Charla Kunkel

I hired Kyle as a contract designer while I was working as the VP of Engineering and Product at an early-stage startup. What started as a three-month contract to assist with our product backlog grew into a 10-month (and still going) engagement thanks to the significant value he brought to the team. He was a key resource for us establishing new practices in UX design at a time when the organization was undergoing a lot of change.

Kyle is highly adaptable and can perform a lot of different functions at high quality. His high degree of organization made it possible for us to have him work across multiple tracks of work collaborating with different stakeholders. His understanding of agile enabled him to seamlessly integrate design deliverables into our workflow, balancing innovative design with the flexibility to adapt to changing requirements—a must in our fast-paced startup.

Kyle’s ability to understand and work within complex database requirements is rare among designers. One of Kyle’s key projects involved developing detailed reporting visualizations for highly complex datasets that would bring a lot of value to our B2B customers. He demonstrated remarkable skill utilizing the provided database schema to infer meaningful data patterns, have rich collaborative conversations with engineers, and translate intricate schemas into actionable and intuitive visualizations. He invented patterns that surprised even me! He then rigorously refined these designs to ensure that the visualizations were user-friendly and effectively communicated dense information and worked closely with our PM to break them down into user stories for our backlog in a way that balanced customer value with engineering efficiency. It was some of the most thoughtful and innovative deliveries I’ve seen.

Kyle was an advocate for introducing a robust design system for our organization—articulating the benefits of the system not only for visual design coherence, but (importantly for us) for improving development efficiency. Critically for us, he rolled out the design system with a phased approach that ensured it enhanced our workflow without impeding development. This included both the technical and social aspects of the rollout—thinking through not only the way that things should be oriented in Figma, but also how different people in the organization could use it. This included collaborating closely with our UI Architect to make sure that design and engineering were perfectly aligned and moving forward together.

Kyle’s speed, accuracy, and ease of engagement distinguish him as a top performer. He consistently delivered high-quality work with minimal context, and loves the hard challenges.

This is my second time working with Kyle and each time I’m so impressed with his ability to manage complex design tasks and deliver real value on every project. I highly recommend him for roles requiring expertise in rapid, precise, and flexible design execution.