Michael Le · Portfolio
Designer · Creator · Leader
Vibe~Embracing changeChecked on May 2026
Focused on what really matters
Helping teams and users find clarity in a world of complexity
Dear friend,
At the end of the day, when you look past the code and the pixels, we
are crafting digital tools to make it easier (and hopefully better)for
a person to interact with complex systems. Creating technology is, at its core,
an act of human connection.
My journey began in the engineering trenches of New York and London, building
real-time risk and pricing systems for investment banks. Those early days
taught me how to navigate dense data and intricate architectures from the inside out.
Yet the deeper I went, the more I noticed a disconnect: a system can meet every technical
requirement, but it means nothing if it neglects the why of the person using it.
Wanting to solve for the human intent is what drove me into product design. Since 2014, I have had the opportunity to design
experiences across news publishing, hospitality, consumer applications, and the software development lifescycle.
One thing for certain across all industries: complexity in a system is
inevitable, but making that complexity invisible has been, and is, the ultimate goal.
After decades of thriving at the intersection of design, code, and human interaction, I am now embracing the next
frontier: agentic workflows. As the boundaries between domains blur, my multidisciplinary background is a distinct
advantage in shaping the next generation of user experiences. Understanding
human needs is even more important today as technology augments more of how we work, live, and think.
Designer in craft. Creator with heart. Leader by nature.
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Case studiesStories of design applied
A collection of moments in time where I applied research and insights to
deliver customer outcomes through the practice of design.
Connecting context for developers and AI
At GitLab, I designed experiences across the software development lifecycle focused on source code, code review, and editing tools
to support over a million monthly developers.
I started by making it easier for people to share their knowledge by integrating a rich text editing experience on top of Markdown. I have explored
the complexity of settings hierarchy and discoverability for teams managing hundreds of projects. Lately I have been streamlining
the code review workflow through user flow improvements and AI code reviews.
Case study available upon request.
Hello! I'm Michael
Scaling a design system across a platform
At Kounta (now Lightspeed) helps hospitality businesses operate efficiently by shaping and building
the software they use everyday. My role as a leader of a team of designers and developers was bringing
the brand to life as we were expanding from a single product into a platform.
From a design perspective, the product rebrand involved us translating the brand vision
into product so that it elevates the experience for our customers.
This project allowed with my coding experience and love of HTML/CSS to
lead the design system. This was a fundamental bridge between the design and engineering teams for
delivering a consistent experience for our customers across five product areas.
One of the most common queries for online delivery services
is "Where is my order?"
The team was about to start work on a big piece of work but as we did more
research we discovered flaws in what we thought the user knew. This lead us
to pivot on our direction to make our final solution more usable
The moral of this story is to continually
get your design in front of your customers so you can get better context.
The challenge at The Telegraph was massive: translate a legacy news product into a modern,
responsive ecosystem.
My role involved championing the user perspective through user research and
embedding data-driven insights directly into the design process so that we could build alignment
across product, engineering, and editorial teams.
The resulting responsive system successfully combined digital publication and ads while
elevating the reading experience for millions of daily visitors.