Vijay Gaikwad
Open to Principal, Lead & UX Manager roles Principal Product Designer · Enterprise SaaS

I design enterprise SaaS that millions rely on — grounded in research, shipped in production.

Fifteen years across fundraising and association software. I lead research across support, sales, and product strategy; own design systems used by six teams; and ship the front-end code that makes design decisions stick. Products I've led now serve 500K+ users.

See selected work → Download resume (PDF)
15+Years in enterprise SaaS
500K+Users on platforms I've led
40%Faster design-to-dev handoff
Vijay Gaikwad, Principal Product Designer
Lead role

Principal UX Lead · Momentive Software

formerly Community Brands

GiveSmart suite — Events · Fundraise · CRM

11 yrs · 500K+ users · 6 product teams
Experience across
Momentive Software GiveSmart Fiserv Xpanxion Quagnitia Systems
// Operating at scale

Numbers that aren't decoration.

Each one corresponds to a shipped decision and a defended outcome — not a list of skills.

15+ yrs
Enterprise SaaS product design
500K+
Users on platforms I've led
6 teams
Aligned on one design system
40% ↓
Design-to-development handoff
2,400+
Support tickets analysed for product change
120+
Customer discovery sessions
// How I lead

Senior craft is table stakes. Leadership is the part most portfolios skip.

Four pieces of evidence — how I lead the work and the team, not just what I designed.

1 → 4

Grew the UX team and the rituals around it

Built the career ladder, hiring rubric, and weekly critique culture that scaled the function from a single designer to a four-person team shipping across six product teams.

16 wks

Authored the team's AI-UX curriculum

Designed and delivered the 16-week AI-augmented design program — Claude Code, Lovable, v0 with research-guarded prompts — and presented the executive rollout.

6 teams

Embedded with engineering on every system rollout

The design system landed across six product teams because I pair-designed and pair-coded the first feature with each team's lead. Adoption was earned, not mandated.

2,400+

Turned support & sales feedback into product strategy

Analysed 2,400+ support tickets and ran lost-deal post-mortems with AEs. Surfaced nine prioritised opportunities across CRM and AMS; four moved onto the active roadmap.

// Selected work

Four decisions that moved a roadmap.

Strategic cases — each one a research insight, a design decision, and a measurable outcome.

Research Practice · CRM & AMS

From support tickets to product strategy

↳ ~35% drop in renewal tickets · 5 shipped projects · roadmap influence
Problem
Renewal-related tickets dominated the support queue and were being treated as defect noise. The cost was invisible; the strategic signal was buried.
Approach
12-month ticket clustering, 2,400+ tagged records, interviews with the 20 admins behind the top issues — and a research operating model that runs in three modes: support-led, sales-led, and product-discovery-led.
Outcome
Reorganised the AMS information architecture around the work, not modules. Renewal tickets fell ~35% the quarter after launch, and the same pattern unlocked nine roadmap opportunities across CRM and AMS.
See the research practice
Design System · Components · Tokens · Storybook

Designing one system that aligned six teams

↳ 40% cut in design-to-development handoff · WCAG 2.2 AA built in
Problem
Six product teams shipped inconsistent UI and rebuilt the same components — every handoff slow, every release visually fragmented.
Approach
Owned the system end-to-end — token foundation, accessible components, governance, and the cross-team adoption that made it stick. Storybook + tokens as one source of truth.
Outcome
One design language across six teams, a 40% cut in handoff time, and WCAG 2.2 AA baked into the components.
Read the full case study View in Figma
Enterprise SaaS · GiveSmart Events, Fundraise & CRM

Reframing financial data for 500K donors — and the trust problem behind it

↳ 28% improvement in task-completion · 6 surfaces redesigned
Problem
A multi-item gala order should consolidate to one row — but five staff roles read the same data five different ways. The risk wasn't the toggle; it was trust after the toggle.
Approach
Research mapped the persona conflict (Development vs Finance vs Events); design reframed it as a verification moment grounded in the admin's real records, not an illustration.
Outcome
A roll-up model that protects FMV/TDA at the item level, preserves Finance's reconciliation needs, and reads correctly for Development. 28% lift in task completion; 6 surfaces redesigned in one system.
Read the full case study
Accessibility & AI · Across the product suite

The company's first WCAG 2.2 AA programme — plus AI guardrails that cut research cycles 35%

↳ WCAG 2.2 AA across the suite · 35% faster research
Problem
Accessibility was inconsistent and research cycles were slow, limiting how fast the team could validate and ship inclusive experiences.
Approach
Championed the company's first WCAG 2.2 AA initiative with automated a11y testing in CI/CD, and embedded AI into synthesis workflows with guardrails tied to primary research.
Outcome
Accessibility raised to AA across the suite and research cycles 35% faster — without sacrificing rigour. Authored the 16-week AI-UX curriculum.
// Frontend advantage

Why I build what I design.

Design decisions only count when they ship. I write production React, TypeScript, and CSS — so handoffs don't lose intent, prototypes can be real, and design systems live in production code, not just Figma.

// no translation loss

One head, one decision

Spec, prototype, and the first PR all come from the same brain. The system is built in code as it's drawn in Figma — tokens, components, accessibility, all at once.

// real prototypes

Tested at production density

The GiveSmart roll-up prototype was a working React app spanning six admin surfaces, not a Figma click-through. Edge cases got found before engineering invested.

// the contract

The system lived in production CSS

Tokens weren't a design artefact — 224 references to --brand-navy in the production stylesheet. They were the contract engineering built against.

// If you're comparing candidates

Why hire me instead of…

A direct read of where I sit against the four roles your shortlist probably also contains.

// vs. a pure UX Designer

I bring research, systems thinking, and working code. The handoff stays whole because I sit on both sides of it.

// vs. a Product Manager

I bring user evidence and senior design judgement — plus the ability to prove or kill a hypothesis in working UI inside a week.

// vs. a Frontend Developer

I run usability studies, lead research across support and sales, and design the system before I write the CSS. Most engineers don't.

// vs. an "AI-first" Designer

I use AI as a force multiplier (Claude Code, v0, Lovable) anchored to primary research — not a substitute for design judgement. I wrote the team's curriculum on it.

// Let's talk

Hiring for Principal, Lead, or UX Manager?

RecruitersHappy to share work samples and references, and walk you through a case in 20 minutes.
Hiring managersStart with the problem you're solving — I'll tell you how I'd approach it.
Product leadersComfortable in roadmap and exec conversations as well as critique and craft.
Email me → LinkedIn Download resume (PDF) Remote-first · Open to relocation · Pune, India