Modernizing the developer experience
AI-first UX strategy across VSCode, Dashboards, and CLI
Setting the Stage
KX had powerful tools, but no unified experience.
- KX Dashboards had strong UI foundations, but complexity and engineering-led design decisions made them hard to adopt.
- kdb VSCode Extension was newly launched, but lacked structure, AI support, and the developer workflows needed to succeed.
- The CLI was promising but relied on raw commands with little interaction design. UX wasn’t yet built into the process.
- KX Analyst and Developer were used mainly when other tools fell short, as staging environments, not destinations.
I wasn’t hired into a mature design org. I stepped into the gap, not just to improve workflows, but to help shape a platform that scaled through UX practices, team trust, and AI-augmented thinking.
“I'd love to write clear instructions to an AI and get answers instantly.”
- Business user during research session
My role & strategic spproach
At KX, I was brought in as the Principal Product Designer to lead UX across the developer platform: VSCode extension, Dashboards, and CLI. My job wasn’t to fit into an existing process. It was to build a UX foundation from the ground up in an engineering-led culture, and to make design stick. I focused on:
- Creating a unified vision for the platform by co-authoring the strategy and roadmap with Product and Engineering.
- Embedding UX into the process; research, co-design, and multi-stage validation with internal developers and customers.
- Replacing ad-hoc tools with modern, usable workflows that reflected how developers actually work.
- Driving an AI-first strategy by shaping prompt-to-code generation, smart insights, and natural language support into concepts, prototypes, and product plans.
- Building trust across teams to shift mindsets, mentor designers, and prove the vae of design with real outcomes.
This wasn’t just feature work. It was about changing how decisions got made and ensuring design became part of the conversation, from roadmap planning through delivery.
Understanding users
Before designing, I mapped how real users actually worked, across roles, tools, and goals. Through customer interviews, surveys, Slack feedback, and usability tests, I gathered insight into where they struggled and what they needed.
- Developers needed faster, smarter query workflows that reduced rework and matched how they think.
- Business users needed clarity, confidence, and smart assistive UX, not just dashboards, but a way to act on what they saw.
These insights revealed not just feature gaps, but how engineering-led tools were slowing down teams. That clarity became the foundation for strategy, patterns, and AI-first features.
Highlights by product
kdb VSCode Extension
Led end-to-end UX from strategy to shipped features:
- Simplified onboarding, query authoring, and preview workflows.
- Created system patterns that scaled across components.
- Validated releases via Slack and internal testing.
- Supported AI workflows with prompt-to-code generation.
kdb VSCode Extension
Led end-to-end UX from strategy to shipped features:
- Simplified onboarding, query authoring, and preview workflows.
- Created system patterns that scaled across components.
- Validated releases via Slack and internal testing.
- Supported AI workflows with prompt-to-code generation.
The connection management is intuitive and easy to use. I like how labeling helps
organize connections.
Dashboards
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