Josh Whitehead

Skills

AI & models

LLM product design · Prompt and context engineering · Grounding / RAG-style retrieval · Streaming UI for model output · On-device inference (WebGPU, WebLLM) · Agent interaction design (progress, permissions, failure, confidence) · Agentic development with Claude Code and Codex · Anthropic SDK · AI/ML platforms (model APIs, inference, on-device, generative video)

Product design

0→1 product design · Design systems · Brand · Mobile (iOS, Android, Flutter) · Web · Design leadership · Partnerships (Apple, Google) · User research and usability testing · Customer and client collaboration

Building with agents

Agentic engineering with Claude Code and Codex: specs, prompts, context, review, verification · Directs agents in TypeScript, React, Next.js, Three.js, Flutter; reads and judges code, does not hand-write it · Ships end to end: repo, deploy, instrumentation

Tools

Figma · Framer · ProtoPie · Sketch · Claude Code · Codex · Vercel · GitHub

Experience

1. Founder & Design Lead · Boneyard Collective

   2024 – Present

   Cincinnati, OH

   • Design and ship AI products end to end: OLO (a desktop companion for the Mac), Weaver (a writing room that remembers a channel), StoryMode (game stories as audio), each live at its own site.
   • Ship daily with coding agents (Claude Code, Codex): a typical day is 20 to 60 commits across 3 to 10 projects, measured from session logs rather than estimated.
   • Incubated OLO, a personal-intelligence product: set the product vision, assembled a founding team from Meta, Calm, and Saucey, and took it from concept through design to investor readiness.
   • Run a generative-video pipeline on Veo: measured shipped output (1.43 words of dialogue per second against a natural 2.6), traced the fault to one line of the brief, and rewrote the spec so every second of every shot is allocated.
   • Built josh.design as a working AI-builder portfolio: a language model running in the browser on WebGPU, a hosted Claude grounded in the site's own text, five agent-interface prototypes, and a playable 3D city built with a coding agent in sixteen days.
   • Open-sourced two of the builds (agent-ui-patterns, local-grounded-chat); the portfolio repo runs type-checks, tests, and a build on every push, with a public build log.
   • Client work: product design, design systems, and AI tooling for Dreaming Spanish; mobile experiences built on AI voice transformation for Antares (Auto-Tune); digital comics pairing generative artwork with human-written stories for Glow; plus Step and Stacked.
   • Wrote Mastery is Dead, a 618-page field manual on how AI is compressing twenty-five white-collar careers and what survives; in paperback and on Amazon.

2. Principal Product Designer · Very Good Ventures

   2022 – 2023

   Remote

   • Created the Flutter.dev design system for Google and redesigned the mobile and desktop experiences: Figma components, variables, auto layout, shared documentation.
   • Contributed concepts and gameplay QA to I/O FLIP, the generative-AI card game shown at Google I/O 2023, with Google teams.
   • Turned client requirements into flows and prototypes, paired with engineering, and mentored designers across engagements from startups to Google.

3. Senior Product Designer → Head of Design · Spin (Ford Mobility)

   2019 – 2022

   San Francisco, CA

   • Joined as the first designer and became Head of Design; built and led a team of 10 across product design, brand, illustration, copy, and UX research.
   • Designed the App Clips experience Apple featured at WWDC 2020 as a flagship iOS 14 use case (covered in Wired), working with Apple to refine the scooter rental flow for the launch.
   • Led the Google Maps integration that put Spin vehicles on the map (August 2021): vehicle usage up 40%, new signups up 60%.
   • Built the foundational design system from zero across iOS, Android, and web, and localized the product and brand across 84 cities in two regions.
   • Designed safety features that cut city-official complaints by over 90% and reported accidents by 75%, and features that helped close 10+ city government contracts.
   • Spin was acquired and merged into Bird.

4. Senior Product Designer → Head of Design · Hush

   2017 – 2019

   Los Angeles, CA

   • First designer at a social-commerce platform; owned product across iOS, Android, and web, then brand and the marketing site, as the product scaled past 1 million users.
   • Took the apps from 200 App Store reviews at 3.5 stars (and no Google Play presence) to 50,000+ combined reviews at 4.8 stars through a research-led redesign and review prompts placed at the right moments.
   • Designed and shipped the company's first Android app, which grew to more than 30% of company revenue.
   • Built an internal influencer-batching tool that halved deal closure time and handled 100+ influencer contracts.
   • Promoted to Head of Design: led a team of three, shaped the roadmap with leadership, and pitched investors directly. Hush was acquired.

5. Lead Product Designer · Saucey

   2015 – 2017

   Los Angeles, CA

   • Owned all design at an on-demand delivery startup: consumer apps, driver experience, partner tools, internal operations, and marketing.
   • Designed referral features that lifted app referrals by more than 65%, and a driver experience that raised driver referrals 15% and cut turnover 25%.
   • Designed internal routing software (99.9% uptime) that cut order-status support tickets by more than 90%.
   • Recognized by Apple as App of the Day and an Editor's Choice. First worked here with Andrew Zeck, later OLO's co-founder and CTO.

6. Senior Designer · NationBuilder

   2014 – 2015

   Los Angeles, CA

   • Designed UX and UI for a civic-engagement CMS used by tens of thousands of campaigns and organizations, working daily with the founder on product and brand.
   • Led a story-driven brand and homepage redesign that repositioned the company ahead of a $6.25M raise led by Andreessen Horowitz; owned the homepage and pricing pages.
   • Built 10+ customizable templates for campaigns, nonprofits, and community organizations, and the look and feel for the CEO's book launch, site, and merchandise.

7. Designer & Front-End Developer · Differential

   2013 – 2014

   Indianapolis, IN

   • First designer at an engineering-first studio; helped take 10+ startups from concept to launch across e-commerce, health, and finance, as the sole design resource and de facto product manager.
   • Arrived unable to code; taught myself HTML, CSS, and Meteor on the job and built the interfaces I designed. Introduced brand guidelines and design-engineering integration to the studio.
   • Hosted the studio's first Cincinnati designer meetup.

8. Combat Photographer · U.S. Marine Corps

   2008 – 2013

   Camp Pendleton · deployed

   Five years behind a camera in places that didn't ask for one. Where it clicked.

Selected AI builds

• Portrait — The first cut of what became SignalScan's AI Mirror: Spotify Wrapped for your chat history. TypeScript · parsers for ChatGPT and Claude exports · local analysis · no server. ↗
• A model in your browser — A language model running on your GPU through WebGPU. WebLLM · WebGPU · Qwen 2.5 0.5B / Llama 3.2 1B · streaming. ↗
• Ask my portfolio — A live Claude, grounded in the real text of this site, that answers questions about my work. Claude · Anthropic SDK · Next.js route handler · streaming. ↗

Case studies

• Spin — First product designer at the micromobility company. Built the design function from zero and led it through partnerships with Apple and Google, then an acquisition. ↗
• Hush — First product designer at a social-commerce startup. Owned the app, brand, and site, and rebuilt the product as it scaled past a million users. ↗
• Very Good Ventures — Principal designer at the leading Flutter studio. Designed a Flutter design system adopted across VGV and Google teams, and a generative-AI game shown at Google I/O 2023. ↗

Service & principles