UX Design Manager | AI Product Design

Darshini
Shah

I’ve spent the last 10 years designing products that make complex technology feel simple, useful, and human.

Darshini Shah presenting on stage — The hero image is editted with AI

Conversational AI hiring manager experience screen

Amazon | Corporate Hiring Platform

Pivoting Amazon's $1.3B hiring platform to agentic AI.

Reprioritized design capacity and led a 4-designer tiger team from concept to VP-ready prototype in 2 weeks.

Impact: VP approved the shift from persona hubs to conversational AI, changing the roadmap and end-to-end product experience.

AI product strategy Executive influence Roadmap pivot Agentic UX

Amazon | Employee Onboarding

Unifying employee onboarding across 67 countries and 75K annual hires.

Defined the product principle and milestone journey that moved onboarding into one platform.

Impact: Launched globally with 97% reach, 95% satisfaction, and completion time reduced from 21 to 14 days.

Universal journey structure Localized tasks Multiple service domains Single product principle AI onboarding assistant Experience strategy

Amazon | Sourcing and Candidate Pipeline

Redirecting candidate sourcing from static lists to active pipeline management.

Challenged the plan to rebuild a static third-party sourcing tool and reframed the model around active pipeline management.

Impact: Increased Pools usage by 32.5%, expanded adoption to 40+ teams, and shaped the 2026 roadmap.

Product strategy Pipeline UX Research-led vision Roadmap influence Agentic AI Cross-team alignment

Hiring platform dashboard and workflow screens

Amazon | Corporate Hiring Pipeline

Unifying internal and external hiring pipelines for 80K hiring managers.

Designed one comparable candidate view for internal and external hiring workflows.

Impact: Launched on time for 6,000 recruiters and 80,000 hiring managers, then extended into a Q4 2026 roadmap.

Unified workflow Information hierarchy Global research Accessibility coordination Multi-team delivery Launch execution

University recruiting and hiring workflow screens

Amazon | University Talent Acquisition

Setting the agentic vision for university recruiting.

Turned fragmented campus recruiting tools into an evidence-backed AI-first product vision.

Impact: Documented 65 pain points, benchmarked the competitive gap, and elevated university recruiting as a roadmap priority.

Foundational research Competitive benchmarking AI-first vision Journey strategy Investment case Roadmap shaping

Org Scale

Growing a design team from 2 to 12 across four product areas.

Scaled the org from 2 designers on one product to 12 designers across four product areas.
Earned each expansion by proving the prior scope was stable, well-led, and strategically valuable.
Built domain ownership so designers developed deep expertise while maintaining cross-product coherence.

Org Design Executive Influence Portfolio Planning Operating Systems

People Development

Helping senior designers grow into lead and management roles.

Grew lead IC ownership by giving a domain expert responsibility across all workstreams in her area.
Identified manager readiness before the designer saw that path for herself.
Created scaffolding with playbooks, decision protocols, and escalation paths so the transition was supported.

People Development Talent Coaching Org Design Operating Systems

Design Quality

Creating a structured critique system to raise design quality.

Created 8 critique lenses across user advocacy, interaction, visual craft, content, systems, data, business, and delight.
Assigned rotating champions so feedback became specific, rigorous, and less dependent on one person's taste.
Developed broader judgment by stretching designers beyond their default strengths.

Design Quality Critique Systems People Development Talent Coaching

Product Evidence

Turning user research into roadmap decisions.

Built Research-to-Action frameworks that map validated customer pain points to prioritized UX initiatives.
Created one framework per domain with journey stages, findings, and mapped design investments.
Shifted roadmap debates from opinion-based conversations to evidence-backed prioritization.

Research Strategy Decision Frameworks Evidence-Based Decisions Executive Influence

Discovery System

Making continuous discovery part of the product planning rhythm.

Moved research out of bursts and into the regular product development rhythm.
Established bi-weekly backlog reviews with UX research managers so key questions stayed active.
Connected insights to planning by feeding findings into live Research-to-Action frameworks.

Continuous Discovery Research Strategy Evidence-Based Decisions Operating Systems

AI Capability

Building AI product design capability across the team.

Built AI fluency from zero so designers could shape product decisions with science and engineering.
Ran bi-weekly expert coaching on automation levels, reliance patterns, explanation design, and task complexity.
Pressure-tested learning through hackathons where designers built agentic prototypes for real usability problems.

AI Product Strategy People Development Technical Collaboration Human-AI Interaction

Operating Model

Creating team systems that keep work moving without constant manager oversight.

Created structured intake so no work entered without clear scope, priority, and success criteria.
Ran portfolio reviews to manage capacity across domains and spot bottlenecks early.
Proved the system worked when the team operated without degradation during maternity leave.

Operating Systems Capacity Planning Portfolio Planning Org Design

Accessibility

Building an accessibility program adopted across the organization.

