ABOUT DANICA
A people-first UX leader with a bias for clarity.
I currently lead a team of designers at Amazon, working on recruiting technology problems that need to scale to hundreds of thousands of candidates that apply to Amazon every year, and the recruiters that support them. Before that, I lived in Berlin, Germany, working on the checkout UX for a fashion ecommerce company. I'm a doodler, wanderlust-er, and audiobook enthusiast. I'm passionate about clearing the way so designers can do their best work.
+1 778 838 2678
EXPERIENCE
Amazon
Vancouver, Canada · October 2019 — Present
UX Design Manager · January 2023 — Present
Leading design for Amazon’s hiring and applicant-tracking products, building tools for recruiting, interviewing, and candidate management at the scale of 7 million applications annually. I manage a team of nine designers within a 25-person design and research organization, own resourcing and headcount planning, and served as interim manager for the full team during a leadership transition.
Promoted six team members, guided two through structured performance improvement, and hired and onboarded three UX designers. Partner across product, engineering, research, and business to define success metrics, customer outcomes, and trade-offs. Led the internal Hiring Manager experience launch, improving customer satisfaction by 8% in the first month, with 94% reporting the tool valuable. I also lead global expansion for fulfillment associate hiring software in Germany, Brazil, and Whole Foods, and launched a twice-weekly AI training series for design and research.
Senior User Experience Designer · July 2021 — January 2023
Led design across Amazon’s recruiting ecosystem — job discovery for candidates, application tracking for recruiters, and evaluation tools for interviewers. Supported more than ten product and engineering teams, facilitating stakeholder alignment across a 9,000-person recruiting organization to increase quality of hire and reduce time and cost of hire.
User Experience Designer · October 2019 — July 2021
Designed experiences for Amazon’s corporate careers site, including authentication, application, and candidate profile flows that helped candidates find their best-fit opportunities across thousands of open roles.
Zalando SE
Berlin, Germany · October 2017 — July 2019
Product Designer
Improved the transactional journey through customer-centered solutions backed by data, research, and empathy. Led high-impact checkout initiatives, including a voucher-input optimization that drove €11.2 million in annual profit and a delivery-carrier integration that exceeded adoption projections by more than 50%. I also led a year-long study of customer payment behavior, conducting 25+ in-home interviews that informed an innovative new payment method.
PlentyOfFish Media Inc.
Vancouver, Canada · July 2014 — September 2017
UX Designer
Owned the end-to-end experience for POF’s mobile apps and website. Designed features that supported the brand’s “all about conversations” strategy, including a persistent chat interface, priority messaging, and a custom profile quoter. Oversaw and contributed to the 2017 mobile-app visual redesign.
VOLUNTEERING
Teaching Assistant · School of Visual Concepts · November — December 2021
Supported the usability-testing class in Amazon’s UX Design Apprenticeship program, helping prepare new UX practitioners for design careers.
Team Mentor · Technovation Challenge · December 2016 — May 2017
Mentored two grade-six students as they formed a business plan, designed, and built an app for a community problem.
EDUCATION
University of British Columbia
Bachelor of Arts · Major in Visual Arts, Minor in Art History