Landmark Education
- A program designed to bring about positive and permanent shifts in the quality of your life
Areas of Expertise
Product Design, Product Management, Software Design, UX/UI
Tools: Figma, Miro, Jira, Confluence, Deque Systems Axe DevTools, Claude & Claude Design
Activities: Design system creation and maintenance, wireframes, interactive prototypes, accessibility, low/mid/high fidelity screen mock-ups, personas, flow charts, UX diagrams
Software Development, Software Engineering
Tools: Visual Studio Code, GitHub, GitKraken, SQL Server Management Studio, Storybook
Activities: Software architecture, database architecture, code writing, code review
Photography, Video, Digital Media
Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro and Audition; Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Sony Vegas, Sony DVD Architect, Media 100
Activities: Professional, real-estate, car, corporate headshot and portrait photography; video shooting, switching, streaming and editing
General
Tools: Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Visio, OneNote, SharePoint and Teams; Google Analytics, Google Search Appliance, Slack, Businessmap
Activities: Software strategy, software roadmap
Activities and Awards
- Lead a team to winning the 1st place prize at the 2016 UX-Dev Summit Hackathon / Design-a-thon
- Contest winning photographer
- University Symphony Orchestra Scholarship (violin), Chamber Orchestra Scholarship (violin)
- University Dean Scholarship, multiple academic awards
- Association of Computing Machinery Vice President, Video Club, Photography Club, Math Club
Citizenship and Languages
U.S. Citizen. Fluent in English & Russian.
References
Available upon request.
Talks & Teaching
Miro Meetups Ambassador, South Florida
Selected by Miro in 2026 to host free, public meetups in South Florida each quarter, where designers and innovators get together to learn and share ideas in Miro.
Talks
Intro to UX Design in Miro – To Infinity and Beyond
My first Miro Meetup as an ambassador.
Read transcript
Inside AbbaDox’s UI/UX Design Process
A walkthrough of how my team takes a product idea from research to release.
Read transcript
Testing Secured APIs with Postman
An introduction to APIs, API gateways, securing endpoints and testing them with Postman.
Read transcriptTeaching
-
UX/UI Design
SimpliLearn bootcamps for Caltech and Purdue
-
UX/UI & Web Development
Palm Beach Code School
Invite me to speak
I speak about:
- UX design in Miro
- The product design process
- AI in design
- Growing designers
Beyond design: I also speak on photography at local photo clubs and at the Florida Camera Club Council’s annual conference.
Why Hire Roman?
- Extremely passionate about UX and product design
- 20 years
- User interaction experience (UX/UI)
- 18 years
- Leading web-based software engineering, and Agile/Scrum development
- 7 years
- Managing a team of remote UI designers and mentoring a team of product owners
