Product Designer · Vibe Coder · AI Learner

Hi, I'm Julie.

I can help you improving software user experience and make the development process easier with the AI workflow.

2019 – 2023 · Shanghai

From an Intern to a design lead at a healthcare tech startup.

Orka hired me in 2019 while I was finishing my degree at Donghua University. The company needed one designer to do everything: web design, video, marketing design. I did all.

As the company grew I hired and managed a inhouse design branding team to distribute the tasks of marketing and service. In the meanwhile I developed myself in the software design field. Over four years I shipped more than 500 screens and hundreds of prototypes across the e-commerce site and the hearing aid companion app.

By 2023, I took more managerial tasks than design execution, which made me want to understand what sits above design. KIT offered me a place in their Management of Product Development master's program. My husband was relocating to Germany. So I packed and started my next chapter.

2023 – 2025 · Karlsruhe, Germany

Brave to break the discipline boundaries, how I become a design engineer.

At KIT the program ran like a studio: engineering lectures alongside live product development. The exams were always case study pitches and practical development reports. I learned software development, hardware-software integration, project finance management, and how to communicate across engineering disciplines.

Besides the master program, I worked eight months across two KIT institutes on literature research and data analysis. I trained to organize knowledge and synthesize it into insights. I also published an academic paper at the European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Thanks to this experience, I now read stakeholders faster and zero in on why and what to deliver.

At the end of 2025 I received my graduation certificate with an excellent score of 1.4. That score opened a path toward a doctorate, but I decided to return to Shanghai, since my husband received an expat position at Bosch. Time to start work in industry again!

Education

2023 – 2025

M.S. Management of Product Development

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) · Hector School · QS 98

Final Grade: 1.4 (excellent) · Thesis published at ECIE 2025

2016 – 2020

B.A. Digital Media Art

Donghua University · Shanghai · 211

Digital Media Art

Work Experience

2026 – now

Freelance Product Designer

Independent · Shanghai

B2C and B2B platform design. AI-augmented workflow.

2025.05 – 12

Student Assistant

KIT IPEK & KASTEL · Karlsruhe

Developed a custom GPT for the Institute of Product Engineering, trained on research papers and course materials, with a structured dialogue workflow to guide users in defining product development problems and suggesting solution methods, adopted as an institutional course tool and doctoral research case study.
Developed AI workflows for automated medical data cleaning and structuring for the operations research institute, reducing data processing time by around 60% for quantitative research tasks.
Conducted research on topics including agile development and German tele-healthcare infrastructure across academic literature and online sources, enabling 2 doctoral students to reclaim 3 days per week for core research activities.

2024.11 – 12

Guest Student · UX Research

Mercedes-Benz AG · Sindelfingen

Delivered end-to-end UX research for the E-trolley system at the Sindelfingen plant, including shop-floor worker interviews, persona development, and cross-functional workshops with Engineers and PMs, to define the core rental user flow and support a doctoral dissertation.

2020 – 2023

Senior UX Designer

Orka Co., Ltd. · Shanghai

Facilitated requirements alignment workshops across Marketing, Service, and R&D teams, leveraging journey maps and prototypes to minimize design rework and ensure 2 digital products launched on schedule for the US market.
Decreased user task completion time by 30% by evaluating PRDs, collaborating with PMs to restructure information architecture in the customer hearing aids control app.
Created Gen 1 and Gen 2 e-commerce web designs used in CEO-led investor pitches, contributing to a $500M Series A funding round.

Fun fact about me