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Sonal
Kandhway

I'm a Product Design Leader who's spent 13 years making enterprise software feel less like enterprise software. I design for the people who show up and actually have to use the thing.

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13+
Years in UI/UX
5+
Designers Led
4
Enterprise Domains
🎯
AI-FluentUX + AI Integration
🧠
HFI CertifiedCertified Usability Architect (CUA™)
🏥
Enterprise UXHealth · Fin · Ed
Sonal Kandhway — Senior UX/UI Manager
Sonal Kandhway
Senior UX/UI Manager · Noida
✦
✦ UX Research
✦ Design Systems
✦ Figma
✦ Healthcare UX
✦ FinTech Design
✦ AI-Fluent Workflows
✦ HFI (CUA) Certified
✦ Design Thinking
✦ Information Architecture
✦ Design Systems
✦ Figma
✦ Healthcare UX
✦ Axure RP
✦ Miro
✦ Usability
✦ Prototyping
About Me

Designing for humans
is never simple.

I've spent 13 years building products for people in high-stakes situations — doctors making split-second decisions, loan officers working under pressure. I design from research, with a stubborn conviction that enterprise software doesn't have to be this hard to use.

"
Good design isn't invisible. It's not in the way. That's a very different thing — and it takes a lot more work to get right.
— My design philosophy, after 13 years of figuring it out
AI-Fluent Designer
AI in design isn't a talking point for me — it's daily practice. Early concept exploration in Galileo, handoff specs and stakeholder communication via Claude and ChatGPT.
Galileo AI Uizard Claude ChatGPT Google Flow Google Stich
Healthcare
Clinical workflows, EHR systems, patient-facing enterprise apps
FinTech
Trust-first banking products, financial dashboards, lending platforms
HRTech
Employee-centric platforms, talent management, HR workflows.
Leadership
Team building, mentorship, design critiques, stakeholder alignment
Tools I reach for
Figma Sketch Axure RP InVision Adobe XD Photoshop Jira Miro Notion Maze Hotjar FigJam
13
Years of Practice
Started designing when "mobile-first" was still a debate. Now mentoring the generation that's grown up on it.
The Journey So Far

13 years.
4 companies. One craft.

I've grown from a junior designer figuring out the basics to leading enterprise design teams. Here's the path — the companies, the lessons, the people who shaped how I think.

2021 — Present
Product Design Leader · Sr. UX/UI Manager
The Higher Pitch · Noida, India

Lead a multidisciplinary team of 5 designers delivering 8+ enterprise SaaS products across Healthcare, FinTech, HRTech, and B2B domains. Partner with Product Managers, Engineering leaders, and business stakeholders to define product strategy, prioritize opportunities, and align user needs with business objectives. Own the end-to-end product design lifecycle — from discovery, user research, and information architecture through to prototyping, developer handoff, and design QA. Established scalable Design Systems with reusable components, interaction patterns, accessibility standards, and documentation adopted across multiple enterprise products. Mentor designers through structured coaching, design reviews, and career development, fostering design excellence and continuous learning. Drive AI-augmented design workflows using ChatGPT, Claude, Galileo AI, Uizard, and Figma AI to accelerate research, ideation, UX writing, and concept exploration. Champion usability, accessibility, and design quality across web, responsive web, native mobile, and hybrid applications.

2018 — 2021
Senior UX/UI Designer
QSS Technosoft

Led end-to-end UX design for enterprise SaaS and healthcare products across iPad, mobile, and desktop platforms — covering multiple product modules from concept through delivery. Designed for Eldermark's EMAR (Electronic Medication Administration Record) module — a safety-critical, regulated platform for senior-living communities used by caregivers, administrators, and clinical staff across iPad and desktop. Also worked on POC modules and additional Eldermark product modules, designing consistent multi-platform experiences across different device contexts and user roles. Defined user journeys, information architecture, wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity interfaces for healthcare and B2B enterprise products. Worked closely with engineering teams on pixel-accurate implementation and consistent design quality across web and mobile platforms.

2015 — 2018
UX/UI Designer
Software Assurance LLC

Designed responsive enterprise web and mobile solutions for international clients. Conducted usability reviews and collaborated with development teams to improve product quality and implementation.

2013 — 2014
UX Designer
Intelegencia

Designed responsive websites, marketing assets, and visual interfaces across multiple client engagements

2010 — 2012
Diploma in Designing
Arena Animation Academy · Vinoba Bhave University (BCom)

Where craft started. Learned design fundamentals, typography, composition, and the discipline of making things that work.

