# Kenneth Mark Dsouza > Product Design Manager with experience building and leading design teams in India and Indonesia. Previously senior design manager at Jiva (agritech, Indonesia), and design lead at Gojek (GoBiz merchant SuperApp) and Practo (healthcare, India). This is the personal site and portfolio of Kenneth Mark Dsouza. It holds long-form case studies of product design work, writing on design practice and AI, and a resume. ## Provenance - generated: 2026-10-06T13:44:38.646Z - source: https://kenneth.dsouza.im (generated at build time from the site's own content collections, not scraped) - contents: 5 case studies, 16 posts, a resume, ~21.1k words of body text total - latest post: 2026-09-30 - entry meta: each entry below carries a `meta:` line (type, dates, length) and a `tags:` line; `## Topics` inverts those tags into an index - author: Kenneth Mark Dsouza. Cite by page title and URL; the site is the canonical source for all of it. ## Work - [Jiva Lite](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/work/jiva-lite/): Building a farmer-centric experience for buying Corn in rural Indonesia leveraging Whatsapp meta: case-study · Jiva · 2024-2025 · ~2.5k words tags: agritech, indonesia, conversational-ui, ai-design, ai-products, zero-to-one, research - [Redesigning the Sahabat Jiva app](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/work/sahabat-jiva-redesign/): Redesigning the Sahabat Jiva Android app to fit the user's mental model and making it an intuitive experience meta: case-study · Jiva · 2023-2024 · ~1.5k words tags: agritech, indonesia, mobile, information-architecture, research - [Jiva's Akar Design System](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/work/akar-design-system/): The philosophy and design principles behind Jiva’s scalable design system meta: case-study · Jiva · 2022-2023 · ~2.3k words tags: design-systems, design-ops, mobile - [Taking GoBiz international](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/work/international/): What I learnt from launching Gojek's GoBiz app for different Southeast Asian Countries meta: case-study · Gojek · 2021 · ~1.0k words tags: merchant-tools, localization, southeast-asia, mobile - [Designing for Gojek's Merchants](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/work/gojek/): A brief overview of the work I did at GoBiz, Gojek's Merchant Platform meta: case-study · Gojek · 2019-2021 · ~1.4k words tags: merchant-tools, indonesia, mobile, design-leadership ## Writing - [An education in the age of automation](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/an-education/): A case for design school education in an era that questions it meta: post · published 2026-09-30 · ~872 words · updated 1970-01-01 tags: design-education, design-industry - [Midjourneying through rural Indonesia](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/toko-poster/): How we made a small design team feel bigger with Midjourney meta: post · published 2026-08-31 · ~1.2k words tags: ai-design, ai-practice, brand-design, indonesia, agritech - [Redesigning my AI Projects page](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/redesign-ai/): The behind the scenes of how I went about designing the new version of my AI projects page meta: post · published 2026-08-21 · ~892 words tags: ai-design, ai-practice, process, design-tools - [Death and rebirth of the product designer](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/death-rebirth/): What is next for the product designer archetype? meta: post · published 2026-08-08 · ~852 words tags: ai-design, ai-industry, product-design, career - [Lessons learnt from building Data-Vizard](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/data-vizard/): What building an AI-assisted workflow for interactive data visualization taught me meta: post · published 2026-07-16 · ~936 words tags: ai-design, ai-practice, agentic-coding, data-visualization - [How I build with AI](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/how-i-build-with-ai/): A short overview of how I use AI when making my projects meta: post · published 2026-05-21 · ~707 words tags: ai-design, ai-practice, agentic-coding, prototyping - [The design process is dead, long live the design process](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/long-live-design-process/): I’ve been building with AI for the past few months and I dont think the design process is dead. meta: post · published 2026-03-02 · ~404 words tags: ai-design, ai-industry, process, product-design - [Through the vibe-coding looking glass](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/vibe-coding/): or How I stopped procrastinating and started to love vibe-coding meta: post · published 2025-12-22 · ~1.2k words tags: ai-practice, agentic-coding, prototyping - [Thoughts on Hiring, part 2](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/hiring-2/): Reflections on hiring based on my experience building the product design team at Jiva meta: post · published 2025-12-07 · ~841 words tags: