San Francisco · Lead Product Designer

Alice Barton

UX for AI-driven marketplaces.

I make digital experiences simple, clear, and easy to use — turning complex marketplaces and platforms into products people understand at a glance.

Email me LinkedIn Resume (PDF) Case studies

About

I'm a Lead Product Designer with 10+ years of experience, specializing in two-sided marketplaces and platforms. I was the first designer at Levanta, and have led design at DigitalOcean, Vendr, and Hired.

My background as an educator shapes how I work — I lean on radical candor in workshops, mentor designers and engineers, and translate ambiguous problems into clear specs and shipped features. I believe good design is about clarity: aligning user needs with business outcomes through research, journey mapping, and tight collaboration.

Outside of work I'm with my four-year-old twin daughters, singing karaoke, or playing Ultimate Frisbee.

FAQ

Why did you switch from teaching to UX?

Teaching is extremely difficult and equally rewarding. I'll never regret the four years I taught biology in urban schools or the students I influenced. But when it came to choosing a career, I felt I could make a much bigger impact by designing for the masses.

What are your strengths and weaknesses in design?

My expertise — and passion — sits in UX and strategic thinking. I work best partnering closely with PMs, engineers, and data analysts to drive measurable improvements. I'm not a classically trained graphic designer, so I lean on robust design systems to create cohesive, visually compelling experiences.

How does your career in teaching influence your design work?

Teachers have years of experience doing user research, prototyping, and user testing. Every day they get immediate, often harsh feedback on poorly planned lessons — and come back the next day with an improved iteration. When the teacher is far removed from their students' lives, they have to become experts in empathy and practice it daily. That muscle transfers directly to product.

What is your dream role?

A company where I can influence the product direction in meaningful ways and improve lives for everyday people. I like working closely with PMs, engineers, UXRs, and data analysts to keep moving the metrics. I want a strong brand and business model, data-driven decision making, a life-first culture, and feedback delivered with candor.

Selected work

Levanta — Lead Product Designer

2025 – 2026
Problem
First design hire at a leading affiliate marketplace. Engineers were blocked by UX decisions; the product lacked a system and a research-informed roadmap.
What I did
Built the design system from scratch, distilled interaction, usability, and edge cases into Figma specs, spearheaded Paid Placements end-to-end with leadership and engineering, and stood up a lean UXR practice that fed the roadmap. Partnered with HR to hire and onboard two new product and design teammates.
Outcome
2–3× engineer velocity$1–2M ARR projected from Paid Placements.

Read case study →

DigitalOcean — Lead Product Designer

2023 – 2025
Problem
Lead design across Growth, Marketplace, and Platform-as-a-Service (App Platform, Databases, Kubernetes, Container Registry, Functions). App Platform's onboarding was losing nearly two-thirds of new users; Marketplace lacked a coherent vendor billing story.
What I did
Revamped App Platform onboarding end-to-end. Pioneered a Marketplace vision integrating vendors with dynamic, usage-based billing.
Outcome
5 min → 3 min onboarding time, 34% → 50% unique-user conversion, ~$3M projected ARR from Marketplace billing.

Read case study →

Vendr — Senior Product Designer

2022 – 2023
Problem
SaaS buyers needed a way to discover, compare, and request software inside Vendr — pricing was opaque, browsing was clunky, and there was no marketplace surface.
What I did
Led the creation of "Explore," a SaaS marketplace with pricing by SKU, category browsing, and side-by-side product/package comparison. Mentored junior designers on process and impact.
Outcome
+17% purchase requests after launch.

Read case study →

Hired — Senior / Product Designer

2019 – 2022
Problem
High drop-off in candidate onboarding, no shared design system, and accessibility gaps across the product.
What I did
Rebuilt the candidate onboarding flow, championed design sprints to reshape the roadmap, established a design system with minimal resources, and led the company's switch to Figma. Partnered with Deque to bring the org to AA WCAG compliance.
Outcome
+40% new-user conversion and a more accessible, research-informed product.

