John Fabela

Promoted from first design hire over a decade-long tenure at a consumer photo editing platform with 150M+ downloads.

• Led cross-functional design across iOS, Android, and web, partnering with Product and Engineering to ship features to 150M+ users while transitioning the business from free to subscription.
• Built a design system and scalable interaction patterns that kept a growing feature set consistent across three platforms, reducing design-to-development handoff friction.
• Led and mentored a team of 4 designers. Conducted user research and usability testing to inform design decisions and reduce onboarding time-to-value by 40%.

First design hire at an AI-powered SaaS platform for litigation attorneys. Reached $500K contracted ARR in under a year.

• Owned strategy, UX, UI, and brand from zero to $500K ARR, partnering directly with founders and engineers in a 0-to-1 environment.
• Conducted contextual inquiry sessions at law firms and iterative usability testing to validate AI-driven workflows for document analysis, timelines, and visual storyboards.
• Defined interaction models and experience boundaries for AI features, ensuring every AI response was transparent, cited, and constrained to uploaded evidence. Designed trust patterns that became the foundation of the product experience.

• Website design and development for clients across industries.
• Brand systems, logos, and visual identity creation.
• Rapid prototyping and shipping applications with modern AI-powered tools.