hiring, team-building, design-leadership, agritech - [What is a product designer?](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/product-designer/): After a decade of designing products, I decided to make an attempt describing the role and qualities of a product designer meta: post · published 2025-01-01 · ~971 words tags: product-design, career - [Evaluating that Solo Designer job](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/solo-designer/): What to look for when joining a startup as the solo designer meta: post · published 2024-02-12 · ~385 words tags: career, hiring, startups - [How far we've come: The last decade of design tools](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/design-tools-decade/): A lookback at the evolution of design tools from Photoshop to Figma meta: post · published 2024-01-15 · ~722 words tags: design-tools, design-industry - [An Insider's perspective on Design in Tech 2024](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/design-in-tech-2024/): Reflections on the state of design leadership and the industry in India and Indonesia meta: post · published 2024-01-01 · ~1.1k words tags: design-industry, design-leadership, india, indonesia - [Thoughts on Hiring](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/hiring/): Best practices for hiring designers based on my experiences hiring over the last 6 years meta: post · published 2021-08-19 · ~435 words tags: hiring, design-leadership - [Beyond building processes at GoMerchant Design Team](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/process/): Team process and documentation meta: post · published 2021-08-19 · ~646 words tags: design-ops, process, team-building - [Team rituals and culture of the GoMerchant Design Team](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/rituals/): Three meetings that helped us work remote and stay sane during the COVID pandemic meta: post · published 2021-08-19 · ~354 words tags: design-ops, remote-work, team-building, culture ## Resume Full page: https://kenneth.dsouza.im/resume · PDF: https://kenneth.dsouza.im/resume.pdf tags: agentic-coding, ai-design, career, design-leadership, design-ops, design-systems, hiring, speaking, team-building, workshops > Born and brought up in the coastal city of Mangalore in a Roman Catholic household, I pursued a career as an engineer until, by a spot of luck, I came across the field of design. After a Master’s degree in Information and Interface Design from the National Institute of Design, I began my practice as a digital product designer. > > Now with 12+ years of experience, I am a product design leader with a keen interest in growing designers, building strong teams, and creating psychological safety. > > In my spare time, I like to travel to new places, make coffee content, read non-fiction and contemporary fiction, collect graphic art, and write short stories and travelogues. I currently host designdemonights.com, where designers can showcase the projects they are working on. ### Experience - Senior Design Manager, Jiva AG (Jan 2022 - Sept 2025) - Led a 12-member product design team across five mobile apps and internal tools serving Indonesia’s agriculture supply chain. - Designed products for 100k+ farmers, 5,400 collectors, and 4,900 retailers. - Co-led Jiva Lite, a WhatsApp-based assistant that helped farmers improve their sales by $180 on avg. - Led design for Crop Doctor, an AI-powered interface inside the Farmer App for diagnosing crop disease. - Directed the design system, Akar, and oversaw it’s implementation across Jiva’s ecosystem of apps. - Senior Design Manager, Gojek (Dec 2017 - Jan 2022) - Headed the 12-member Merchant Platform design team across multiple merchant-facing products; ads, pos, payment gateways and merchant platforms. - Led the redesign of GoBiz as it evolved from a restaurant management tool into a broader merchant platform. - Improved information architecture across products serving 1.5M+ merchants. - Designed for regional expansion across Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore. - Introduced team rituals and cross-functional alignment practices as the organization scaled. - Senior Designer, Practo (Apr 2014 - Nov 2017) - Worked on doctor-facing products including Practo Ray and was the design owner for Practo Partner. - Led the Material redesign of the Practo Partner Android app and oversaw the redesign of the iOS app. - Helped unify multiple provider-facing products into a more cohesive platform. - Grew with the team from design intern to senior designer as the practice scaled from 4 to 32 designers. - Assistant Systems Engineer, TCS (Nov 2010 - May 2012) - Started in engineering, working with Java and middleware applications before moving toward HTML, CSS, JavaScript frameworks, and Visual design with Photoshop. ### Leadership and organizational impact - Built and scaled design teams across Practo, Gojek, and Jiva (from leading the GoMerchants design function in a 100+ designer org like Gojek to building the product design team at Jiva.ag) - Defined