Anatole Ayadi
Staff / Principal Product Designer
anatoleayadi@gmail.com·aaoa.design·linkedin.com/in/anatoleayadi
English, fluent · Français, native · 日本語, conversational with JLPT study ongoing
Returning to Tokyo, Q4 2026. Previously resident in Japan. Seeking Staff or Principal Product Designer roles at English-first companies. Visa sponsorship required.
20 years in product design, from mechanical engineering to agencies, startups, and their acquisitions. I work directly in the codebase: taking products from 0→1, rebuilding them when the market demands it, shipping and maintaining design systems as production packages, and deciding what not to build. Full case studies are available at aaoa.design.
Experience
Braineet
2017 – 2023 · 6 yrs
Lead Product Designer · B2B innovation SaaS, Paris · Acquired
- Led product design across three product generations and two full pivots, from a narrow-market ideation platform to Project Portfolio Management: the generation that found product-market fit and carried the company to acquisition.
- Built and maintained three design systems, one per product generation, each a shared component library, tokens and patterns unifying client-facing challenge management, backend administration and company dashboards.
- Interviews with project managers, plus a competitive review of Asana, Trello and ClickUp, surfaced the gap that became the rebuild: plenty of tools to collect ideas, none that carried them through to which projects actually get funded.
- Designed the PPM rebuild: portfolio-first navigation with drill-down, a steps-and-gates Gantt view, and a custom-field data model users could toggle, reorder, filter, group and sort. Added a Smart PowerPoint exporter binding live portfolio data to slide placeholders, removing the manual reporting cycle that blocked executive adoption.
- Killed a feature that tested well and failed in practice. Guided brainstorming drove enthusiastic idea generation, then stalled, proving the bottleneck was downstream execution rather than ideation. That finding redirected the company.
Embedded Design Consultant · Design consultancy, Paris
- Embedded on the pitch-and-prove engagement that won BNP Paribas, one of France's largest banks, as a client.
- Ran all research on site at the bank: bilingual French and English discovery workshops with employees and managers, persona and context mapping, and day-in-the-life journey mapping across six stages including night-shift patterns and crisis peaks. Prioritised with dot-voting, then handed the programme over running at full speed.
Geronimo
2015 – 2017 · 2 yrs
Product Designer · Digital agency, Paris · Acquired by Onepoint
- Ran up to seven client projects in parallel in a given week, for clients including Dior, L'Oréal, SNCF and Axa Assistance.
- Built five design systems and countless UI kits across the client roster, one per brand, so every team shipped consistently at agency pace.
- Shipped across an unusually wide surface: a travel-risk companion for Axa Assistance, QuickSign KYC document capture, the Brok&Trok second-hand marketplace, Dior TV, L'Oréal Citizen Day, an SNCF quiz and survey platform, and VR prototypes tested on Oculus.
- Led UI and UX research with prototypes in Scrum teams, running 15+ user testing sessions and client workshops. The pace taught prioritisation and judgement about when work is ready to ship.
iPStand
2014 – 2015 · 1 yr
Product Designer · Mobile product design, Paris
- iPad and iPhone interfaces, wireframes, prototypes and motion design.
CNC Operator
2010 – 2013 · 3 yrs
Precision Machinist · Automotive & aerospace
- Mechanical engineering and industrial drawing. Precision milling for automotive (Bugatti, Formula 1) and aerospace (Airbus, Thales).
MacJava
2006 – 2011 · 5 yrs
Graphic Designer and Educator · Mac OS enthusiast community
- Designed and wrote technical content for a Mac OS enthusiast community. That work began a teaching practice that has now reached 12,000+ learners.
Other Experience
Product Lead · AI-native design studio, remote
- Lead design across a lean, AI-native team shipping to the App Store and the web, every project built and shipped with AI tooling: research, product decisions, interface, design systems and front-end implementation.
- Kann 間 (iOS, SwiftUI): 4,000 downloads, 7,620+ curated vocabulary entries across 22 domains on a modified SM-2+ spaced-repetition engine, 730 commits over 21 months.
- Prefume (iOS, SwiftUI, GRDB): 1,000+ users; rebuilt the recommendation engine from 9 scoring dimensions to 3 honest inputs in 310 lines.