Took ownership of a company-level accessibility goal that lacked a scalable operating model.
Enabled 63 legacy applications with self-service audits, remediation materials, and office hours.
Reached measurable outcomes: 100% evaluated by September 30 and 92% mitigated by December 15.

Accessibility Operating Systems Executive Influence Evidence-Based Decisions

Influence

Aligning senior leaders around difficult product tradeoffs.

Aligned 4 senior directors to reprioritize active work by quantifying the cost of staying the course.
Built investment cases for internal mobility and university recruiting, changing how design resources were allocated.
Earned earlier influence so my input is sought before decisions are made, not after.

Executive Influence Stakeholder Alignment Portfolio Planning AI Product Strategy

Journey Ownership

Owning UX strategy across the full corporate hiring journey.

Owned UX strategy across 11 stages of corporate hiring where no unified vision existed.
Connected siloed research to product investment decisions through a shared Research-to-Action framework.
Created a reusable leadership mechanism now replicated across internal transfer, onboarding, and university recruiting.

Journey Strategy Research Strategy Decision Frameworks Stakeholder Alignment

AI Product Strategy

Shifting hiring tools from manual workflows to AI-guided experiences.

Shifted the strategy from form-based tools to AI-guided hiring experiences that reduce cognitive load.
Established AI Search as a Q3 2026 stepping stone toward conversational recruiter workflows.
Defined the Q4 vision for AI-guided requisition creation, candidate summaries, and hiring decisions.

AI Product Strategy Executive Influence Human-AI Interaction Journey Strategy

Career

Work
Experience

UX Design Manager

Amazon · Corporate Hiring and Onboarding

San Francisco, CA

Apr 2024 — Present

Lead AI transformation strategy for Amazon's corporate hiring ecosystem, aligning product leaders, scaling a 12-person design org, and shaping platforms that support 75K annual hires across 67 countries.

AI Product Strategy Design Leadership Hiring Ecosystem Org Scale

UX Design Manager

Amazon · Talent Acquisition Marketing

San Francisco, CA

Aug 2022 — Apr 2024

Led the global marketing UX function supporting 1M+ candidate hires annually, using conversion rate optimization, micro-conversion analytics, and product experimentation to improve candidate acquisition.

Candidate Acquisition Design Systems Analytics Conversion Strategy

UX Designer III

Amazon · Hourly Hiring

San Francisco, CA

Oct 2021 — Jul 2022

Owned candidate experiences for high-volume hiring across the US, India, and Mexico, spanning job search, application, screening, hiring events, and Day 1 orientation.

High-Volume Hiring Candidate Journey Operations UX Global Scale

Senior Product Designer

SAP Ariba

Palo Alto, CA

Oct 2018 — Jul 2020

Designed enterprise procurement products for 3.6M users across 190 countries and shipped the first Intelligent Configuration Manager release within 9 months.

Enterprise SaaS Procurement 3.6M Users Platform Design

A little about me

AI Product Strategy & Transformation

$1.3BHiring platform opportunity 75KAnnual hires supported 67Countries in scope

I lead AI transformation across Amazon's corporate hiring products, turning fragmented workflows into clearer systems for recruiters, candidates, employees, and new hires. My work connects product strategy, AI interaction design, and executive alignment so complex decisions become easier to act on.

Leadership & Org Building

4Product domains 2-12Org scaled 8Critique lenses

I build design teams that can operate with autonomy and quality. Over the last three years, I scaled a design organization from 2 to 12, created operating rhythms for critique and prioritization, and helped designers grow into deeper domain ownership.

Enterprise Systems & Product Craft

8 yrsDesigning complex products 75KAnnual hires supported 67Countries in scope

My foundation is enterprise systems: corporate hiring, onboarding, internal mobility, and high-volume candidate experiences. I am strongest where ambiguity is high, workflows are messy, and the product has to support judgment, trust, and scale for Amazon teams around the world.

Darshini Shah

Pivoting Amazon's $1.3B hiring platform to agentic AI.

Unifying employee onboarding across 67 countries and 75K annual hires.

Redirecting candidate sourcing from static lists to active pipeline management.

Unifying internal and external hiring pipelines for 80K hiring managers.

Setting the agentic vision for university recruiting.

Growing a design team from 2 to 12 across four product areas.

Helping senior designers grow into lead and management roles.

Creating a structured critique system to raise design quality.

Turning user research into roadmap decisions.

Making continuous discovery part of the product planning rhythm.

Building AI product design capability across the team.

Creating team systems that keep work moving without constant manager oversight.

Building an accessibility program adopted across the organization.

Aligning senior leaders around difficult product tradeoffs.

Owning UX strategy across the full corporate hiring journey.

Shifting hiring tools from manual workflows to AI-guided experiences.

WorkExperience

UX Design Manager

UX Design Manager

UX Designer III

Senior Product Designer

A little about me

AI Product Strategy & Transformation

Leadership & Org Building

Enterprise Systems & Product Craft

Darshini
Shah

Work
Experience