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Matt KarakilicMK

Matt Karakilic

Founding mentor
🐰 5 sessions

Director of User Experience @ Omnia Consulting Ltd.

1testimonial Vancouver, Canada 15 yrs in design

About

15+ years building and leading design teams, from SAP to Hitachi Energy to ProtoPie — and reviewing the portfolios and CVs that got people onto them. I'm direct, a little philosophical, and I ask more questions than I answer. If you're stuck, stalled, or second-guessing yourself, that's exactly where I like to dig in.

How I can help

I help designers at both ends of the journey: breaking in or leveling up (portfolio reviews, CV feedback, interview prep, positioning for product-led companies like Google, Microsoft, or Amazon) — and growing once you're in (IC to leadership, building and running design teams across time zones, advocating for design in orgs that don't get it yet). I've hired and led design teams from startups to global enterprises (SAP, autoTRADER, Best Buy, UKG, Hitachi Energy, ProtoPie), so I know exactly why a "perfect" portfolio still isn't converting to interviews, and how to fix it. Direct, honest, no BS.

Ask me about

Agency to in-house
IC to manager
Freelance to full-time
Returning from a break
Layoffs
A failed launch
First or only designer
A reorg
Getting passed over
Influence without authority
Stakeholder standoffs
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

Took over as Global R&D UX Director at Hitachi Energy in 2022 with a small design footprint and no clear headcount plan. Built the case, hired, and scaled the team to 15+ designers and researchers across the US, Canada, Europe, and India within the year — while still shipping. The hard part wasn't finding people, it was building trust with engineering leads fast enough that "the new UX director" stopped sounding like a threat and started sounding like backup.

Expertise

Design Lead
Interviewing
Freelancing
Consumer/Social
Negotiation
Fintech
Design Manager
Gaming
Leadership
AI workflows
Design systems
Agentic AI
Agency
AI tools
Product Designer
UX Designer
B2B SaaS
UX Researcher
Resume
Portfolio Reviews
Coaching
Mental Support
Health

Testimonials

  • Matt's feedback reshaped how I approached my design interview, especially the storytelling, reading the interviewers, and structuring my case study. Direct, generous, and genuinely helpful.

    Emily · Aug 2026