Hello, I am Andrew Alger!
I’m a design leader with 15+ years of experience managing teams and building products, for Fortune 500 companies and innovative start-ups.
I love to solve the nitty gritty design problems to make a product seamless. Much of my work has been solving the complex enterprise software that helps companies run smoothly. For that reason, most of my work is covered under NDA. My portfolio is available upon request!
Experience
Director of Design @ Tonic
Scaled in-house design team from 0 to 8 as founding design lead; defined design culture. Directed UX strategy for all engagements; spearheaded integration of design thinking.
2019-2023
Associate Creative Director @ IHS Markit
Shaped creative culture for our 45-person design team in Boulder, CO, and established a new satellite office in New York City. Drove business development; onboarded new clients through collaborative pitching. Led hiring; defined design direction across client engagements. Boosted team engagement through initiatives like the annual design awards event. Partnered with leadership to align design priorities and talent growth.
2015-2019
Senior Designer @ Markit Digital
Launched company-wide hack-a-thon. Led a team of designers in strategic product thinking, information architecture, ideation, interaction design, product design, and ship design deliverables for client engagements.
2012-2015
Designer @ Markit Digital
Designed websites, tools, and mobile applications for fintech and media clients. Projects included pitch decks, work for existing clients, and innovative ideation.
2009-2012
What is next?
I am currently looking for my next opportunity. Here are the qualities I am looking for:
After 15 years of honing my skills in agency environments, I'm ready to plant deep roots within a single product domain. While rewarding, agency work tends to provide only surface engagement across scattered industries. I yearn to couple my user-centered design expertise with a transcendent startup mission so I can wholly dedicate myself to the long-term.
Beyond richer context immersion, embedding within a unified product team fuels more impactful innovation cycles. Tight collaboration between design, engineering, and leadership roles kindles creativity compounding over the years together. The scrappiness of startups drives designers to wear multiple hats by necessity and learn new skills regularly.
Product Design
Challenging Problems
The majority of my career has centered on fintech design - an endlessly challenging domain I’m passionate about. More than just balancing complex data visualization and diverse user flows, financial product design requires grasping unique abstractions.
Unlike e-commerce focused on conversions or marketing aiming to drive clicks, measuring fintech success means guiding users to long-term financial well-being amid shifting markets. This represents an intricate moving target with constant new factors influencing evolving user needs over decades-long relationships.
Become An Expert
Great design solutions emerge from deep domain expertise fused with user empathy. While strong fundamentals like visual communication, information architecture, and interaction patterns form a foundation, I believe designers must level up their subject matter credentials to create truly impactful innovations.
This starts with rigorously researching the problem space and stakeholders when entering new terrain. Dialogues with partners across functions further enrich perspectives on constraints and objectives beyond surface assumptions. Immersing myself within ecosystems grants invaluable insider fluency to discern where the most painful friction points and untapped opportunities lie.
Great Team
I am looking to join a team that I can learn from and contribute to. A team that is focused on building great products and improving the craft we practice. Finding a team that is constantly looking for improvements is surprisingly difficult. A team environment that cultivates creativity and a team willing to take risks and embrace change.
Design is a vulnerable profession. It takes courage to put ideas out in the world, ask for feedback, and make changes. Building great work is difficult and requires empathy, curiosity, and emotional courage.
Portfolio
My portfolio work is available upon request.
Passion Projects
Outside of my day-to-day work I love to create and explore this wonderful world we live in. Here is a collection of projects I have created outside of work.
Hear Here
Collecting the stories surrounding us gives us a peek into the humanity we are surrounded by.
Sidewalk Stamps
A collection of sidewalk stamps found mostly around Denver Colorado. I love the details of these design artifacts!
Denver Bicycles
A street photography collection of folks traveling by bicycle. Trying to normalize a transportation method that the US has mostly forgotten about.
Doodles
I love to doodle. I started posting my doodles to keep a running catalog of work.
Explainers
Short Figma interactive prototypes exploring two key urban planning concepts.
CycleTale
CycleTale was a year-long community art project that explored the impact bikes have had on us!
Let’s Chat
Further professional work is available upon request.