Available for freelance & full-time

Karen
builds things.

Lead Product Designer & indie SaaS builder from the Philippines.

10+ years designing products at Lazada, Great Eastern Life, and CXA Group — now also shipping my own tools.

0+
Years Experience
0+
Products Shipped
0x
Countries Worked

Designer who
also ships code.

I'm a Lead Product Designer with 10+ years of experience at companies like Lazada, Great Eastern Life, and CXA Group across Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

In May 2024 I left full-time work to build my own SaaS products. I use AI as a core part of how I work — for planning, architecture, writing, and coding. It's how I ship fast without a team behind me. Since then I've launched 8+ products, all designed and built solo.

I'm open to product design roles, freelance design & dev work, or anything at the intersection of strong product thinking and fast execution — with AI in my toolkit, I can do more than my job title suggests.

Design Tools
FigmaFigJamSketchMiroInVisionPrincipleZeplin
Dev Stack
Next.jsReactTypeScriptCloudflare WorkersCloudflare D1SupabaseTailwind CSSshadcn/uiHTML/CSS
AI-Assisted Workflow
ClaudeChatGPTAI-driven planningAI-assisted codingPrompt engineeringPRD generation

Things I've shipped.

⚙ WIP

thesanemail

A Canva-style email template editor built for non-technical marketers. Find it. Tweak it. Send it. — a visual-first tool that takes the pain out of email design for small teams and solo marketers.

Next.js · Cloudflare · Email API
Live

Repoland

GitHub repo discovery platform paired with startup ideas. Curated repos with business potential — helping indie hackers find their next project. 50+ pages of content live.

Next.js · D1 · Cloudflare Pagesrepoland.co ↗
Live

Bondshake

Client collaboration portals for agencies and freelancers. Onboarding, file sharing, and project updates in one branded space. Solo / Team pricing tiers.

Next.js · Cloudflare D1 · Workers · Stripebondshake.com ↗
Live

d1-studio

A GUI for Cloudflare D1 databases. Browse, query, and manage your D1 data visually. Pro tier with remote/production access at $5/mo — built for the Cloudflare ecosystem.

Next.js · Cloudflare D1 API · Workers · Striped1-studio.com ↗
⚙ WIP

PlainRows

Turn spreadsheets into a REST API. Postgres + JSONB under the hood, Cloudflare Workers at the edge. Nanoid-prefixed IDs, materialized views, and a dead-simple DX.

Cloudflare Workers · Postgres · JSONB
Live

CeoBuying

SEC Form 4 insider trading tracker with cluster detection. Real-time alerts when executives buy their own stock — built with shadcn UI and a Telegram notification layer.

Next.js · SEC EDGAR API · Telegram Botceobuying.com ↗
Live

LatestRounds

Startup funding tracker for founders and VCs. Stay on top of the latest investment rounds — who raised, how much, and from whom. Built for the people who live and breathe funding news.

Next.js · Cloudflare · D1latestrounds.com ↗
Live

HeroCapture

SaaS hero section research tool. Browse, discover, and draw inspiration from the best hero sections across the web — a design reference tool built for product designers and marketers.

Next.js · Cloudflare · R2 · Supabaseherocapture.com ↗

How I've worked.

May 2024 — Present
Philippines
Indie SaaS Builder
Self-employed
Designing and shipping my own SaaS products solo — using AI as a core part of my workflow for planning, prototyping, and coding. Since 2024 I've launched 8+ products spanning dev tools, data trackers, client portals, and content platforms. Fullstack from end to end: database design and management, REST APIs, authentication, and Stripe payments — all built and maintained independently.
Jun 2020 — May 2024
Singapore
Lead Product Designer
Great Eastern Life
Design Lead for the Agency platform — led a 3-person design team overhauling the CRM to optimize agents' handling of leads, sales, and clients. Extended scope to sales and Group Insurance projects, covering design strategy, agent interviews, user testing, stakeholder management, and new visual systems.
Nov 2019 — Jun 2020
Singapore
Senior UX Designer
CXA Group
Drove UX initiatives for a pivotal B2B banking investor app. Handled multifaceted projects and facilitated collaboration across Product, Business, and Engineering departments.
Jan 2017 — Nov 2019
Vietnam
Senior UX Designer
Lazada
Redesigned the checkout flow for localized markets — reduced cart abandonment by 30%, increased customer satisfaction by 25%, and drove an 18% lift in sales conversions. Designed the first Lazada Wallet for Indonesia from scratch, hitting a 78% user registration success rate within the first month and a 15% increase in wallet transactions. Also led B2B seller tools: onboarding, store builder, and finance management for the Seller Centre.
Feb 2013 — Oct 2016
Philippines
Freelance UI Designer
Liquid and Liquid
Worked across a wide array of projects at this digital agency — user flows, wireframing, prototyping, and high-fidelity mockups for mobile designs across web, Android, and iOS platforms. Collaborated closely with clients to translate product visions into polished interfaces.
Dec 2014 — Oct 2015
Philippines
UX Designer
Horsepower.ph
First design hire at this early-stage startup. Designed the full marketing, onboarding, and product experience from inception to launch. Worked closely with co-founders on strategy and requirements, laying the product's foundational design language.

Let's work together.

Open to work

I'm open to product design roles, freelance design & dev work, or anything at the intersection of strong product thinking and fast execution. With AI as part of my workflow, I bring more range than a typical designer.

Based in the Philippines — previously Singapore & Vietnam. Available remotely across timezones.

Things I build for fun.

designer.builder.shipper.
tap to replay
Project
Bondshake
Client portals
Live ↗
design.
tap to cycle