Portrait of Jill Lin

About

I lead UX and product design for B2B enterprise SaaS, and I'm at my best on version one: the design system that doesn't exist yet, the journey nobody owns, the feature in a domain new to everyone.

What draws me there is that version one is where the structure gets decided, and structure is what everything after it inherits. Get it right and the next five years are cheaper. Get it wrong and every team after you pays for it quietly.

Strategy isn't done until it ships. I'm most interested in the work that compounds: a design system that outlives its first release, a team set up so nobody solves the same problem twice, AI that gets me fluent in a new domain in days instead of months.

I started in industrial design, and it never quite left. I still think about interfaces the way I think about objects. They have constraints, tolerances, and consequences, and someone has to live with all three.

Along the way: seven international design awards, and a design system that's still about 80% in use eight years later.

Things I sort by colorMy phone apps.In a perfect gradient. The one place I let aesthetics beat usability.
Things I sort by logicEverything I design for other people.
Things I refuse to sortMy coffee opinions.They're all strong.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area · Open to remote

Experience

  1. Product Design Lead, API Connect

    IBM · 2023 – Present
    • Set design direction for the highest-priority work on IBM's enterprise API management platform, with product management, engineering, marketing and partner product teams.
    • Design lead on two new product introductions and one new feature introduction in 2026, each moving through funded design gates.
    • Get design in before technical decisions are set, using AI-assisted domain research and functional prototypes to align teams on direction.
    • Connect design with go-to-market through launch readiness and instrumentation planning, and keep the experience consistent across the platforms that embed API Connect.

  2. Senior Designer, API Connect

    IBM · 2016 – 2023
    • Built the product's design system as the first pilot adopter of IBM Carbon. About 80% is still in use after two major Carbon migrations.
    • Design lead for the SaaS growth motion in 2022, from marketing page through activation.
    • Led the product's design award submissions in 2019 and 2023.

  3. Product Designer, Mobile

    Madison Reed · 2014 – 2016
    • Designed the iOS app for the at-home hair color brand, including the hands-free tutorial.

Off the canvas

Lead a design teamI set the direction for four designers and a UX researcher on IBM API Connect. Every two weeks we run a design playback, so everyone keeps up with each other's work and our patterns stay consistent.
Grow the teamI'm part of every step of growing the team, from hiring to mentoring, and I use AI to get new designers up to speed faster.
Bring customers inEvery month I host a client advisory board, so our designers hear from API Connect customers directly. Preview feedback and industry conferences fill in the rest.
Share what worksI presented our Carbon adoption at IBM Carbon Day, and I encourage other IBM teams to enter design awards, then help them tell the story of their work well.

Recognition

International design awards

  • Red Dot2023
  • W32023
  • European Product Design2023
  • Stratus2023
  • Indigo2023
  • iF Design2019
  • Good Design2019

IBM awards

  • Outstanding Technical Achievement Award2021, 2023
  • RockIT! Exceptional Innovation Award2021

Education

MFA, Industrial Design

Academy of Art University, San Francisco