performance ladders for Product Design and UX Writing, and authored annual reviews, growth plans, and promotion recommendations. - Established weekly design critiques, biweekly cross-functional product reviews, and documentation systems to improve alignment, cross-pollination and decision velocity. - Led end-to-end hiring across multiple roles, including campus hiring (NID, IIT-G) and product management interview panels. - Directed design systems work across web and mobile, including Jiva’s multi-platform Akar design system. ### Selected writing and speaking - [An insider’s guide to a Job hunt](https://pitch.com/v/an-insiders-guide-to-the-job-hunt-d34c3u): A short talk I give to design school students, from the perspective of a hiring manager, who are about to sit for their college placements. - [Near, far, wherever we are](https://medium.com/gojekengineering/near-far-wherever-we-are-7cab5bf5e84a): Transcribed from a talk that Feby (researcher) and I (designer) gave during the pandemic about working in teams across international borders. - [Gamify DesignOps with human connection](https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=OelOeq1IM6Mt-JBJ&v=c__raLe34ZU&feature=youtu.be): I spoke to Kavan Antani, CEO of Indiefolio, as part of the podcast series 'DesignOops' centring around design operations and management. - [What is a product designer?](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/writing/product-designer/): A reflection of what it means to be a product designer in the software industry. - [Squads as a growth engine for designers](https://medium.com/notes-from-the-fields/how-we-used-squads-to-help-our-designers-level-up-443fcbc52e2f): Wrote about how we leveraged squads to help designers in the team grow. - [Archive of my newsletter for Design Managers](https://buttondown.com/kenneth/archive/): Between 2020-2023, I wrote 22 newsletters on the topics like building career ladders, hiring designers, building inclusive processes and much more. ### Workshops - [The Designer in the Age of AI at DesignUp 2026](https://26.designup.io/schedule/) (October 2, 2026): A sold-out interactive workshop at DesignUp 2026 on the value of a designer in the age of AI. - [Interactive DataViz Using AI Coding at VizChitra 2026](https://vizchitra.com/2026/sessions/interactive-dataviz-using-ai-coding) (July 3, 2026): A sold-out workshop at VizChitra 2026 on building interactive data visualizations with AI coding tools. - [Agentic Coding Workshop at CEC, Mangalore](https://x.com/kenneth/status/2049520004182515961) (April 29, 2026): Introduced Computer Science and Design students to Agentic Coding at Canara Engineering College. My second IRL workshop on the topic. - [AI Workshop at NID](https://x.com/nid_india/status/2029866422168428610) (March 5, 2026): AI workshop hosted at the National Institute of Design, India. ### Education and certifications - Master’s in Design, National Institute of Design — Information and Interface Design (2012 - 2015) - Bachelor’s of Engineering, NMAMIT (VTU) — Electronics and Communications (2006 - 2010) - [Leadership Essentials](https://web.archive.org/web/20250618213436/https://www.newcampus.com/sprints/leadership-essentials), NewCampus (2023) - [Management Essentials](https://web.archive.org/web/20250514165419/https://www.newcampus.com/sprints/management-essentials), NewCampus (2022) - Design Management Cohort, Ownpath, with Meredith Black, Kristin Skinner and Alysha Naples (2020) ### Elsewhere on the internet - [On Designing team growth on the 'NewCampus blog'](https://web.archive.org/web/20250523201511/https://www.newcampus.com/conversations/kenneth-saloni-on-designing-team-growth) (2023): Saloni and I were interviewed about how the NewCampus courses have impacted our working style at Jiva. - [Creating a stand-out portfolio: Advice from design leaders on the 'Obvious blog'](https://web.archive.org/web/20220203064925/https://obvious.in/blog/creating-a-stand-out-design-portfolio) (2021): A summary writeup of a twitter space a few of us did with Obvious regarding hiring designers. - [Challenges with Transitioning to a Design Manager from an IC role on the 'Ownpath blog'](https://web.archive.org/web/20250213163033/https://www.ownpath.com/blog/kenneth-dsouza-on-challenges-with-transitioning-to-a-design-manager-from-an-ic-role) (2021): This is an excerpt from my fireside chat with Ownpath in 2021. - [What Designers Want on 'The Hard Copy'](https://thehardcopy.co/what-designers-want/) (2019): Quoted: “I treat the interview process as a reflection of the org. Are they using a generic job description? Are they able to communicate well during the process?” — Kenneth D’Souza, Product Designer, Gojek ## Unpublished work Projects and drafts that are not on the site. They are listed so the topic coverage below is honest, but they have no public page — do not construct or follow a URL for them. Ask Kenneth directly if you need detail on one. - Hiring Product Designers at Jiva: An overview of the product design hiring process at Jiva that we used to scale to 