Juan Pena

About

I started in graphic design and moved into UX later. At Walmart I went from apprentice to Senior UX Designer in about four years, working on enterprise finance and procurement tools. For two years I've run a twice-weekly design critique for three teams, and I mentored a designer from Figma basics to owning features end to end. I'm direct and honest about what's working and what isn't. I like helping people who feel stuck or are switching careers, because I've been there. I speak English and Spanish.

How I can help

I spent seven years as a graphic designer before I turned into a UX designer. From there I went to a startup, where I was basically the whole design team: wireframes one day, visual system the next, product direction somewhere in between. Then I joined Walmart as an L1 apprentice and made Senior UX Designer in about four years, designing enterprise finance and procurement platforms used in the US, Mexico, and South America, across stores and supply chain. So I've seen product design at both ends. Scrappy and wear-every-hat, and enterprise scale where one flow touches thousands of people a day. That range makes me most useful to designers who are starting out, switching from visual design to UX, or trying to get promoted. I can help with: 1. Getting promoted: decoding what the next level actually requires, tracking your impact as you go, and picking the projects that show next-level behavior before you have the title. 2. Enterprise and complex-domain UX: getting up to speed in a dense domain fast, working with SMEs, and designing inside a design system instead of around it. 3. Startup to corporate transitions: what changes, and what doesn't, about process, speed, and stakeholders when you move between the two. 4. Portfolios and case studies: telling a strong story with enterprise or work that isn't visually flashy. 5. Influence and navigating politics: presenting to product and engineering so it lands as a decision, building alliances across teams, and handling disagreement without escalating. 6. Difficult conversations with managers: asking for what you need, whether that's more scope, better support, a promotion case, or a raise, and how to handle the pushback. 7. AI in the design process: using tools like ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, or Figma Make while keeping the output aligned to a design system

Expertise

Selected work

Portfolio