Sampada Samaka
Product Designer & Engineer
San Francisco, CA
sampadasamaka@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/sampada-samaka
Professional Experience
SF Civic Tech
Dec '25 — Present- Designing "SafeHome," a web-based GIS tool helping San Francisco residents assess environmental risks like soil liquefaction, tsunamis, and soft-story building safety.
- Collaborating with cross-functional teams to translate complex government datasets into intuitive, accessible map layers and user-friendly risk assessments.
- Contributing to product strategy sessions to define feature roadmaps and expand platform coverage across major Bay Area cities.
SF State University, RED Lab
Aug '25 — Present- Leading execution across 4 concurrent projects (3 AR/VR, 1 AI/LLM), maintaining visibility into timelines, scope, and resource needs.
- Coordinating with faculty, students, and stakeholders to manage dependencies, resolve blockers, and drive progress toward defined delivery milestones.
- Providing design mentorship and technical guidance to student researchers on interaction patterns for emerging technologies.
Book Presale & Community Growth
Aug '25 — Nov '25- Designed an end-to-end 4-month presale campaign that successfully raised $10,000+ from 100+ early supporters.
- Engineered the "World's First Book Shower"—a service design experience translating digital philosophy into a guided user journey.
- Structured high-converting info architecture for landing pages, using behavioral UX and persona-led reward tiers.
Yoga for All
Nov '24 — Present- Conceptualizing a comprehensive digital presence for a yoga studio focused on brand growth through accessibility.
- Conducting rigorous market analysis and 20+ user interviews to identify core friction points in class scheduling.
- Developing wireframes, hi-fidelity prototypes, and usability testing protocols to validate design decisions.
Clay Clubhouse
June '23 — Oct '23- Led a full website redesign focused on streamlining navigation and the booking checkout flow.
- Synthesized qualitative data from user interviews to develop high-fidelity prototypes for stakeholder testing.
- Implemented UX improvements based on usability findings, resulting in a 44% boost in class sign-up rates.
ClassHook
May '23 — June '23- Optimized the educator onboarding journey using Lean UX methods to maximize impact within strict budget constraints.
- Conducted competitive analysis and affinity mapping to architect a noise-free content search experience.
- Bootstrapped membership conversion rates by 60% through refined UI components and value-focused messaging.
WorkStride
Nov '21 — Nov '22- Developed a serverless Python application and automated reporting framework, boosting operational efficiency by 100%.
- Architected and implemented new application features within a Java/Spring Boot enterprise monolith.
- Collaborated with cross-functional teams to integrate legacy systems into modern cloud-native workflows.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
July '20 — Nov '21- Diseigned and developed an internal knowledge management portal using React and modern CSS to streamline DFW region operations.
- Collaborated with 50+ enterprise clients to resolve complex architectural blockers, improving knowledge transfer efficiency by 65%.
- Pioneered an AWS Lambda application to automate on-call messaging via Slack hooks, reducing manual overhead by 100%.
University of Texas at Arlington
May '19 — May '20- Redesigned the primary university domain (www.uta.edu) using HTML, CSS, and Sitecore CMS for responsive performance.
- Managed 20+ overlapping technologies, delivering SEO enhancements and migrating 300+ pages of legacy content.
- Evaluated market potential and technical feasibility for 15+ university inventors using Google Analytics and Hunter.
Foundation & Skills
Selected Project
Stock Sentinel
Personal AI ProjectAI-driven portfolio tracker designed to reduce cognitive load for retail investors using Python & React.
Education
MS Computer Science
UT Arlington, 2018-2020
UX Design Immersive
General Assembly, 2023