MJMatthew J. Galley
Founding mentor
✨ 10 sessions
🎪 5 group sessions hosted
⏳ 500 minutes
CEO and Founder @ Trustybits Inc
About
Nicknamed "The Mad Scientist" for my innovative ideas, I’m a highly curious Design Engineer based in Madison. I bring strategic creativity to each project & love building new experiences. Spent the past 2 years diving on agentic engineering. As a top 10 mentor on ADPList, I have had the privilege to mentor about design, engineering, product and entrepreneurship to 100s, including individuals at Microsoft, Tesla, Google, Qualtrics, Atlassian, Crunchyroll, and more Beyond work, I enjoy hanging with the family, watching movies and anime, anything with LEGO, driving and traveling the world.
How I can help
Whether you’re just starting, shifting careers, or stepping into leadership, I provide tailored guidance in: - Career Pathfinding - Identifying strengths and crafting actionable roadmaps. - Navigating career transitions and leadership opportunities. - Portfolio & Resume - Creating compelling portfolios and tailored resumes. - Offering feedback aligned with industry standards. - Skill Building - Enhancing both technical and soft skills. - Exploring areas like UX design or product management. - Strengthening collaboration and communication. - Interview Prep - Coaching for behavioral, technical, and case interviews. - Building confidence in presenting expertise. - Strategizing job searches and networking effectively. - Leadership - Transitioning from contributor to leader. - Cultivating collaboration and mentoring teams. - Creative Strategy - Tackling challenges with innovative solutions. - Balancing user needs with business objectives. - Designing scalable systems for growth. Why Work with Me? As a founder and former VP of Product Design, I’ve navigated the same career hurdles you might face and offer empathetic, results-driven mentorship tailored to your goals. Together, we’ll explore your ambitions, overcome challenges, and celebrate your growth.
Ask me about
IC to manager
Pivot into design
Layoffs
A failed launch
First or only designer
A reorg
Getting passed over
Influence without authority
Presenting to execs
Negotiating comp
Imposter syndrome
Building a design system
First design hires
Craft to strategy
Growing into leadership
A hard problem I've navigated
Raised 1M on my first startup out of college, won a bunch of competitions, built a really cool product, experienced a lawsuit and having the whole thing fall apart.
Frequently asked
How do I get a job in Design
If you have been applying and not getting anywhere, take time to build something that targets a real problem and ask yourself and your target audience a lot of questions, until you have something that solves their problems, document your journey and be ready to share what you have done. Make it a case study if possible. And keep getting to know people in your field and at places you want to work. Most often it's who you know over what you know.
What experience do you have AI
Started with GPT3 and Midjourney when it was in beta. Went through the era when it was all about prompt engineering, then system prompts to agents and harness engineering. Now you can get pretty far without a highly detailed prompt or dozens of skills. All that said, one shoting was never the goal for me. Leveraging AI, I've have built websites, plugins, personal tools, and led a small team on 2 full SaaS products with active paying users. I use AI to help ship something to production almost every day. What I've learned is architecture and user experience still needs a human to bring a product to life. Experiences created with static flows or even prototypes in Figma still fail, it's not until you can use the thing in context that the real answers and solutions reveal themselves, this is where AI has made the biggest impact. The ability to build something as it would be presented and used by the end user so you can discover the flaws faster. Ask me about some tricks I've learned to get better results from AI. The answer isn't what I typically hear or see on socials.
Expertise
Experience
Founder · Trustybits
2025
Making tools and products that support career and growth management. Leverage AI to improve workflow and efficiency Teach AI courses and mentor on practical AI usage in Design for Production Environments.
VP of Product Design · Solo
2023-2024
Led a small team in all things product design and user experience related. Partnered with Product Managers and Engineering to deliver new experiences Led a tiger team in R&D efforts
Lead UX Designer · Sorenson Communication
2022-2023
Led teams on 9 different product offerings, including interpreting, captioning, Microsoft Teams & Zoom integration, Translation and wellness. Created and managed a design system that meet WCAG AAA compliance standards while holding to our Brand Mentored and trained UX Researchers and Designers on improving process, cross-functional team dynamics, and tools.
Senior UX Designer · ReliaQuest
2021-2022
Migrated from sketch to Figma Created and trained on Darkmatter Design System Sole designer on 5 product teams delivering on a cyber security platform used by Fortune 500 companies
Selected work
Resources I share
What mentees say
10 testimonials on Hop · 117 sessions and 5.0 on ADPList, checked by the Hop team. See it on ADPList ↗
Quotes from other platforms are shown as given and aren't part of this mentor's Hop record.
The discussion was fantastic! Matthew and Nick were very warm and welcoming about AI tech stacks / landscapes. It helped ease my mind of what to expect. In spite of knowing using tools that are required and expected now, it’s good to speak with other professionals that have a clear eye on the UX ball! I look forward to being in discussion about workflow improvements and more quickly meeting client needs!
Samuel · Oct 2026 · Group sessionDesign System Friends →
This was a great mini hackathon. Karen and Matthew structured this so that it was easy to follow with guides created for reference. Between the guides and the examples provided, the hackathon served as an incentive for me to invest in building on what I learned. I entered with curiousity and left with a changed perpspective on something that is currently polarizing when it comes to ethical application and uses in design. Karen made sure to emphasize the importance is in our decisions with using AI while Matthew showed us the heights we can achieve while leveraging it in conjunction with our design skills.
Randy · Oct 2026 · Group sessionHackathon: Getting Started with AI to Build Solutions →
My first time doing a hackathon, with Karen & Matthew and it was great! Really cool experience, definitely learned a lot.👌🏽
Sagar · Oct 2026 · Group sessionHackathon: Getting Started with AI to Build Solutions →
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