// MICHELLE LEE

Product Designer

Eye of a designer. Instinct of a PM. Pace of a builder.

LINKEDIN ↗

DESIGNED AND BUILT WITH FIGMA + NEXT.JS + TAILWIND + FRAMER MOTION + CLAUDE CODE :)

Design Craft×Product Strategy×AI + CodeDesign Craft×Product Strategy×AI + CodeDesign Craft×Product Strategy×AI + CodeDesign Craft×Product Strategy×AI + CodeDesign Craft×Product Strategy×AI + CodeDesign Craft×Product Strategy×AI + Code

01 / EXPERIENCE

Now

Founding Product Design Engineer

Blue Modern Advisory / Togari / Amber

AI-first B2B agency. Design systems + product strategy.

Health tech startup. Data enrichment + network visualization.

Los Angeles, CA

2025 – 2026

Founding Product Design Engineer

StoryStack

AI-powered photo tagging app. Designed and shipped 0→1.

Chicago, IL

2025 – 2026

Founding Product Design Engineer

Recess Sports

Designed and built in React Native with 300+ users, 30% D30 retention.

Chicago, IL

2023 — 2025

Lead Product Designer & Technical PM

Product Designer & Associate PM

Beyond Finance

$4.5M ARR. 250K → 450K WAU. Best of Beyond Award '24.

Chicago, IL

B.A.

Cognitive Science + Engineering Design

Northwestern University

McCormick School of Engineering Honors Student. Former Manufacturing and Design Engineering Program. The Garage (startup incubator). HCI Studio. Design for America.

Evanston, IL

02 / WORK

Selected Projects

Recess Sports
01Founder · 2024–NOW

Recess Sports

Designed a consumer sports app and used Claude Code to ship features myself. Skill-matching algorithm pairs players to pickup games at their level.

0 → 1 · React Native + Firebase

REACT NATIVEFIREBASECONSUMERFOUNDER
Beyond Finance
02Beyond Finance · 2023

Beyond Finance

Identified a $50M opportunity in un-enrolled debt and designed the self-serve enrollment flow end-to-end — from UX research to technical spec.

$4.5M additional ARR · 15K new accounts / month

CONSUMER MOBILEWEBFINTECH$4.5M ARR
Building This Portfolio
03Personal · 2026

Building This Portfolio

A meta case study: killed a 45-slide PDF and built this site as proof that the medium is the message.

4 days · Next.js 14 + Tailwind + Framer Motion

NEXT.JSTAILWINDFRAMER MOTIONMETA

ALSO SHIPPED

Design Systems

Built Beyond Finance's first component library and design system from scratch (before AI could do it for you). Scaled across 3 product surfaces.

Retention Roadmap

Owned 4-workstream retention program. Drove 4–5 ppt reduction in pre-first-settlement churn.

Biometric Auth Fix

Root-caused login failures via SQL analysis. Traced to mTLS handshake fragility. 92% → 97% success rate.

03 / ABOUT

Michelle Lee

I design products that ship within days, not months.

250K→450KWAU growth
$4.5Madditional ARR
Sole ICdesign lead

I was the first and only in-house product designer at Beyond Finance — wearing every hat: product strategy, UX research, visual design, design systems, and cross-functional leadership.

I helped scale their products from 250K to 450K WAUs, shipped features generating $4.5M in ARR, and built the design culture from zero. Now I'm building Recess Sports — a consumer rec sports app I designed and coded in React Native.


TOOLS

FigmaUXRProduct Data AnalyticsHeapAmplitudeFullStoryReact NativeTypeScriptFirebaseGraphQLSQLNext.jsTailwind CSS

I'm a real human being with hobbies and interests

Ask me about them some time!

KoreaBeachDogVolleyballJoshua TreeChinaSketchingSunsetApartmentBackground
Mini goldendoodle parentChess & CatanPhotographyAny city with a large body of waterApple Vision ProSketchingPianoD1 volleyball alum

04 / CONTACT

Let's build something!

Looking for a product designer who can ship?
I'm open to relocating to California or staying in Chicago, and ready to go.