Izel Maras

Izel Maras

Technical Product Design Lead at Chime

B.A. in Computer Science & Visual Studies, Tufts University, 2015

izelmaras@gmail.com

Technical Product Design Lead
Chime
Design Systems, Developer Tooling & Gen AI
February 2026 – Present — New York
  • Rearchitected ChimeKit as an AI-native design system — a single structured spec that syncs tokens, variables, and documentation to Figma and code simultaneously
  • Built bidirectional pipelines that replaced manual updates across three systems with one command — tokens, Figma variables, and docs all generated from the same source
  • Created self-building Figma documentation pages — color, spacing, shadows, motion, and typography pages that compose themselves from spec data
  • Authored reusable AI skills for Claude/Cursor — prototyping, token syncing, doc generation, and system maintenance that designers can run without engineering
  • Defined visual direction for the system — color scales, elevation, motion, typography hierarchy, and illustration semantics across light and dark themes
  • Designed component architecture and variant systems — defining composition patterns, interaction contracts, and accessibility standards that scale across web and mobile
  • Built migration tooling and contribution infrastructure — making the system self-serve so teams adopt it by building with it, not reading documentation
  • Led org-wide AI adoption — ran Claude Code and Figma MCP workshops, built the infrastructure, and defined how design systems teams work with AI end-to-end
Product Design Lead
Chime
MyPay DTC, Lending
September 2024 – February 2026 — New York
  • Owned end-to-end product design for MyPay, Chime's largest product — drove strategy, aligned engineering, data science, legal, and banking partners across a regulated fintech environment
  • Invented the MyPay Dial — a dual-sided data visualization mapping time and money in a single control. Named inventor on the interaction design patent
  • Launched the Dial to production — lifted NPS +4pts, reduced churn 50%, drove 15K new direct-deposit conversions. Now central to the product ecosystem and adopted by marketing as a brand symbol
  • Rapid-prototyped extensively in v0, Cursor, and ProtoPie with real financial data — tested across 20+ research rounds with members to validate edge cases, accrual logic, and system states
  • Authored full engineering specs and development guidance — redlines, animation curves, state logic, and responsive behavior that shipped without design QA rework
Head of Design
Roon
March 2022 – September 2024 — New York
  • Founding designer reporting to the CEO — navigated high ambiguity, set product direction, managed two design contractors, shipped brand, product, and design system from zero through $8M Series A (Sequoia Arc) and $20M Series B
  • Designed the MVP end-to-end for web and iOS — a health knowledge platform where patients get trusted answers from doctors through video and audio Q&A
  • Built the content architecture on Airtable — a structured Q&A framework powering the knowledge management system
  • Designed the creator tool — a production interface for doctors to record, edit, and publish video and audio Q&A content
  • Designed and prototyped an AI-powered chat assistant — collaborated directly with engineers on LLM behavior tuning, vector search schema, and conversational UI
  • Invented interaction paradigms for organizing a health knowledge platform — condition-journey maps that let patients navigate by their situation, and question-to-video interfaces that surface relevant answers without search
  • Created the brand language from scratch — hand-drew illustrations, defined visual identity, typography, and color system across all touchpoints
Principal Product Designer
Verizon
Design Systems & App Platform
April 2019 – March 2022 — New York
  • Built Verizon's first design system using Atomic Design methodology — defined tokens, established scalable UI foundations, transitioned the component library to Storybook, and collaborated with Nathan Curtis on the expansion pack model for multi-team adoption
  • Expanded the brand agency's visual deliveries into accessible, functional, production-ready components — bridging the gap between brand guidelines and engineering implementation
  • Defined sub-brand systems including GizmoWatch — translated parent brand principles into distinct product identities with their own design language and component sets
  • Defined the design language for the Verizon Digital Assistant — developed widget systems and conversational UI paradigms
  • Expanded Pentagram's brand delivery into an accessible, functional data visualization language across analytics and reporting tools
Staff Product Designer
Verizon
Loyalty & Rewards
May 2017 – April 2019 — New York
  • Owned end-to-end design for Verizon Up, Verizon's loyalty rewards program for growth and retention — defined the interaction model from 0 to launch, designed delightful engagement moments like ticket-drop countdowns, integrated hand-crafted illustration into the interface, and guided engineering implementation across the app
Visual Designer
frog Design
September 2015 – February 2017 — New York
  • Designed BNY Mellon's wealth management platform — refined craft in typography, color, and information hierarchy for complex financial interfaces
  • Led ethnographic research and design thinking for Samsung — in-person interviews, journey mapping, archetype synthesis, and ideation facilitation
  • Coded real-time, data-driven visualizations in Processing — an algorithmic music visualizer for TouchTunes and generative graphics for Verizon's 5G launch
Developer & Designer
Marcelo Coelho Studio (MIT Media Lab)
July 2014 – August 2015 — Cambridge, MA
  • Designed and built a Bluetooth-enabled wearable end-to-end — Arduino firmware, 3D-printed enclosures, companion mobile app, and full-stack software, bridging form and computation across digital-physical interfaces