Portrait of David Ross

David W. Ross

I close the gap between design and engineering — and build the teams that keep it closed.

UI/UX Engineering Lead  ·  Design Systems  ·  Full-Stack Product

San Francisco Bay Area   ·   Open to Senior UX / Product Design Lead roles — Bay Area or remote

View my work Download résumé

About Me

I build products and the teams that ship them. At Thermo Fisher Scientific, I saw a gap between design and engineering, made the case to leadership, and founded the UI/UX Engineering team from scratch. I then designed and built the AEM component library that became the standard across two of the largest life sciences e-commerce sites in the world — driving 100% adoption across 900+ internal teams and external agencies.

My edge is that I work the full stack. I’ve written the code, managed the release, led the design, and aligned the stakeholders — sometimes on the same project. That fluency across disciplines means I can move faster, make sharper technical tradeoffs, and close the gap between what design intends and what engineering ships.

Growing up with learning disabilities gave me an early, instinctive belief that the way something is designed can be the difference between someone succeeding or being left behind. It shapes how I approach accessibility, how I think about the user who isn’t like me, and why I’m drawn to AI products at the frontier — where the design decisions being made right now will define how millions of people experience technology for the first time.

What I work with
React & TypeScript AEM Design Systems Figma Accessibility / WCAG User Research AI Product Design Team Leadership

Featured Work

Case Studies

Deep dives into the enterprise-scale projects that shaped my approach to design systems, cross-team leadership, and shipping at scale.

Design System

ThermoFisher Design System

Founded the UI/UX Engineering team, designed and built the AEM component library, and drove 100% adoption across 900+ internal teams and external agencies.

900+ Teams adopted
2 Enterprise sites
100% Adoption rate
Navigation · Accessibility

Header & Footer Revamp

Redesigned global navigation across both enterprise sites — new nav structure, mega-menu, mobile patterns, and WCAG 2.1 accessibility compliance. Wrote all the code, managed the release.

2 Sites updated
WCAG Compliant
Nav support tickets
Homepage · Release

Homepage Redesign

Led AEM engineering, stakeholder alignment across 6 groups, and production release for the homepage redesign of both major sites. Shipped on schedule with zero incidents.

0 Launch incidents
2 Homepages shipped
Page performance

Recent work

A selection of projects spanning UX design, UI engineering, and product strategy.

Get in touch

Open to full-time roles, contract work, and interesting conversations. Drop me a line and I'll get back to you promptly.

daveross858@gmail.com LinkedIn GitHub San Francisco Bay Area