StreamSets
Led the UX and product design process for StreamSets' market-leading DataOps platform — from open-source tool to enterprise SaaS, through to a $524M acquisition by IBM.
The Challenge
StreamSets had a successful open-source DataOps engine used by data engineers to build and manage data pipelines. But the company needed to evolve — from a self-hosted, developer-driven tool into a full enterprise SaaS platform that could attract larger contracts and grow recurring revenue.
The product was powerful but complex. Onboarding was steep, the interface was built for power users, and the experience didn't support the kind of self-serve adoption that SaaS models demand.
My Role
As UX Lead, I owned the end-to-end design process — research, architecture, wireframes, prototyping, and validation. I worked directly with product management, engineering leadership, and the executive team to define the future-state experience.
I also built and led a 100+ person Product Advisory Council, creating a direct feedback loop between customers and the product team that informed every major design decision.
The Pivot: Open-Source to SaaS
The core design challenge was translating a desktop-class data engineering tool into a cloud-native SaaS experience without alienating the existing power-user base.
I led the redesign of the pipeline builder, the monitoring dashboard, and the onboarding flow — simplifying the experience for new users while preserving the depth that enterprise data teams relied on. Every feature went through research, low-fidelity sketches, stakeholder review, and prototype testing before entering development.
Driving Adoption & Revenue
The design work directly contributed to a 10x increase in adoption and revenue. Key outcomes included:
• Redesigned onboarding that reduced time-to-first-pipeline by over 60%
• Simplified pipeline monitoring that non-technical stakeholders could understand
• Self-serve workflows that enabled trial-to-paid conversion without sales intervention
• Enterprise admin and collaboration features that unlocked larger contracts
The Outcome
StreamSets was acquired by IBM in 2024 for $524 million. The product became the foundation of IBM's Watson.data integration story — and I transitioned into IBM as Design Manager in July 2024, continuing to lead the design of the platform at enterprise scale.
Six years — from hands-on UX research and prototyping to strategic product decisions that drove a half-billion-dollar outcome.