# Karthik Sivacharan **Product Design Engineer** · San Francisco - Email: [karthiksivacharan@gmail.com](mailto:karthiksivacharan@gmail.com) - Website: [karthiksivacharan.me](https://www.karthiksivacharan.me) - LinkedIn: [linkedin.com/in/karthik-sivacharan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/karthik-sivacharan/) - GitHub: [github.com/Karthik-Sivacharan](https://github.com/Karthik-Sivacharan) - Book a call: [cal.com/ksivacharan](https://cal.com/ksivacharan) ## Summary I’m a Product Design Engineer, meaning I design customer-facing software products and I also build them in production code. I lead product design at Trainwell (Series A, B2C fitness), and before that I was the founding product designer at Backstage and a co-founder of Tread. I like breaking a problem into smaller chunks I can actually solve, then prototyping in high fidelity and testing it with real users. These days most of my prototypes are code, built with AI tools like Claude Code and Cursor, and on the side I build AI agent products and design systems for AI startups. ## Availability I’m open to Product Designer, Design Engineer and Founding Product Designer roles right now. I design products and I also ship production code (this site, the Zeno iOS app and AI agent tools). I did 0-to-1 work as the Founding Product Designer at Backstage and as a co-founder of Tread, and I’m now an IC designer at Trainwell (Series A). You can reach me by email (karthiksivacharan@gmail.com) or book a call (https://cal.com/ksivacharan). ## Experience ### IC Product Designer, leading design, [Trainwell](https://www.trainwell.net) Remote, USA · Jan 2024 to present Remote 1-on-1 personal training with your own trainer, in an app. Series A, B2C, about $14M ARR, backed by the investors of Strava, Perplexity, Luma and Zoom. - I lead product design for Trainwell’s consumer iOS, Android and Apple Watch apps. The apps have 1.9M+ logged workouts, 79% workout completion and a 4.9 App Store rating. - I led design for our partnership with Peloton. We shipped a white-labelled app with Peloton from scratch, and I led the design, including the branding. It made $4M in revenue in the 4 months after launch with $0 spent on marketing, about +29% on our ~$14M ARR. - Workout Feedback: A way for users to tell their trainer how each workout felt, so the trainer could tailor the next ones to their progress and needs. I redesigned it after quantitative and behavioral user research. It raised engagement by 14%, cut churn by 7% and added about $650K in ARR. - Exercise Swaps: I found the need in user research and then designed it across platforms. Clients can swap out an exercise mid-workout if it hurts or just doesn’t work for them, so the workout stays on track and trainers save time. It saves about 780 trainer hours a month, or about $46K a month in operating costs. - We shipped voice notes in Trainwell’s chat, so clients and their trainers can send each other quick voice messages. It reached 38% adoption. - I set up Trainwell’s cross-platform design system with design tokens and standard dev-handoff docs, so engineering handoff could happen fully async. Engineering unblock time went down by about 25 to 30%. ### Founding Product Designer, [Backstage](https://www.backstage.army) Bangalore, India · Jun 2021 to Aug 2022 Consumer community app where creators run challenges and missions for their fans. $2M seed from Accel, 16-person startup. - I was the founding product designer and worked directly with the founders to launch the mobile app, which grew from 0 to 100K+ users. - I led early product discovery and the UX for core features, and shaped the first roadmap and the onboarding flows while the app was growing fast. - I designed Interactive Fan Challenges (50K+ challenges launched) and Hypelink Missions (40K+ hypelinks launched), from research to interaction design, prototyping and QA. ### Co-founder, design and product, Tread Bangalore, India · Jun 2019 to Jun 2021 A CRM I co-founded with friends after undergrad, so trainers and gyms could run and grow their remote coaching online. - One of us had to design and build the product, so I taught myself design, Sketch, Figma and React. I led design and development and managed a team of 3 engineers. - The workflow tool was used by 100+ trainers, tracked 160K+ workout minutes and saved trainers about 2.5x time per session. We got into an incubator and people paid for it, but we shut it down because it couldn’t scale. ## Selected projects: agentic and B2B AI Prototypes and design work for AI products, most of them built in code. The descriptions and stacks are the same as on the home page grid. ### AI Agentic Workflow Builder Visual builder for designing and running AI agent workflows on a canvas. - Stack: Next.js, React Flow, shadcn/ui, Zustand - Live: https://useploy.vercel.app/ ### Agentic CRM A CRM prototype where you ask an agent what to work on and it pulls from your records and tools. - Stack: shadcn/ui, TanStack Table - Live: https://ploydb.vercel.app/ ### Kora Customer support agent that points at the buttons to guide users through your product. - Stack: React, Claude API, Tailwind CSS, Motion - Code: https://github.com/Karthik-Sivacharan/Kora ### Viewsights AI interviewer that runs user research conversations and then analyzes them for you. - Stack: ElevenLabs, Claude API, Supabase, RAG ### Design Token System I built a design token system from scratch for an AI workforce startup, covering typography, colors and motion. - Stack: Tailwind v4, CSS variables - Live: https://hyperagent-onboard.vercel.app/design ### Agent glyphs Glyphs for different agents, designed for an AI workforce startup. - Stack: Remotion ### Orbs Brand exploration for a startup building cloud laptops for coding agents. - Stack: Remotion, Figma Weave ### Brand exploration Logo concept for a personal AI assistant startup. - Stack: Remotion, Figma Weave ## Side projects ### [Zeno, Steps for Screen Time](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zeno-steps-for-screen-time/id6757132863) 2026 to present An iOS app that reduces doomscrolling by locking apps until you walk, so daily steps turn into screen time. I design and build it myself. In the beta, 12 users cut their screen time by 32% on average. Built using Claude Opus 4.5. - Stack: SwiftUI, HealthKit, Screen Time API ### [multicn](https://multicn.vercel.app/) 2026 to present Open-source multiplayer UI for shadcn apps. - Stack: shadcn/ui ### Digital Wayfinding, Pittsburgh International Airport (CMU capstone) Jan 2023 to May 2023 As the UX designer, I interviewed 50+ passengers and designed the interface for a smart luggage cart that helps people find their way around the airport. ## Education ### Carnegie Mellon University Master of Integrated Innovation for Products and Services · Pittsburgh, PA · Dec 2024 - Coursework: Design for AI Products and Services, User Experience Research, Integrated Product Design Methods. - Grad school, plus a stint in VC. ### National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli Bachelor of Technology in Industrial Engineering · India · May 2019 ## Skills - **Design:** Product design, UI/UX design, Interaction design, Information architecture, Design systems, Design tokens, Typography, Accessibility (WCAG), Motion design, Lottie, Prototyping, Design-to-engineering handoff, Metrics-driven design - **Design engineering:** TypeScript, JavaScript, React, Next.js, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, HTML/CSS, SwiftUI, Motion, Remotion, React Flow, Zustand, Supabase - **AI:** AI agent products, Claude API, Claude Code, Cursor, Lovable, RAG, pgvector, ElevenLabs voice agents, Figma Weave - **Product and research:** Product discovery, Product strategy, Roadmapping, User research, Qualitative research, Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD), Usability testing, A/B testing, Systems thinking - **Tools:** Figma, Framer, Xcode, Vercel, GitHub, Notion, Linear