Product / UX Design Leadership
Leads complex product initiatives from problem framing through delivery, aligning user needs, product goals, and execution quality.
Senior Product / UX Designer
Hendrik van de Bruggen
Senior Product / UX Designer based in the Pacific Northwest with 12+ years of experience leading end-to-end product design for aerospace, enterprise, and consumer software.
- NASA and aerospace mission software
- Enterprise workflow and platform design
- Consumer products with measurable growth impact
About
Designing elegant products for complex systems.
I’m drawn to complex systems, the kind that only start to make sense once you really dig in. My work focuses on turning that complexity into products that feel clear, useful, and thoughtfully designed through research, product thinking, interaction design, and close collaboration with engineering.
Outside of work, I enjoy spending time in nature and, whenever I get the chance, sleeping under the stars with my dog.
Product Strategy & Discovery
Turns ambiguous opportunities into clear product direction through research, prioritization, and stakeholder alignment.
Technical Collaboration & Design Systems
Partners effectively with engineering to ship scalable interfaces, reusable systems, and implementation-ready design decisions.
Selected Work
Work focused on making complex products clearer, more usable, and more effective.
These projects show experience across mission software, enterprise workflows, and consumer platforms, with a focus on usability, alignment, and measurable product impact.
Featured project
Scheduling interface
Cerebellum
Desktop appA tool for scheduling and optimizing satellite maneuvers.
UX Designer, aiLabs @ ai solutions · 2024-2025
- Space Operations
- Dashboards
- Workflow Design
Overview
A space operations platform designed to help teams monitor, coordinate, and act on complex mission workflows with better situational awareness.
Challenge
Operators needed faster visibility into mission workflow status and system state across a complex operational environment.
Approach
- Used usability research to identify blind spots, ambiguity, and decision latency in operational workflows.
- Redesigned dashboards to prioritize critical information and workflow progression.
- Introduced clearer state indicators and hierarchy to improve scanability and confidence.
Impact
Improved usability and engagement across operational workflows, making complex activity easier to monitor and act on.
Featured project
Scenario designer interface
ObsSIM
Desktop appA space scenario designer for simulating test, training, and exercise scenarios with realistic sensor observations.
UX Designer, aiLabs @ ai solutions · 2024-2025
- Simulation
- Visualization
- Workflow Simplification
Featured project
Mission planning workspace
FreeFlyer
Desktop appCommercial software for space mission design, analysis, and operations.
UX Designer, AI Solutions · 2020-2025
- Aerospace
- Usability Research
- Interaction Design
Featured project
Learning platform interface
CBT Nuggets
WebsiteAn online IT training platform with expert-led videos, virtual labs, and certification prep.
UX Designer, CBT Nuggets · 2019
- EdTech
- Prototyping
- UX Improvement
Featured project
Expert witness matching workflow
ExpertConnect
WebsiteAn online matching platform that helps lawyers connect with qualified expert witnesses.
UX Consultant · 2018
- Legal Tech
- Heuristic Analysis
- Product Strategy
Featured project
Compliance-focused onboarding redesign
PayPal
Website and mobile appMerchant onboarding flows for creating and activating PayPal business accounts.
UX Designer, PayPal via AustinCSI · 2017-2018
- Fintech
- Onboarding
- Compliance
Featured project
Responsive redesign overview
PadMapper
Website and mobile appA map-based apartment search platform for finding rental housing.
Design Lead, PadMapper · 2015-2016
- Consumer
- Responsive Design
- Mobile UX
Featured project
Mobile gift-giving app concept
Sweetness
Mobile appA mobile gift-giving app designed to make sending personalized baked gifts feel thoughtful and low-friction.
Lead Designer, Sweetness Technologies, Inc · 2014-2015
- Consumer
- iOS
- Rapid Prototyping
Other Clients
Additional teams and products I’ve supported.
Work across startups and product teams where UX, front-end collaboration, and product clarity were part of the engagement.
Client roster
- growthamp
- 3Gear Systems
- FileBoard
- MightyText
- Happy Inspector
- CorporateCloud
- Cisco
- Zenmeet
- Puppet Labs
- Apple
- Rockslide Analytics
- 90Seconds.tv
- ShopForce
- Checkbook.io
- Eat This Much
Engineering and Prototyping
Prototype fluency and technical experimentation.
These repositories are experiments and working prototypes, not production-ready products. They show how I think through interaction, implementation, and technical exploration in support of product work.
GitHub profile
hendrikv-dev
Selected repositories focused on front-end experimentation, prototyping, and fast technical exploration. They are useful as process artifacts and sandbox builds, not as examples of production-hardened application code.
Kind Words
What collaborators have said about working with me.
A few notes from product, engineering, and leadership partners.
“Hendrik has a deep understanding of UX and does an excellent job of passing that knowledge on to others. Not only is he awesome at designing amazing products, he's also a great person to work with. Hendrik's focus is always on what's best for the user. He's amenable to trying out multiple approaches to solving a problem to accommodate for development challenges, so collaborating with him as an engineer was always a positive experience.”
Contact
Available for senior product design, design leadership, and technical product roles.
Open to conversations with hiring managers, recruiters, and teams building complex software products.