STEFAN SMAGULA
Software product + design
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Mini Case Studies

Whether conducting research on the trading floors of London, prioritizing a product backlog for an app used by midwestern car makers and beer brewers, or prototyping a mobile app for electric-car drivers in California, my goal is to help solve real problems.


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Google search engine results page

MAKING ADS MORE RELEVANT

Powering Google's local ads

Mountain View & NYC, 2007


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A CURE FOR RANGE ANXIETY

Clean energy reservation system

Austin, 2016-2017


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THE NEXT BLOOMBERG TERMINAL

Re-inventing a venerable app

New York City, 2012

Testimonials

What others are saying

Ryan McDermott

UX Engineer at Google

"Stefan is a treasured asset for any team and I'm very proud to say that I worked with him." More...

Don Moore

CEO of Hydrogenxt

His "background enabled him to jump into a complex new domain [...] and to successfully devise a hardware/software system to meet our business plan." More...

Joel Wright

Director of Sales at Promoter.io

"From customer research and product ideation to product management and UX strategy there are few of his caliber." More...

Eric Schmidt

Then-CEO of Google

"One of the key achievements this year was...significant improvements to the user experience for geo-targeting." More...

Leadership style

Angela Pablo

UX at Google

"Taught me the importance of understanding how software works from top to bottom, enabling me to make more strategic design decisions" More...

Andrew Cramer

Lead Experience Designer, SY Partners

Stefan "enables his teams to own the projects they're working on while also providing guidance and a high-level perspective on the tough strategic choices" More...

James Prickitt

Consultant

"Stefan is a considerate team leader who listens well and elicits good ideas from team members to make the product the best it can be." More...

Resume

Stefan Smagula

Software Product + Design
Stefan has helped to create successful new products at companies such as Bloomberg and Google. He lives in Austin and has degrees from The Univ. of Texas at Austin and Yale. More about Stefan

To 'Augment Human Intelligence'

My goal is to help create software that extends our hands and minds and improves people's lives

Curious about the world

I'm curious about the connections between disciplines, the places where radically different ideas get yoked together to create something new.

Product management and design

I research, validate, and prioritize efforts so teams can focus on highest value, lowest complexity work. My background is in UX and product design.

Spirit of invention

Douglas Englebart and Vannevar Bush demonstrated that software can extend our minds. It's this spirit of invention that inspires me.

Get in touch

Drop me a line

I'm looking for opportunities to start or contribute to creative technology organizations in Austin, Texas or remote

Contact

stefan.smagula via gmail
+1 718-306-9746

Let's meet

Let's get coffee and chat

Latest Posts

  • Lard and felt

    What Joseph Beuys can teach product managers and designers

    IN AN EARLIER post, I wrote about the connections between research, product management, user experience design, product design, and prototyping. This post expands on the...

    Oct 13, 2017
  • Half lion, half mini schnauzer

    Are you product manager or designer?

    PEOPLE ASK are you a product designer, a UX person, a researcher, a prototyper, or a product manager? Here’s how I answer. For many years...

    Oct 13, 2017
  • Incantations

    Making this site

    YOU WILL FIND this post in your _posts directory, if you’re managing a Jekyll site. Jekyll is a static site generator, written in Ruby. Here’s...

    Apr 2, 2017

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