Selected Work · 2014 — Present

Real projects.
Real users.
Real constraints.

13 years across healthcare, fintech and EdTech. These are the ones that were actually hard.
Oracle Pipeline Designer — UX Design by Sonal Kandhway
Enterprise SaaS · Oracle JET

Oracle Pipeline Designer

The Oracle JET application was running an outdated theme — visually inconsistent, WCAG non-compliant, and misaligned with Oracle's Redwood direction. Three heuristic failures dominated: inconsistent components, missing status feedback, and no form validation. We audited every screen, rebuilt the layout grid around Redwood tokens, and worked within JET's component constraints alongside developers to ship a modern, accessible UI without breaking the pipeline.

Role
UX Lead
Year
2023
Platform
Oracle JET
View Case Study →
Medgenome Clinical Platform
HealthTech · Clinical Genomics

Impactomics

Genome analysts reviewing hundreds of variants weekly — each one a potential life-changing diagnosis — were working with a monolithic interface that gave equal visual weight to critical and routine findings. After interviewing clinicians, running competitive analysis across four platforms, and paper sketching to hi-fi, we rebuilt the experience around clinical urgency. V1 testing revealed friction in Add Sample and Variant Interpretation — we fixed both with Quick Launch and redesigned data hierarchy.

Role
Lead UX Designer
Year
2022
Domain
Genomics
View Case Study →
My Connect — Internal Employee Platform UX Design
Enterprise SaaS · HRTech

My Connect

A company with no central place for announcements, career opportunities, or colleague recognition. Employees were missing internal job postings and achievements went unacknowledged. We surveyed and interviewed 6 user segments — CEO to intern — mapped the full org hierarchy, and built an employee platform with post feed, internal referral engine, and org chart. After V1 feedback revealed the UI felt too passive, we rebuilt the dashboard around quick actions, hierarchy visibility, and AI-assisted post creation.

Role
Lead UX Designer
Year
2023
Domain
HRTech
View Case Study →
🔥 Agni — Fire in Sanskrit
Design Systems · Token Architecture

Agni Design System

A design system built from first principles — not adapted from an existing one. Agni (Sanskrit for fire) anchors on a warm amber brand palette. 7 colour palettes, 81 primitive variables, semantic Day/Night tokens, and WCAG AAA throughout. The Rose palette — labelled "Indian accent" — reflects a deliberate cultural consideration most enterprise systems ignore.

Role
Lead Designer
Tool
Figma + Variables
Standard
WCAG AAA
View Case Study →
My Connect — Internal Employee Platform UX Design
HealthTech · AI Decision Support · Conceptual

Clinical Report Intelligence Platform

Clinical genomics decisions are high-stakes and iterative. Raw data increases cognitive load; AI without transparency reduces trust. Designed a decision-support layer that makes AI reasoning inspectable through progressive disclosure, positions overrides as expected rather than exceptional, and compares AI vs. human interpretation side-by-side — so clinicians stay in control.

Role
UX Designer
Domain
Healthcare AI
Focus
AI Trust Design
View Case Study →
Trust Operating System
FinTech · Trust Design · India · Conceptual

ClearPaisa

Indian fintech loses 40% of users in onboarding by asking for irreversible commitments before earning trust. Built a six-dimension Trust Operating System — not just an app — grounded in 8 interviews, competitive audit across 6 platforms, and 14 microcopy rules. Each dimension is auditable, shippable, and measurable in production.

Role
Senior UX Designer
Domain
FinTech · India
Output
Framework + System
View Case Study →
How I Work

My design process
isn't a flowchart.

It's a set of questions I keep asking until I find an answer worth shipping. Here's the honest version.

Step 01
Listen First, Design Second
Whether it's nurses on 12-hour shifts or first-time investors checking portfolio apps, the real problem is rarely the brief. I start with deep user conversations — clinical contextual inquiry, fintech trust interviews, learner motivation studies — before a single wireframe.
User InterviewsContextual Inquiry
Step 02
Map the Whole System
Healthcare workflows don't fit on one screen. Banking decisions don't happen in isolation. I map full ecosystems first — service blueprints for clinical handoffs, journey maps for lending applications, IA for adaptive learning paths.
Journey MappingIA DiagramsMiro
Step 03
Design with Intention
Every interaction earns its place. HCI principles aren't a checklist for me — they're how I think. Whether it's a 7-tap rule for emergency clinical workflows or a progressive trust model for finance apps, design decisions are deliberate.
FigmaAxure RPDesign Systems
Step 04
Test, Learn, Ship Better
Design isn't done at handoff. I run moderated tests with real users in their real context — clinicians at the bedside, students in their dorms, investors at the kitchen table. Then iterate until outcome data agrees with design intent.
Usability TestingAnalyticsA/B Tests
Skills & Expertise

Craft meets
strategy.

