Fintech · Web3
Growing Into UX Leadership at a DeFi Wallet
I joined as the second designer during a company pivot, became the sole UX designer, and grew into UX Lead over two years, designing for financial inclusion in emerging markets, backed by the UNICEF Venture Fund.
Xcapit
2 years (2021–2023)
Sole designer, later joined by a researcher + content specialist
LatAm users protecting savings from inflation
Started as Junior UX/UI Designer, grew into UX Lead over 2 years, 0 to 1 at an early-stage fintech startup
Figma, FigJam
Challenge
Xcapit was founded in Córdoba in 2018. When I joined in 2021, the fintech company was mid-pivot: from an AI-driven algorithmic trading bot connected via API to Binance, toward a self-custodial, open-source DeFi mobile wallet for financial inclusion, backed by the UNICEF Venture Fund, with a defined roadmap and real deadlines attached, not a blank slate.
I came in as the second designer, implementing existing branding, then building the roadmap’s committed flows. Shortly after, the senior designer above me left, and I became the sole UX designer mid-pivot, junior, in a market I didn’t yet know well myself. The early months were genuinely hard: alone, learning DeFi and financial inclusion in real time, while the roadmap kept moving. What made it work was a strong, collaborative team and reading that context correctly enough to know what to prioritize while I was still learning.
Results
Over two years, I took on progressively more ownership: UX decisions, design direction, eventually a seat at the table where product decisions got made, which is where most of my practical learning actually happened. By the end, I was coordinating design as UX Lead, working directly across Marketing, Security, and Legal, not just Product and Engineering.
A concrete proof point: Investment Vaults, a feature I owned end-to-end once I had that ownership. It let users generate yield through automated DeFi strategies without touching the underlying protocols directly. It meant translating genuinely hard concepts (APY, gas fees, async confirmations, risk) into something a non-expert could trust with money they couldn’t afford to lose.
Two rounds of usability testing (5 users on the initial prototype, 5 more on a revised iteration) meant the design that shipped had already been stress-tested against real behavior, not just assumptions. Of the four case studies in this portfolio, this is the one with the most conventional, complete research cycle: prototype, test, iterate, test again. A different kind of rigor than the “compensate for lost testing time” pattern that shows up elsewhere in my Web3 work.
35%
Improved onboarding process
Jr → Lead
Growth
UNICEF
Backing
Process
Across two years at Xcapit, my process work went well beyond one feature:
Design system & documentation: Created and maintained a lightweight design system to support product scalability, and systematically documented product versions and handoff processes for the team.
Planning & research: Planned UX sprints in close collaboration with Product Owners and stakeholders, and coordinated research and validation through multiple methods: user interviews, usability testing, heuristic analysis, and metrics tracking (implemented in my second year there).
Cross-functional scope: As responsibilities grew, I worked directly with Marketing, Security, and Legal, not just Product and Engineering, reflecting the stakeholder management that came with moving from junior designer to UX Lead.
Investment Vaults: specific decisions
Vault information structured hierarchically, so key metrics scan in seconds
Visual risk indicators paired with plain-language explanations, not jargon
A simplified flow using progressive disclosure, split across steps instead of one dense screen
Contextual tooltips and modals for technical terms, right where confusion would happen
Flow: Obtain Tokens → Select Vault → Enter Amount → Confirm Transaction → Track Performance
Two rounds of testing, an early prototype and then a revised version, shaped these decisions directly (see before/after above). Production metrics were meant to close the loop, but the specific numbers from this feature aren’t something I have on hand today.
Conclusion
This is what growth actually looked like in practice: not a title change, but being handed a harder context each time (a market I didn’t know, then a team I had to hold together alone, then a feature where getting the UI wrong meant real financial risk for someone protecting their savings), and reading each one well enough to decide what mattered most.
Kuala Lumpur, APAC
