User-focused product designer based in Raleigh, NC
Building user-focused products so simple, they’re complex
Proud father of two, married for 15 years. I love ramen, learning/teaching theology, volunteering, and cycle the Triangle's many greenways. My wife and I have a passion for other cultures and traveling.
I hired Caleb for a senior design role, and he impressed since day 1. He constantly asks the right questions to not only feed his own curiosity, but he truly has a deep desire to make the products he works on better. I always appreciated how he approached solving problems by working low-fi, iterating, and collaborating to find the best solution. He's a great teammate and someone you want to brainstorm with.
Chris Marks VP of Product and Engineering
Captura
Caleb is a great designer and was a fantastic addition to my team. His blend of creativity, thoroughness, and practicality lends itself to solving complex problems while understanding the needs of stakeholders and the realities of fast-paced software development. Caleb is focused, organized, thoughtful, and dedicated. He is always interested in a new challenge and takes them on with enthusiasm and perseverance.
Katherine Spencer Senior Director of User Experience
SugarCRM
Going beyond his UX responsibilities, Caleb brought invaluable expertise to define what a truly great Generative AI experience should entail for our customers. His vision for elegance, simplicity, and visually engaging UI was pivotal in our project's success. His insights and proficiency have made him an indispensable asset to our team.
Roberto Landrau Director of Product Management AI, BI & Data
SugarCRM
Caleb is a true professional who excels in translating complex user needs and business goals into intuitive and visually compelling design solutions. Beyond his professional expertise, he possesses a collaborative spirit that makes him a joy to work alongside. He consistently brings creativity, empathy, and a user-first perspective to team discussions. His ability to work cross-functionally with other departments underscores his commitment to collective success.
Suman Bandopadhyay Product Manager
SugarCRM
Caleb is an experienced designer with a keen eye for intuitive, usable interfaces. He keeps up with modern application interface paradigms, general common use cases, and evolving technology to keep his skillset and mindset up to date. He openly contributes to product designs and behaviors and influences products when and where appropriate.
Robert Gonzalez Vice President of Engineering
SugarCRM
Caleb is a fantastic UX designer who always strived to make the connection between UX and engineering better. He consistently has a positive attitude and always has a willingness to meet with and talk to any engineer with questions or concerns about a design. Furthermore, one of his best qualities is his ability to pivot and adapt to change on the fly as requirements may change or new information is brought to light.
Eric Starner Software Engineer
SugarCRM
He brings energy, curiosity, critical thinking, and devotion to the customers in everything he does. He takes user research seriously and stays on top of industry and technology trends. When working in cross-functional product teams, he encourages open-minded and meaningful discussion, and always with the users as the top priority.
His passion for user-centric software design and his team mentality made him easy to work with.
Brenda Rossetto Technical Writing Manager
SugarCRM
Caleb is an awesome person to work with. His ability to stay on top of industry trends, and deeply understand user experience is a valuable asset to any organization. He is not shy from rigourous conversation and puts user story first, always.
Scott King Staff Software Engineer
SugarCRM
Caleb brings that spark of creativity and delight to his UX process that elevates any design project he is involved in. His work ethic is inspiring, as is his ability to collaborate in a truly inclusive way across teams in different parts of the world. If you have the opportunity to work with Caleb, I highly recommend you do so.
Windy Jeffreys Senior UX Designer
SugarCRM
Caleb and I worked together very closely on several different software products. He was always a delight to work with. Also, he was always prepared with several different mock-ups and was always open to questions and criticism. He is earnest and hard-working and I can't recommend him enough. Brainstorming in-app text will be different without him. He is an absolute gem.
Raye Clemente Senior Technical Writer
SugarCRM
Caleb is an exceptional UI / UX designer, with a keen ability to translate a variety of user and client inputs into a functional and delightful experience… He has been a great asset to projects where creativity, user-centered thinking, and innovative UX designs are needed. Brian Barela Senior PM, RPA
Cognizant Softvision
Caleb is extremely versatile, easily able to move from large scale projects in enterprise to zeroing in on the needs of smaller businesses. He also has a passion for the newest technologies and helps to make our group stronger by consistently sharing his knowledge. Phillip Retay Head Of UXD
IT Labs
I'm always blown away with his world-class work. He's a team player and his positive attitude is infectious. Jeff Weishaupt Head of Product
Anonos
Caleb is a kind and genuine person and talented lead UI designer. I’m grateful to be able to work and learn from Caleb. Magdalena Kabelis UX Designer
Fidelity Investments
He is not only great to work with, but brings a confidence and depth to his work. Ryan Gay COO
Levatas
Caleb is one of the best team players in our company. He is steady, reliable and has grown in his area of expertise. I highly recommend him as a person of character and a talented, productive artist. Monte Lambert Senior Manager of BD
WGI
I had the pleasure of collaborating with our machine learning team in Vancouver to integrate AI-powered image editing services. The project spanned a wide range of challenges — from navigating evolving pricing structures and streamlining purchase confirmations, to building multiple configuration templates tailored to different photography job types. Other highlights included refining studio-specific configuration settings, designing an in-queue waiting indicator, and shaping AI branding and UX writing. My favorite service shown above is the AI perceptual crop — a service that intelligently adapts to different poses and hairstyles to deliver a crop that needs less manual adjustment.
