Miguel Ángel Pérez-Holdsworth

Product designer, design researcher, front-end. Building software since 2008. I set up the A/B test, the usability study, or the evaluation harness first, then ship the design and hand the team the system that runs it.

Level: Staff or principal individual contributor. Has led as a senior manager and founded a design center of excellence.
Based: Denver, Colorado. Remote preferred; Philadelphia from 2027.
Work authorization: US citizen. No sponsorship needed.
Certification: NN/g UX Certification, UX Management specialty, 2019. UXC #1029705.
Titles, translated: “Digital Service Expert” is a senior service designer; the employer's own alternate title was Solutions Architect/Engineer.

Key outcomes

8 of 8top-task completion, up from fewer than 1 in 3Love With Food account redesign · 2016 · unmoderated study, coded

4,300+GitHub stars, 2,600+ live sites a decade onsmoothState.js · 2014 · verified via API and BuiltWith, 2026

−26%design spend, capacity doubled (modeled)Inovalon · 2018 · founded the Design CoE

48→72%expert agreement, with a NO-GO on the recordSonder · 2020 to now · 13 fidelity cycles

Experience

2024 – nowColorado Digital Service, Governor's Office of Information TechnologyDigital Service Expert (Service Designer)State payroll modernization and sign-in for myColorado; assumption mapping credited in the State's case study. Technology procurement consultation for agencies and vendors.

2011 – nowWRKPACK Co., independent practicePrincipal DesignerStaffed research and design consultancy under signed agreements since 2015. Arrow Electronics via ClientSolv (2019–2020): 39 interviews, 1,600+ observations, eight profitability levers in 90 days; the process and repository stayed with the team. Turo via Huge, Autodesk via Tomorrow Partners, Whistle Labs, Tenasol.

2022 – 2023Opportunity@WorkSenior Manager of Design Research, Innovation EngineCommunity-centered engagement and action research for a Gates-funded innovation team.

2018 – 2019Inovalon HoldingsSenior Manager, Design Strategy · Founder, Design Center of ExcellenceFounded the Design Center of Excellence; a $687k vendor contract replaced, total design spend −26%, capacity doubled (modeled); design became a corporate goal with approved headcount.

2017Avalere Health, an Inovalon companyUser Experience Designer/DeveloperFirst UX hire. Started with one usability study of the intranet, which earned direct access to users and the next permission.

2017City of Philadelphia, Office of Open Data and Digital TransformationDesign Fellow19+ interviews and an intercept survey on the open-data portal, ending in a press conference.

2016CID EntertainmentProduct DesignerA 90-day market-entry strategy and Curadora, an MVP that converted prospects to paying customers.

2014 – 2015Love With FoodUX Designer & Front-End DeveloperResponsive redesign with a 60% sign-up lift by A/B test; account top-task completion from under 30% to 8 of 8. Method published in UX Collective, 2019.

2011 – 2014WebLinc CommerceLead Front-End DeveloperLead front-end for Free People, BHLDN, Terrain and others; design-system program, i18n playbook, onboarding.

2010 – 2011Sides MediaWeb DeveloperCMS builds and custom front-ends for agency clients.

2008 – 2010FreelancePixel artist and self-taught front-end developerEfencea, a PvP tower-defense game co-created at 16, first playable in eight days and still live.

Self-initiated

2025 – nowGameLab48 pre-registered experiments, 34 falsifications, tournament evaluation, citations enforced in CI.

2020 – nowSonderLLM-assisted synthesis benchmarked against expert coding; 48% → 72% agreement over 13 fidelity cycles, with a NO-GO on a statistically significant win.

2020FAIR UXRA free eight-lesson course on FAIR research repositories.

2014smoothState.jsOpen-source page transitions; 4,300+ stars and 2,600+ live sites a decade on. Featured on CSS-Tricks.

Check for yourself

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Kept in step with the case studies on miguel.design. Testimonials there are quoted by role; small-sample results are given as raw counts. Printed from miguel.design/resume/.