Where my expertise runs deepest

After 13 years across healthcare, fintech, and EdTech, my strongest work sits at the intersection of complex enterprise systems and the people who use them daily. UX research and synthesis, information architecture, and design systems are where I'm most confident — turning operator workflows that fight back into ones that get out of the way. I'm equally comfortable running stakeholder interviews with C-suite execs and pair-designing components with engineers.

How I lead teams

Managing designers is about knowing when to step in and when to step back. My approach is rooted in design critique that's specific over kind, mentorship that focuses on judgment over execution, and giving the team enough context to make great decisions without me in the room. I've grown junior designers into mids, hired teams, run quarterly OKR planning, and built design ops to scale practice — but the work I'm proudest of is people.

What I'm exploring right now

AI in design isn't a buzzword for me — it's daily practice. I'm currently integrating Galileo AI for early concept exploration and Claude / ChatGPT for stakeholder communication and design specifications. The goal isn't to replace thinking — it's to compress the time between insight and prototype so the team spends more time on what matters.

Certifications
UX Foundations
Professional Certification
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
HCI Certification
Design Psychology
Applied Psychology in UX
Empathy in UX Design
Human-Centred Design
AI in UX Design
AI-Assisted Design Workflows
Diploma in Designing
Arena Animation Academy · 2010–2012
How I Work

Senior designer.
Team leader.

The title is Senior UX/UI Manager. That means I'm responsible not just for the work on screen, but for the conditions that produce good work — the process, the people, and the decisions that don't make it into any case study.

Design critique that's specific over kind

I run critiques where "it looks good" is never an acceptable answer. Every piece of feedback is tied to a user need, a heuristic, or a business constraint. Junior designers leave with a clear action, not just a feeling of having been assessed. The goal is to make the work better and the designer sharper.

Working with PMs and engineers, not around them

I bring design into discovery — not just delivery. That means being in the room when requirements are formed, not handed a brief after decisions are made. With developers, I spec at the level they need: interaction states, edge cases, token references. Handoff is a moment, not the relationship.

Mentoring for judgment, not just execution

The most useful thing I can give a junior designer is not a corrected file — it's a framework for making decisions when I'm not available. I focus mentorship on the reasoning behind choices: why this layout over that one, why research before wireframes, why a design system that nobody uses is just a Figma file. Six months in, they're running their own projects. That's the goal.

Stakeholder alignment without design by committee

Presenting to leadership means translating design decisions into business terms — not defending taste. I frame proposals around outcomes: retention, conversion, support ticket reduction, time-on-task. I listen to pushback as data, not as a threat. The goal is getting to the best decision, not winning the meeting.

Recommendations

Don't take
my word for it.

A few words from the people I've actually worked with — designers I've mentored, PMs I've collaborated with, and engineers who've shipped my work into production.

★★★★★
"
Sonal asked questions in our first stakeholder workshop that our product team had been avoiding for months. The design process she ran completely reframed how we thought about the problem — and the solution we shipped was better because of it.
SF
Sunny Fun
Product Owner · Medgenome
★★★★★
"
Sonal's critique style taught me how to think, not just how to make. She'd ask "what's the user trying to do?" until I had no choice but to defend my work with reasoning, not preference. I'm a better designer because of how she leads.
NJ
Nishant Jha
Sr. Designer · The Higher Pitch
★★★★★
"
Working with Sonal was a masterclass in how design and engineering can actually collaborate. She takes time to understand technical constraints, then finds creative solutions within them. Her handoffs are the clearest I've ever received.
AS
Akanksha Sharma
Software Developer · Intelegencia

Additional references available on request.

Get In Touch

Let's build
something
people love.

I'm looking for senior UX/UI roles and design leadership positions where I can make things genuinely better for real people. If that sounds like your team, I'd love to talk.

✦ What I'm Looking For
RoleSr. Product Designer · Sr. Manager UI/UX
LocationNoida · Open to relocate to Bengaluru / Hyderabad
FormatHybrid · Remote
Notice PeriodImmediate Joiner
Email
kandhwaysonal12@gmail.com
Phone
+91 9599 425 492
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/sonalkandhway →
✦

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