AI Summarization Widget
I contributed to the development of the AI Summarization Dashlet — the platform's first AI-powered feature for sales and support. The tool automatically summarizes lengthy records and interaction logs to help users work with others and quickly get up to speed. My work spanned the full experience, from collaborating with the ML team on tuning temperature settings to accuracy and output formatting. I also helped explore solutions around data redaction and security, worked on legal disclaimers to set appropriate expectations around AI-generated content, and contributed to the overall AI branding effort. The largest challenge was dealing with early tech restrictions that led to a 2min wait time. We used a step by step animation and messaging assuring users of all the technical and secure steps we were running in this request.
“These aspects, along with robust account management tools and a genuinely helpful AI summarization tool, make it a worthwhile option for larger SMBs.”
Clinical Trials AI Designer
One of my most rewarding projects was co-designing an award-winning clinical trial authoring tool — a collaborative platform that integrates AI insights into the trial design process using publicly available clinical trial data from clinicaltrials.gov. The project demanded a steep learning curve leaning heavily on medical subject matter experts, a thoughtful approach to information architecture and systems thinking, and careful consideration of file management and collaboration. It struck a balance between simplifying trial design input and respecting real technical startup limitations. The product was acquired in 2023 and is continuing to evolve.
“Easy to navigate user interface from the writing and clinical input perspective ...”
"Trials.ai solution leverages AI, tech and deep expertise for smarter study design, optimized participant experience and faster time to market.""
AI Toolbelt
AI tools have helped me with speed, research, storytelling, and interaction design. I lean into the blurred boundaries between design and front-end engineering.
GPT, Claude, Gemini
Creating persona sample data and images
Enhancing storyboarding scripts and images
Creating demo data for prototypes
Industry specific research
Researching accessibility standards and human factors principles
Content writing with Claude and GPT to alter tone and wordsmith
Cursor, Claude, Convex
I have been creating a side project slack clone
Figma Make & Cursor
Interaction design
Brainstorming UI patterns
Figjam
Generating flow diagrams
Dovetail, GPT
Tagging and summarizing large amounts of qualitative data
AI Certifications
UX & Design in an AI World: Strategic Fundamentals by Jared Spool
This course, taught by renowned UX leader Jared Spool, teaches how to strategically integrate AI into organizations' products and services while keeping users at the center. It teaches using the Kano Model to map AI capabilities against customer expectations. AI should be intentionally designed around real user problems rather than simply layered onto products ensuring it delivers measurable value for users and stakeholders.
Start with a customer pain point or opportunity on the O.S.T.
Identify key personas
Validate assumptions with customers asking 5 whys
Map out user flows
Competitive research
Narrow Down
Focus on scope with PM
Focus down the user flow and competitive research
Problem identified!
Help PM prepare idea in JPD
Solution Space
Go Wide
Ideate 10+ low-fidelity wireframe solutions in Figma
Get PM and Eng feedback
Plan metrics and tracking
Narrow Down
Identify MVP with PM and Eng
Convert wireframes into High-fidelity UI designs in new Figma
Create Interactive prototype to help identify feedback gaps and demonstrate interactions
Demo and usability test internally then with customers
Apply any feedback
Hand off to Eng with redline specs
Help Eng with UX QA
Delivery
Done is not a Jira column!
Tag features w/ analytic tracking tools
Create in-app feature announcements
Work with Doc/Support team to document feature
Work with Marketing to provide quality demonstrative screenshots and videos
Follow-up calls with customers
Measure adoption in Pendo
Measure goals and outcome
Influence future roadmap and O.S.T.
Continual Research
Research as a culture
Customer call Fridays
Unmoderated surveys
Quantitative analytics
Calls with sales, support, CS to hear feedback and equip others for contributing research
Spreading customer feedback in channels and tickets with video clips
Managing insights in research repo
Managing O.S.T. and conducting discovery experiments
Analyzing high volume incoming feedback with AI tools
Working as a Team
I prefer working in a three-legged stool core team: PM, UX, and Dev lead. This team talks early and often to make sure we are aligned and sharing input from each other’s perspectives and priorities. The larger team includes more developers and QA. I have plenty of experience working remote and with teams in global time zones.
