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Resume

Blair Metcalf

Design engineer · Principal UX Engineer, Reddit · Seattle

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I build the harness, not just the thing: the documentation, component systems and agent guidance that let one person do what used to take a team. 23 years at the seam between design and engineering, as a lead, a manager, a founder and the person writing the code.

Lately that means the interfaces agents work through. I ship TypeScript daily and I have managed design teams. The useful part is the seam between the two.

Experience

  1. Principal UX Engineer

    2021–now

    Reddit

    I lead Reddit Proto, the AI harness that became the company's de facto way to decide, get aligned and move to a decision. I joined as Staff UX Lead and Manager for 2 teams.

    • 100% adoption in UX and Product: 130 people have deployed 800 prototypes, with dozens of research studies run on them.
    • Prototypes run on real, logged-in data, vibe-coded in minutes instead of built in production over quarters. Onboarding takes 1 hour.
    • Built Reddit Proto on Next.js App Router, TypeScript, React and Tailwind, with Cursor doing the composition and Figma to iOS through MCP.
    • Handoff quality is up +80%, as assessed by engineering.
    • Led design through more than 20 launches across content creation, communities, moderation and subscriptions.
    • Used data to pitch GIFs in Comments to the VP of Product, then led its design and research. Media comments drew about 60% more engagement than text, 6,253 subreddits adopted it, and more than 10 publications covered it.
    • Managed 6 designers, 2 contractors and 2 interns. Hired 2, converted 1.
    • Merged 2 design teams by aligning partners on priorities and running design strategy reviews across the org.

  2. UX Lead and Senior UX Engineer

    2015–2021

    Google

    UX Lead on Google Cloud for teams that designed and prototyped from research and principles.

    • Conceived of and drove Google Codesign, a no-code prototyping tool built from existing components. Recruited and led a 22-person UX team to define, design, prototype and research it.
    • UX Engineering Lead for the prototyping framework that was critical to 8 launches in GKE, Anthos and Cloud Search.
    • UX Lead for Kubernetes Engine (GKE): simpler infrastructure creation and best practices in context, with a material increase in revenue.
    • UX Lead for Custom Roles and Organization Policy, which unblocked the Identity and Access Management (IAM) launch and answered one of the biggest user pain points on Cloud.

  3. UX Lead and Senior iOS Developer

    2014–2015

    Motorola

    Led UX design and iOS UI development for WAVE, push-to-talk apps used by governments, militaries and enterprises.

    • Led the research and competitive analysis behind a redesign, rewrite and relaunch that produced the platform's highest yearly revenue.
    • Won executive sponsorship for UX inside an 87-year-old corporation.
    • Shipped a FIPS-compliant app with end-to-end encryption for group and private communications across 5,000 concurrent users.

  4. Co-founder

    2011–2014

    PillowMob

    Co-founder of a consumer e-commerce company that put your face on a pillow. Design, front end, identity and photography.

    • Profitable within 6 weeks, through vertically integrated, on-demand fulfillment.
    • A low-cost viral campaign landed a 1 minute 45 second spot on NBC's Today Show and lifted conversion to 11% for the first holiday season.
    • Hired 22 employees to make and ship 16,000 pillows, then grew 25% in year two.
    • Sold my equity after three years at 70 times return.

  5. Designer and developer

    2003–2014

    Agencies

    90 projects for 55 clients through 17 agencies, starting at Oncall Interactive in Chicago. Microsoft, McDonald's, Cadillac, Craftsman and Burger King among them. Also Halo 4, where I developed the menus, scoreboards and heads-up display for a launch that made $220M on day one.