Greeting: Hello

I’m Jess, a curious and creative product & design leader who thrives on building impactful products, businesses, and user experiences through strong collaboration.

With over 12 years of experience, I lead work and life with empathy, humility, and grace. I love using strategic problem-solving and collaboration skills to define relationships between business objectives, user challenges, product management, and design.

A smiling woman with long brown hair, wearing large transparent glasses and a tan headband, outdoors.

Design & PM Work

What is it like to work with me?

  • Farrah Underwood

    Senior Technical Program Manager

    “Jess is an exceptional product manager and a true force of nature. With her unique blend of UI design, UX research, SaaS expertise, startup savvy, and sharp problem-solving skills, she brings unmatched depth and perspective to every project she touches.

    She is highly collaborative, working cross-functionally with grace and intention, always ensuring that every voice is heard and every perspective is considered. Her ability to bring teams together is a superpower in itself.

    What truly sets Jess apart is her humility, kindness, and relentless curiosity. She approaches challenges with a calm, inquisitive mindset that creates a safe space for innovation and creativity to thrive. I had the pleasure of working closely with her on several feature launches and they were some of the smoothest, most rewarding launches of my career. I also had the joy of partnering with her on a standout presentation for a company-wide event, and it was genuinely one of the most fun and inspiring collaborations I’ve had.

  • Aaron Miles

    Senior Manager, Product Delivery

    “I had the pleasure of working with Jess in her roles of product designer and then later as she transitioned to product manager. She excelled in both roles, bringing excellent attention to detail, design thinking, creative solutions to complex problems and diligent user-centered product management through all phases of the product life cycle process. In both roles, I appreciated her focus on user research and stakeholder collaboration. As a product manager, I was very impressed by her ability to not only write product requirement documents, but to translate those into detailed users stories and lead collaboration with engineering (she could even be a product owner if she wanted). Equally important are her soft skills, Jess is so great to collaborate with, and leads with empathy and understanding in ability to manage cross-functionaly stakeholders and gain alignment. Work with Jess, you won't regret it!”

  • Steve Haar

    Senior Lead Developer

    "Jess is a rare designer who can demonstrate incredible pragmatism without ever compromising user experience. Jess' work philosophy revolves around empathy. Empathy for the user, the stakeholders, and her fellow teammates. She is an amazingly talented yet humble designer with uncanny leadership ability. As an engineer, it was always a pleasure to work with Jess. During my tenure at EstateSales.NET, Jess and I were able to put together perhaps the most effective cross-functional team I have ever been a part of. We were able to accomplish so much, and it would never have been possible without Jess leading our design department."

  • Michael Skinner

    Senior Product Manager

    “When Jess joined the team, it was the first time I got to work with an expert in UX, and it freed me up to focus on other parts of the product development process. It's a game changer to have someone you can trust completely to either make the right call based on industry patterns and best practices or bring the team in to collaborate on a decision. Jess knows the product process and has good instincts, and she's poised to make a jump past UX into broader product responsibilities.”

  • Erica Hendrix

    Marketing Team Member

    "Ridiculously talented is what comes to mind when I think of Jessica. I have had the pleasure of working with Jess for nearly eight years. I am part of the marketing team and collaborate with her and her team often. She leads with grace and empathy, making her one of the most effective leaders in the company. What I admire most about Jess is her eagerness to grow and continue to learn. Jess is reliable and quick to think of creative solutions for problems. I can't recommend her enough."

  • Amy Baker

    Customer Support Manager

    "Jessica is a superbly talented and thoughtful designer. She and I have worked together over the last 5 years in various capacities. Always with the customer journey at the forefront, she propels projects and teammates with her extreme organization and communication. Countless times I've asked, how in the world does she get all done and do it so well? Her ability to design, manage and lead makes her a dream to work alongside. Jessica is the ultimate designer and our website shows it. She makes it easy to be proud of our company's product!"

  • Mattie Jo Graham

    Product Designer

    "Jessica is a human-first designer, manager, and friend. I’ve been lucky to work with Jess in several capacities, most recently as a product designer on her team. Jess’s superpower lies in her ability to hone in on what is most important, the why. Every design and user experience is thoughtfully crafted with grace, humility, and empathy. Her commitment and involvement to the professional development and mentorship of her team is unmatched. She takes a holistic approach to management and design, creating delightful user experiences. I’d without a doubt recommend Jess as a product designer. Additionally, she’s a great mentor and example to designers that are new to the career."

My Design Principles

Two hands forming a heart shape around a smaller heart.

Be Helpful

Use the resources you have available to you to help your users, the business, and your coworkers. Help the most amount of people and hurt the least. Make the hard decisions.

Line drawing of a balanced scale, representing justice or law.

Ethics-First Decision-Making

Remove Bias and understand your own, with the help of reflection, diversity insight, and research by prioritizing accessibility over beauty or novelty, and nurture an environment where ideas can be freely shared without fear of judgment.

A target with concentric circles and an arrow hitting the bullseye.

Intentional About Design

Understand the needs of both users and the business by focusing on the problem and the purpose, keeping in mind both effects on today and the future, determining success/failure, and always thinking about maintainability and scalability.

My Creative Process

No two projects are the same, and this is a general overview of how I work alongside people. Some projects may skip steps or change the order, which is fine because the design process isn’t always straight. This is a general outline that explains the stages and the work involved.

My UX and product process is really rooted in bringing clarity to messy spaces, aligning people around what matters most, and making sure we’re solving the right problem.

Understand the Users & Business to Define the Problem

Investigate what’s actually going on for the user and the business. That means talking to users, partnering with CX, stakeholders, looking at data, and asking a lot of why questions.

Align the Team Around a North Star

Once we’re clear on the problem, I align the team around a shared direction and north star. From there, I shape the experience, starting with simple, intuitive flows and then moving into high-quality design that’s actually useful, not just polished.

Determining Impact Value/Get the Product in Users Hands

I’m very intentional about scope. I focus on delivering the most impactful value first, even if that means making tradeoffs, so we can get something in users’ hands quickly and learn from it.

Partner with Cross-functional Teams Especially Engineers Throughout

I stay close to engineering throughout, collaborating early and often to move faster and avoid rework. I ensure scope changes and trade offs are communicated forward to keep all team pointed in the same direction including CX, marketing, sales, product, and stakeholders. And once we ship, I’m always looking at usage and feedback to continue improving.

At the end of the day, I care about building the right thing, with the team aligned, in a way that truly works for users.

A Few Books That Influenced My Craft and Process

If you love books, like I do, and want to learn more about how I've shaped my processes over time, be sure to check out the books below! I've recommended them to all the individuals I've mentored over the years.