- Bhann (Next.js, Convex): a 21-tier decremental pricing model with a live public transparency page.
- NoMercy.tv (Design Lead, Strategy): design advisory for a self-hosted media server competing with Plex on library ownership, delivering a mainstream streaming experience over user-owned infrastructure.
- MooooM (Figma, npm): design system shipped as 5 npm packages, 6,319 icons, 860+ generated tokens, 38+ WCAG 2.1 AA components. Token and icon pipelines are generated, not hand-maintained.
Design Professor · Live teaching
- Teach product and interface design live to a recurring audience, covering critique, design systems, and design-to-code workflows. More than 12,000 people taught across platforms, with a focus on making design reasoning clear to non-designers.
How I Work
Design → Code
I ship what I design in SwiftUI, React, Next.js, TypeScript, and CSS. Prototypes are working builds, so validation uses the real product.
Systems
Design systems built and maintained across four companies. Tokens and icons generated from source, never hand-maintained.
Deciding what not to build
Every case study explains which feature I deliberately cut and why. Careful control of scope creates lasting value.
Research
100+ end users interviewed directly. In-person discovery workshops, journey mapping, usability sessions, competitive analysis, 1,000+ beta testers on Kann alone.
Skills
Design
Product design, design systems, interaction design, UX research, usability testing, brand identity, information architecture, accessibility and inclusive design (WCAG 2.1 AA), prototyping
AI
Integral to how I ship code, Claude Code and Cursor for implementation, local models via LM Studio for private work, AI-assisted research synthesis and content curation.
Engineering
SwiftUI, SwiftData, React, Next.js, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, Convex, GRDB, Git
Tools
Figma, Framer, Xcode, Cursor, Claude Code, LM Studio, GitHub, Notion, Sketch Book and Pencil
Education
MSc, Digital Media & Web Development · EPSAA, Paris · 2014–2015
BTS, Graphic Design & Print Communication · École Supérieure Estienne, Paris · 2013–2014
BTEC HND, Industrial Drawing & Mechanical Engineering · Lycée Jules Algoud, Valence · 2009–2013
Certifications: JavaScript Intermediate (SoloLearn, 2024) · Introduction to Machine Learning (Google, 2023) · Foundations of UX Design (Google, 2021) · Foundations of Project Management (Google, 2021)
20 years in product design, from mechanical engineering to agencies, startups, their acquisitions, and now my own studio. I work directly in the codebase: taking products from 0→1, rebuilding them when the market demands it, shipping and maintaining design systems as production packages, and deciding what not to build. Full case studies are available at aaoa.design.
Experience
AAOA.studio
2023 – Present
Product Lead · AI-native design studio, remote
- Lead design across a lean, AI-native team shipping to the App Store and the web, every project built and shipped with AI tooling: research, product decisions, interface, design systems and front-end implementation.
- Kann 間 (iOS, SwiftUI). 4,000 downloads, 2.2 sessions/day, sustained daily-habit retention. 7,620+ curated vocabulary entries across 22 domains, on a modified SM-2+ spaced-repetition engine tracking four question types with response-time weighting. 730 commits over 21 months.
- MooooM (Figma, npm). Design system shipped as 5 npm packages: 6,319 icons across four weights, 860+ tokens generated from 28 colour scales in sRGB and P3, 38+ WCAG 2.1 AA components with full ARIA and keyboard navigation. Token and icon pipelines are generated, not hand-maintained.
- Prefume (iOS, SwiftUI, GRDB). 1,000+ users. Rebuilt the recommendation engine from 9 scoring dimensions and 1,159 lines to 3 honest inputs in 310 lines once the original proved to need data new users do not have.
- Bhann (Next.js, Convex). Designed a 21-tier decremental pricing model where price falls as the user base grows, making extractive pricing structurally impossible. Live public transparency page for revenue, costs and sustainability.
NoMercy.tv
2022 – Present
Product Design · Long-term design advisory
- Ongoing advisory for a self-hosted media server competing with Plex on library ownership, delivering a mainstream streaming experience over user-owned infrastructure.
Design Professor · Live teaching
- Teach product and interface design live to a recurring audience, covering critique, design systems, and design-to-code workflows. More than 12,000 people taught across platforms, with a focus on making design reasoning clear to non-designers.
