A self-taught designer who joined Zendesk back in its early startup days.

Studied industrial design at RISD before moving into digital product design.

Grew up in a small Czech village organizing electronic-music raves.

Designed commissioned tattoos and competed nationally in TaeKwonDo growing up.

Born in Germany, raised in South Korea; transferred into graphic design at RISD.

Studied and worked across Paris, Montpellier, and London before Flipboard.

Was photo editor of her college newspaper before design pulled her in.

Built the Design.UCSD student design community before Coursera.

Co-founded the online design school Designlab before Earnest.

Moved to SF with no job lined up and found Gusto through Bridge.

A Swedish art director who made TV commercials in Tokyo before Figma.

Interned at PeopleSoft as a high school senior, working on early web apps.

Trained as an auditor in Pakistan before getting sucked into design through video games.

Dropped out of college to co-found a company with his best friend.

Grew up in Beijing; her startup Parastructure was acquired by Dropbox.

Venezuelan designer who worked in London and Milan before landing in SF.

Trained as a scientist in China before deciding lab life was too isolating.

A Spanish telecom engineer turned UX designer who speaks three languages.

From southern Russia; self-taught, and led design at Twitter's onboarding team.

A pizza and Cuban food snob after years living in Miami and New York.

A ten-year Girl Scout and Gold Award earner who once booked a one-way flight to the Philippines.

Once accidentally stabbed herself in the leg with an X-Acto knife.

From Puerto Rico; studied computer science and HCI at Carnegie Mellon.

Sold everything and drove an RV 27,000 miles around the US.

Son of a woodworker; built and worked out of his own backyard shed.

Sold gel-pen tattoos at Little League games as a kid.

Ran her own fine-art business while still in high school.

Says the 2008 election is what turned her design hobby into a career.

Made a New Year's resolution to stop eating greasy takeout — and broke it by January 2nd.

Interned at Pentagram and 2x4 while studying architecture at Yale and Princeton.

Built his first website at 12 to promote a theme-park PC game he loved.