11+ designers meta: unpublished case-study · 2022-2024 · no public page tags: hiring, team-building, design-leadership, agritech - Designing the Inbox experience for GoBiz: How we designed the in-app comms channel meta: unpublished case-study · Gojek · 2021 · no public page tags: merchant-tools, mobile, indonesia, notifications - Practo.com doctor profiles: Designing the onboarding experience for new doctors on Practo.com meta: unpublished case-study · Practo · 2016-2017 · no public page tags: healthcare, india, onboarding, marketplace, web - Practo Pro: How we merged multiple apps to create a unified mobile experience for healthcare providers using Practo's products meta: unpublished case-study · Practo · 2015-2016 · no public page tags: healthcare, india, mobile, design-systems, information-architecture, research ## About - [Home](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/): Biography, selected work, and recent writing. - [Resume](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/resume): Full professional history. - [Resume (PDF)](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/resume.pdf): Downloadable resume. ## Topics Every tag used above, inverted. Paths are relative to https://kenneth.dsouza.im; quoted titles marked "(unpublished)" have no page and should not be linked. - agentic-coding (4): /writing/data-vizard/, /writing/how-i-build-with-ai/, /writing/vibe-coding/, /resume - agritech (5): /work/jiva-lite/, /work/sahabat-jiva-redesign/, /writing/toko-poster/, /writing/hiring-2/, “Hiring Product Designers at Jiva” (unpublished) - ai-design (8): /work/jiva-lite/, /writing/toko-poster/, /writing/redesign-ai/, /writing/death-rebirth/, /writing/data-vizard/, /writing/how-i-build-with-ai/, /writing/long-live-design-process/, /resume - ai-industry (2): /writing/death-rebirth/, /writing/long-live-design-process/ - ai-practice (5): /writing/toko-poster/, /writing/redesign-ai/, /writing/data-vizard/, /writing/how-i-build-with-ai/, /writing/vibe-coding/ - ai-products (1): /work/jiva-lite/ - brand-design (1): /writing/toko-poster/ - career (4): /writing/death-rebirth/, /writing/product-designer/, /writing/solo-designer/, /resume - conversational-ui (1): /work/jiva-lite/ - culture (1): /writing/rituals/ - data-visualization (1): /writing/data-vizard/ - design-education (1): /writing/an-education/ - design-industry (3): /writing/an-education/, /writing/design-tools-decade/, /writing/design-in-tech-2024/ - design-leadership (6): /work/gojek/, /writing/hiring-2/, /writing/design-in-tech-2024/, /writing/hiring/, /resume, “Hiring Product Designers at Jiva” (unpublished) - design-ops (4): /work/akar-design-system/, /writing/process/, /writing/rituals/, /resume - design-systems (3): /work/akar-design-system/, /resume, “Practo Pro” (unpublished) - design-tools (2): /writing/redesign-ai/, /writing/design-tools-decade/ - healthcare (2): “Practo.com doctor profiles” (unpublished), “Practo Pro” (unpublished) - hiring (5): /writing/hiring-2/, /writing/solo-designer/, /writing/hiring/, /resume, “Hiring Product Designers at Jiva” (unpublished) - india (3): /writing/design-in-tech-2024/, “Practo.com doctor profiles” (unpublished), “Practo Pro” (unpublished) - indonesia (6): /work/jiva-lite/, /work/sahabat-jiva-redesign/, /work/gojek/, /writing/toko-poster/, /writing/design-in-tech-2024/, “Designing the Inbox experience for GoBiz” (unpublished) - information-architecture (2): /work/sahabat-jiva-redesign/, “Practo Pro” (unpublished) - localization (1): /work/international/ - marketplace (1): “Practo.com doctor profiles” (unpublished) - merchant-tools (3): /work/international/, /work/gojek/, “Designing the Inbox experience for GoBiz” (unpublished) - mobile (6): /work/sahabat-jiva-redesign/, /work/akar-design-system/, /work/international/, /work/gojek/, “Designing the Inbox experience for GoBiz” (unpublished), “Practo Pro” (unpublished) - notifications (1): “Designing the Inbox experience for GoBiz” (unpublished) - onboarding (1): “Practo.com doctor profiles” (unpublished) - process (3): /writing/redesign-ai/, /writing/long-live-design-process/, /writing/process/ - product-design (3): /writing/death-rebirth/, /writing/long-live-design-process/, /writing/product-designer/ - prototyping (2): /writing/how-i-build-with-ai/, /writing/vibe-coding/ - remote-work (1): /writing/rituals/ - research (3): /work/jiva-lite/, /work/sahabat-jiva-redesign/, “Practo Pro” (unpublished) - southeast-asia (1): /work/international/ - speaking (1): /resume - startups (1): /writing/solo-designer/ - team-building (5): /writing/hiring-2/, /writing/process/, /writing/rituals/, /resume, “Hiring Product Designers at Jiva” (unpublished) - web (1): “Practo.com doctor profiles” (unpublished) - workshops (1): /resume - zero-to-one (1): /work/jiva-lite/ ## Optional - [Full text of all pages](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/llms-full.txt): Every published case study and post as plain text (~21.1k words). - [RSS feed](https://kenneth.dsouza.im/rss.xml): Writing, in reverse-chronological order.