Product Designer
Emily Backes
10 years of professional experience in project management, technical recruiting, design, and a BA in Sociology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. I'm interested in companies with a strong mission and mature design culture.
Design Experience
Veeva Product Designer
2026 – Present - Product design for Vault CRM Events Management. Leading design of the end-to-end event lifecycle for life sciences, from planning through speaker nomination, budget, expenses, and transfer-of-value reporting.
- Drive UX strategy across omnichannel engagement features, ensuring Events Management connects seamlessly with Approved Email, PromoMats, and OpenData for a 360° view of HCP interactions.
- Design for complex compliance workflows with configurable guardrails and approval chains that adapt to evolving global regulations across 100+ pharma customers and 128 countries.
- Leverage LLM tools to accelerate user research synthesis, simulate edge cases in regulatory-heavy workflows, and prototype interactions before engineering handoff.
Sortly Product Designer
2024 – 2026 - Draft PRDs and clarify design intent using LLM tools (Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor), surfacing edge cases and risks before cross-functional alignment. Then translate validated concepts into full-state Figma designs.
- Validate assumptions through direct customer conversations and rapid testing, treating research as a velocity tool. Partner with Product, Engineering, and Marketing to define how AI capabilities come to life in the product.
- Build interactive prototypes and iterate on flows; partner with engineering to decide what moves into the product, balancing technical feasibility, model behavior, and user needs.
Bowtie Product Designer
2024 - Owned the end-to-end design process for product features, moving from initial discovery through high-fidelity execution with strong autonomy.
- Designed and built complex user-centered interfaces, including wireframes, mockups, and prototypes.
- Translated patient onboarding analytics, research, and interview feedback into a rigorous methodology that informs the user journey.
Ronin & Co Product Designer
2021 – 2023 - Worked cross-functionally with product management, engineering, and research to create, iterate, and deliver high-fidelity UI and prototypes.
- Contributed to and utilized the Ronin & Co. design system, ensuring work was scalable and technically sound across complex SaaS constraints.
Interactions
User TestingWireframesUser SurveysLow-Fidelity PrototypeHi-FidelityUser InterviewsUX ResearchUI Design
Skills
AgileLeadershipMentorshipCat HerderCritical ThinkingProject Management
Tools
MiroMazeWebflowChatGPTZeplinSketchNotionFigmaClaude CodeGithub
Education
BA in Sociology
University of Colorado
Certifications
Webflow 101General Assembly UX Design
Past Experience
- SR Tech Recruiter / Designer - Pyramid Consulting 2021 – 2023
- Technical Recruiter - Manpower Group Experis 2018 – 2021
- Human Interest Manager - Inflow NS 2015 – 2018
- Project Manager - A-T Solutions PAE 2011 – 2015