Read case study →

What people say

Headshot of Todd Griffith.

Alice is a fierce advocate for users, a strong designer with great intuition, and a willing teammate who will take on any task, big or small.

From the moment she joined Care.com, Alice helped focus the company on listening to users and helped us build out our user research team. Her exceptional work on the caregiver experience squad elevated NPS scores for an incredibly important component of the business. Overhauling the entire user experience was a challenge, and the improvements contributed to a 40% increase in overall revenues.

I would recommend Alice for any design team that requires thoughtful research, data analysis, and design for products that solve problems for both users and the business as a whole.

Todd Griffith · Senior Director of Design, Care.com
Headshot of Aaron Tate.

Alice doesn't avoid asking the difficult questions, always advocating for the user.

Alice is quite passionate about designing the best possible user experience. She works very hard and is able to learn new skills when given the opportunity. I enjoyed working with Alice at EdSurge and look forward to watching her career develop. I would enjoy working with her again in the future.

Aaron Tate · Senior Product Designer, EdSurge
Headshot of Marshall Guttenberg.

Alice is an amazing design partner.

We took on 20+ projects together for the Hired Candidate team, and Alice delivered on every single one to huge success (e.g. increasing new user conversion 40%). She always brought data into our process when discussing solutions, and I've never seen a designer create high-quality mocks as quickly as her to visualize our options. I'd highly recommend working with Alice if you ever get the chance.

Marshall Guttenberg · Senior Product Manager, Hired
Headshot of Jodi Alperstein.

Alice is highly collaborative and fun to work with.

Alice joined the Hired team and jumped right in, making recommendations on everything from the user experience, to the tools we used, to our design processes. I particularly enjoyed the fantastic Design Sprint that she ran for our Candidate Experience Strategy.

Jodi Alperstein · VP of Product, Hired
Headshot of Buck Rivard.

Alice made my life as a product engineer a breeze.

Working with Alice has been a delight. Her designs were well organized, well thought out, and on time. I would commend her to any organization looking for a highly capable and down-to-earth designer.

Buck Rivard · Lead Engineer, Levanta
Headshot of Justin Marine.

Alice is a pro at making decisive and complex decisions that are backed in UX principles.

Alice was the first designer at Levanta. When I started as Designer #2, I was immediately impressed with the breadth of work she'd accomplished — from creating the design system and building out a design playbook, to onboarding me in a way that truly set me up for success.

Justin Marine · Senior Product Designer, Levanta
1 / 6

Earlier experience

  • 2017 – 2019Care.com · UX Designer — caregiver-side product and design system
  • 2016Piper, Inc · Product Designer — DIY computer kit for kids; UI and classroom unit plan
  • 2015 – 2016EdSurge · Visual / UX Designer — edtech news platform and R&D microsites
  • 2014UIF · UI Designer (contract) — e-learning app and marketing site (4× user growth)
  • 2014Storia (Selfish) · UX Designer — social storytelling mobile app
  • 2013 – 2014General Assembly · UX Design Immersive — trained by Aynne Valencia & Christina Wodtke
  • 2011 – 2013Oakland USD · AP Biology Teacher — mentored Technovation; flipped-classroom curriculum
  • 2010 – 2011Framingham HS · Biology Teacher — grant-funded interactive lab curriculum

Skills & certifications

Focus areas

  • AI & ML interfaces
  • Two-sided marketplaces
  • B2B2C
  • Information architecture
  • Design systems
  • Complex systems & platforms
  • UX research
  • Accessibility (WCAG AA)
  • Workshop facilitation
  • Mentorship

Certifications

  • Designing for Neural Networks & AI Interfaces
  • Illustrator CC: Fundamentals
  • Clear Teaching Credential (CLAD)
  • Jira Fundamentals

Education

  • 2005 – 2010Boston College — BA & MEd, Biology & Education
  • 2013 – 2014General Assembly — UX Design Immersive
  • 1998 – 2006The Shipley School — High School Diploma

Get in touch