Cornelia Varlam

━ Digital Product Designer

Work

Cornelia Varlam

━ Digital Product Designer

Why am I applying to
Interaction Design Foundation ?

A quick breakdown of why am I a great fit for the
UI Designer and Figma Specialist role

Hi I'm Cornelia! 👋

I am a product designer with diverse experience both in the startup, MOIA- Volkswagen Group & enterprise, IBM Studio environments.

In my 8+ yrs of design experience, I have spent 3+ yrs as a product designer in end-to-end experiences for web apps and mobile, in house. Previously, I designed for 2+ yrs in branding, ad and web.
I have a
• Strong UI and Visual Design background
• guided by Product Thinking,
• and supported by strong Developer collaboration

Recently, in my Consultant Mentor role,
• I helped launch a Product Design Course as a SME with CareerFoundry, which is an area I am passionate about. I also mentor students for UX/UI courses at Designlab & CareerFoundry.

Why I am a good fit

UI & Visual Design

I excel in UI & Visual Design skills

typographic hierarchy

grid systems

color in UI

interaction

Figma

Figma is my comfort zone

auto-layout

variant components

scalability & Design Systems

View Figma file

Problem-solving

Keeping the business goals, user needs & constraints in mind to create impact

Impact

User needs

Business Goals

I’m eager to leverage my experience, including:

Built DocMe from scratch, reaching 400+ users and driving adoption

See Project

Increasing MOIA’s conversion rate from 41,000 to 260,000 while ensuring security and usability

See Project

Aligning user needs with innovative product ideas, to drive product success
See Project

Cross-collaboration

I thrive in a highly collaborative environment

cross-collaboration across product expertise

Adaptable

A "getting stuff done" mindset

mission-driven

wide range of responsibilities

Whether attending industry programs or improving internal workflows, I continually grow by engaging with relevant areas of expertise.

CJBS- Accelerate Cambrige Program | YC School
Participating in industry programs like YC School and the CJBS Accelerate Cambridge Programme.

Involvement in defining collaboration Design-Dev Collaboration processes

Based on my improved understanding of front-end development workflows. Through collaborating in sprints and also contributing to front-end code changes in an agency setting. - I was able to support the DocMe Design & Dev team in defining our collaboration workflow.

Prioritization & Product vision

Prioritizing, while keeping the product vision in mind

MVP

incremental approach

Brand & Design System

Working within a Brand & Design System

Brand

Design System

Passion for design education

Passionate & experienced in Design Education

course co-creation

mentoring & tutoring

As a consultant Product Designer, I mentored students at CareerFoundry and Designlab, co-created a Product Design course as a Subject-Matter Expert, and managed diverse student projects. This honed my collaboration, communication, expertise, and multitasking skills, improving my Product Designer Individual Contributor skills.

COURSE LAUNCH IMPACT

Increasing course Enrolment and Revenue Growth

New concepts or frameworks introduced that resonate with learners.

Improved course ratings post-launch compared to prior offerings.

Skills overview

My strong points

My skills in identifying problems to solve them effectively

Applied product thinking in the startup & enterprise environment
My strengths as a designer lie in connecting the user goals with business needs, as well as factoring technical considerations.

Design + Dev collaboration in the agency environment

Improving my understanding of front-end development workflows.Through collaborating in sprints and I also contributed to front-end code changes in an agency setting.

Strong background in Visual & Interaction Design

As a Design graduate, I have a strong knowledge in Visual & UI design patterns, which in order to be effective reflect both business and technical considerations.