Braineet
2017 – 2023 · 6 yrs
Lead Product Designer · B2B innovation SaaS, Paris · Acquired
- Led product design across three product generations and two full pivots, from a narrow-market ideation platform to Project Portfolio Management: the generation that found product-market fit and carried the company to acquisition.
- Built and maintained three design systems, one per product generation, each a shared component library, tokens and patterns unifying client-facing challenge management, backend administration and company dashboards.
- Interviews with project managers and a review of Asana, Trello and ClickUp revealed the gap behind the rebuild: many tools collected ideas, but none carried them through funding decisions.
- Designed the PPM rebuild: portfolio-first navigation with drill-down, a steps-and-gates Gantt view, and a custom-field data model users could toggle, reorder, filter, group and sort. Added a Smart PowerPoint exporter binding live portfolio data to slide placeholders, removing the manual reporting cycle that blocked executive adoption.
- Removed a feature that tested well but failed in practice. Guided brainstorming produced many ideas, then stalled. This proved that execution, not ideation, was the bottleneck and redirected the company.
Embedded Design Consultant · Design consultancy, Paris
- Embedded on the pitch-and-prove engagement that won BNP Paribas, one of France's largest banks, as a client.
- Ran all research on site at the bank: bilingual French and English discovery workshops with employees and managers, persona and context mapping, and day-in-the-life journey mapping across six stages including night-shift patterns and crisis peaks. Prioritised with dot-voting, then handed the programme over running at full speed.
Product Designer · Digital agency, Paris · Acquired by Onepoint
- Ran up to seven client projects in parallel in a given week, for clients including Dior, L'Oréal, SNCF and Axa Assistance.
- Built five design systems and countless UI kits across the client roster, one per brand, so every team shipped consistently at agency pace.
- Shipped across an unusually wide surface: a travel-risk companion for Axa Assistance, QuickSign KYC document capture, the Brok&Trok second-hand marketplace, Dior TV, L'Oréal Citizen Day, an SNCF quiz and survey platform, and VR prototypes tested on Oculus.
- Led UI and UX research with prototypes in Scrum teams, running 15+ user testing sessions and client workshops. The pace taught prioritisation and judgement about when work is ready to ship.
Earlier
iPStand, Paris · Product Designer · 2014–2015. iPad and iPhone interfaces, wireframes, prototypes and motion design.
CNC Operator · 2010–2013. Mechanical engineering and industrial drawing. Precision milling for automotive (Bugatti, Formula 1) and aerospace (Airbus, Thales).
MacJava · Graphic Designer and Educator · 2006–2011. Design and technical communication for a Mac OS enthusiast community. Where the teaching started.
How I Work
Design → Code
I ship what I design in SwiftUI, React, Next.js, TypeScript, and CSS. Prototypes are working builds, so validation uses the real product.
Systems
Design systems built and maintained across four companies. Tokens and icons generated from source, never hand-maintained.
Deciding what not to build
Every case study explains which feature I deliberately cut and why. Careful control of scope creates lasting value.
Research
100+ end users interviewed directly. In-person discovery workshops, journey mapping, usability sessions, competitive analysis, 1,000+ beta testers on Kann alone.
Skills
Design
Product design, design systems, interaction design, UX research, usability testing, brand identity, information architecture, accessibility and inclusive design (WCAG 2.1 AA), prototyping
AI
Integral to how I ship code, Claude Code and Cursor for implementation, local models via LM Studio for private work, AI-assisted research synthesis and content curation.
Engineering
SwiftUI, SwiftData, React, Next.js, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, Convex, GRDB, Git
Tools
Figma, Framer, Xcode, Cursor, Claude Code, LM Studio, GitHub, Notion, Sketch Book and Pencil
Education
MSc, Digital Media & Web Development · EPSAA, Paris · 2014–2015
BTS, Graphic Design & Print Communication · École Supérieure Estienne, Paris · 2013–2014
BTEC HND, Industrial Drawing & Mechanical Engineering · Lycée Jules Algoud, Valence · 2009–2013
Certifications: JavaScript Intermediate (SoloLearn, 2024) · Introduction to Machine Learning (Google, 2023) · Foundations of UX Design (Google, 2021) · Foundations of Project Management (Google, 2021)
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