DESIGNER. BUILDER. LEADER.
CHRISTAN FERGUS
Senior Manager, Product Design — Platform builder, design systems leader, and strategic partner at the intersection of product, engineering, and AI.
Career Impact
$375K/Month Revenue Enabled
At Snapdocs, implemented a closing error insight system that let loan officers catch document errors instantly — enabling ~35% higher per-transaction pricing and $375K/month in incremental revenue.
Multi-Million Dollar Partnership Supported
Built a custom AI-powered Sales Forecasting Assistant using the OpenAI API. CEO used the prototype to present to partner executives, directly supporting a landmark business partnership.
Upgraded Design Platform
Took over the design system team and escalated delivery to support business and up-level design quality across web and mobile. Built a design system MCP server so anyone at the org could build to a high standard.
Professional Experience
Senior Manager, Product Design
Homebase — Workforce management platform for small businesses
2022 – Present
Stepped into acting design leadership after Head of Design departure — reporting directly to the CEO, managing the full design org, and operating at the director level across product strategy, executive forums, and AI product bets. Simultaneously led the Designbase design system team from zero to a full platform function.
Design System & Platform Leadership
- Built the Designbase (Homebase's design system) team from scratch — growing to two designers and two engineers — and own end-to-end strategy, roadmap, and delivery.
- Shipped six high-impact design system updates within the first half-year of ownership, going from two years of inactivity to a regular release cadence.
- Launched design system extraction from the monorepo, enabling independent scaling, versioning, and designer code contribution — a foundational architectural change.
- Established the Designbase Council — cross-functional governance with embedded reps from every product team, recurring office hours, and a structured component approval process.
- Rolled out an MCP-based AI design tooling program — skills library, AI-integrated handoff workflows — positioning the design team as an AI enablement function across the org.
Product Design Leadership
- Led design strategy for Scheduling Copilot — Homebase's flagship AI product bet — owning the split-view interaction model, rollback mechanics, gap visualization, and multi-user access patterns. Built AI prototypes for customer validation before committing engineering resources.
- Built a custom AI-powered Sales Forecasting Assistant using the OpenAI API; CEO used the prototype at a major industry conference to support negotiations for a multi-million dollar partnership.
- Drove the Web Left Navigation IA redesign from concept through funding and build — re-architecting navigation for AI interface scalability and triggering foundational advances in typography, grids, and page templating.
- Identified four product teams building inconsistent AI-driven experiences; created unified AI pattern standards and design principles adopted across the org.
- Contributed to product/design response for a sophisticated authentication attack affecting 160K+ users — including UX for forced MFA migration and user communication strategy.
- Hired Homebase's first UX Engineer, establishing the design–engineering working model and unblocking long-overdue design system component delivery.
Lead Product Designer
Snapdocs — Real Estate Closings
2021 – 2022
Led the automation group focused on machine learning in lending document quality control.
- Implemented a closing error insight system providing immediate visibility into document errors — enabling ~35% higher per-transaction pricing, totalling $375K/month in additional revenue.
- Reduced loan officer document review time by 15 minutes per loan, saving users 8–15 hours per month.
Senior User Experience Architect
ZOLL Medical — EMS SaaS
2016 – 2021
Strategic design lead for greenfield SaaS, mobile, and legacy product modernization in emergency medical services.
- Built a one-of-a-kind dispatch SaaS tool that achieved 100% adoption across all six pilot companies.
- Redesigned dispatch software, increasing user satisfaction by 80%.
- Partnered with engineering leadership to redesign the release pipeline, cutting cycle time from 2 months to 2 weeks.
Lead Front-End Developer
Door to Door Organics — Grocery E-Commerce
2011 – 2016
Responsible for front-end architecture, people leadership, and e-commerce experience design.
- Built an integrated recipe site tied to the grocery delivery service, driving a 40% increase in sales within the first year.
- Grew the front-end team from 1 to 5 engineers.
Instructor, Web Development
Front Range Community College
2014 – 2017
Taught a 200-level web development course grounded in real-world scenarios and professional practice.
Core Competencies
Leadership & Strategy
Org leadership • Executive communication • Cross-functional alignment • Team building • Talent development • Hiring
Design Systems & Platforms
Design tokens • Component governance • Design–engineering handoff • Documentation • Council/governance models • Figma
Product Design
Information architecture • Interaction design • AI/LLM product patterns • Prototyping • User research • Accessibility (WCAG)
Technical
HTML/CSS/JS • Claude Code infrastructure • OpenAI API • MCP tooling • AI workflow design
Education & Certifications
User Experience Design (UXC)
Nielsen Norman Group, 2019
Web Accessibility
Deque University, 2019
Situational Leadership
Center for Leadership Studies, 2010
Bachelor of Multimedia Design
Westwood College
Associate of Graphic Design
Clovis Community College