Steve Kansa
Product Design Leadership · Defense Tech

Designing products that earn trust — from mission-critical defense tech to B2B SaaS

Head of UX & Sr. UX Manager with 11+ years building B2B SaaS platforms, AI-powered workflows, and design systems from 0→1.

📍 Atlanta, GA (Remote) ✦ TS/SCI Clearance (Active) ✦ stkansa@gmail.com
Selected Work
Case Studies
01
Smarter Bookings: AI-Powered UX for Corporate Events
Led product design at a pre-seed AI startup, taking a B2C events planning platform from concept to live MVP in 90 days. Reduced event planning time by 70%+.
AI/ML UX B2C 0→1 Design Systems MVP
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02
Winning Buy-In With User Evidence: Awarding +65% Retention
Redesigned Arkestro's most business-critical workflow after a single user quote revealed a fundamental problem. Boosted engagement from 55% to 74% and increased retention by 65%.
B2B SaaS Procurement User Research Stakeholder Buy-In
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03
Component Pricing: Comparing Apples to Apples
Pushed back on pressure to ship fast, ran discovery first, and increased feature applicability from 4% to 40% — while building stronger relationships with enterprise customers.
B2B SaaS Procurement User Research On-Site Testing
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04
Inventory Management: From "Ugh" to "Oh Wow!"
Inherited a struggling Home Depot project, challenged the MVP definition, switched design systems, and delivered 98% data accuracy and 90% faster development times.
Enterprise Home Depot Design Systems Internal Tools
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05
Vehicle Rentals: Support Reimagined
Scoped and solved a fleet management problem for Home Depot and partner Element — saving 38 minutes per maintenance instance and adding $6,000 in revenue per vehicle per year.
Enterprise Home Depot Field Operations Mixed Methods Research
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06
Building a UX Team at a Startup
Built Arkestro's UX practice from zero — design system, research infrastructure, developer workflows, and technical writing standards — shifting the company from hunches to evidence.
Design Leadership Design Systems 0→1 Research Infrastructure
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About
I Build and Scale High-Impact Product Design Teams

From zero to scale, with measurable business results.

  • Founded and scaled UX teams from the ground up (2x)
  • Unified design, research under one UX org
  • Tied UX strategy directly to retention, engagement and revenue
  • Enabled products to scale with clarity, speed and momentum

I specialize in transforming new and existing design teams into strategic drivers of product value. As a two-time founding UX designer, I've built multidisciplinary teams from the ground up in SaaS environments. My goal is to develop a collaborative environment across design, research, and technical writing, aligning user experience with measurable business outcomes and enabling the product to scale with clarity and momentum. Most recently, I've brought that same rigor to defense tech — serving as UX Engineer on Guardian One, a U.S. Space Force personnel platform, under an active TS/SCI clearance.

LinkedIn ↗   |   Email ↗

Design
Product Design UX Research Design Systems Interaction Design Prototyping
Leadership
Team Building Cross-functional Design Strategy Roadmapping
Tools
Figma Subframe Maze Miro Notion
Domains
B2B SaaS FinTech AI/ML Products Enterprise Defense/Gov