My Experience as a Product Designer at Vorboss
After working on a freelance project for Vorboss, designing and building their Channel Partners website on Webflow, I was pretty excited when the team loved my work. But what really threw me was when they offered me a full-time role.
My responsibilities quickly shifted from being a freelance junior designer, still finding my way around the UX world, to stepping into the role of a mid-level Product Designer. It was daunting, no doubt. Imposter syndrome crept in quickly. But what kept me going was reminding myself, 'If my skills weren't good enough, this opportunity wouldn't have come my way.' That mindset helped me push through the uncertainty and grow with the role.
What was my day-to-day like?
As cliché as it sounds, no two days were the same. Being the only designer in the Product Engineering team meant juggling multiple projects from different teams, at varying stages in the design processs. The first half of the day I could be finalising high-fidelity designs for a feature with one team, by the afternoon, I'd be diving into user flow mapping with another team.
Me some days
The projects I worked on
My primary focus was redesigning and enhancing Volcano, Vorboss’ internal commercial platform. Originally built using a low-code tool, the platform was slow, inconsistent, and frustrating to navigate. With so many teams relying on it, optimising Volcano became critical to improving efficiency and supporting the business as a whole.
I led the end-to-end design of three key apps on Volcano:
- CRM - The first stop for sales teams, where they collected and managed prospecting data. This app replaced Salesforce and HubSpot, consolidating everything into a system tailored to Vorboss' needs.
- Ordering & Contracts - A tool that helped sales users bundle products and create orders, much like an e-commerce shopping basket. Here, users can also generate and manage legal documents like contracts for customers.
- Service Management - The app used by teams like Customer Operations, Network Support, and Finance to oversee services, handle renewals, cancellations, and upgrades.
Building Volcano's design system
Since the platform housed multiple interconnected apps, we needed to bring consistency. I took the lead in creating Volcano's design system, which standardised components, styling, and interaction patterns. I documented everything—how components should be used, accessibility guidelines, copy recommendations so engineers had a go-to reference. This made collaboration smoother and helped keep the platform cohesive.
Learning the business, fast
Vorboss was a fast-growing scale-up, which meant constant change, evolving processes, and a fair amount of ambiguity. To design effective tools, I had to quickly get up to speed with the company’s products, workflows, and the unique challenges different teams faced. But with documentation often incomplete or outdated, the best way to learn was through conversations. I spent a lot of time speaking with stakeholders across sales, operations, and engineering, piecing together how things worked (and where they could be improved). Regular feedback loops with end users were essential—not just for refining designs but for making sure we were building solutions that truly supported the business as it scaled.
Collaboration was key
Being the only Product Designer on the team, it would have been easy to fall into the classic trap of working in a silo. But great design doesn’t happen in isolation. I joined daily stand-ups to stay in sync with different product teams and lead design workshops and critique sessions to create space for idea sharing and feedback. Working closely with Product Managers also helped me stay ahead of new features, changing requirements, and any unexpected challenges.
Looking back, my time at Vorboss was a period of intense growth, constant learning, and real impact. I had the chance to work on meaningful projects, build a design system from the ground up, and collaborate with brilliant people. Now, I’m excited for what’s next—bringing these experiences into new challenges and continuing to craft meaningful user experiences.
Thank you for reading ♥︎