Micka Touillaud
Design engineer & minimalist
San Francisco, California
About
Design engineer who builds what he designs — prototyping in high fidelity and shipping production React alongside engineers as a technical peer. After a decade of product design across Paris and San Francisco, I focus on AI-native interfaces: designing for streaming, uncertainty, and agentic multi-step flows, and the trust and control patterns that make them feel inevitable. Minimalist by instinct, and available for fractional and contract work through Clarity Studio.
Recognition
Awards
Winner of the IF Design, Red Dot, and CSS Design awards. CES Best of Innovation honoree and W3 Gold recipient.
Patents
Inventor on 4 design patents spanning product design, interaction, and ultra-wideband (UWB) technology.
Experience
- Founded an AI-native product design studio; partner with post-seed teams as a fractional Staff design engineer.
- Design and prototype agentic, AI-native experiences — multi-step task flows and human-in-the-loop control — and ship them in production React alongside founding engineers.
Staff Product Designer & Design Manager
Feedly
AI · Remote
2023 – 2026
- Led design across Feedly's AI initiatives, transforming the product into an AI-powered threat intelligence platform used by Fortune 100 security teams.
- Designed AI-native interaction patterns for streaming, uncertain model outputs — multi-turn flows, citations, and the trust and control affordances analysts need to act on them.
- Built and managed a high-performing design team and accelerated cross-squad collaboration.
- Drove the shift from a sales-led to a product-led growth motion on the Growth squad.
Staff Product Designer
Wave.ai (acquired by Alan)
Coaching · Remote
2021 – 2023
- Joined as the 2nd employee and grew with the team past 50; designed the product foundations, design system, and research practice for a brand-new product category.
- Shipped the world's first fully-async coaching practice, reaching 88% of coaching goals and a 4.7/5 client satisfaction.
Senior Product Designer
Y Combinator startups · Freelance
Cross-industry · Paris
2019 – 2020
- Designed with several YC companies: Bayes Impact, Plato (acquired by Coda), Actiondesk (acquired by Datadog), and Hiresweet.
Founding Product Designer
Sevenhugs (acquired by Qorvo)
Smart home · San Francisco & Paris
2016 – 2019
- Led UX/UI and branding for the Smart Remote; designed the companion apps (iOS & Android), the unboxing, and packaging.
- Ran the beta and user-test program across 300+ people; the Kickstarter raised $1M+ with 6,000+ pre-orders in 30 days.
- Smart Remote shipped worldwide and was featured in the NY MoMA store.
Side projects
Refined UI components with satisfying hover.
One timeline and a few art movements.
A curation elevating 7 masters of Minimalism.
A monthly newsletter on product judgment.
Foundations
Strate, School of Design
Master's, Interaction Design — highest honours
Paris · 2011 – 2016
GEM, Grenoble École de Management
Technology Management & Innovation
Grenoble · 2014 – 2015
Preferred tech stack — React, TypeScript, Next.js, Tailwind, HTML & CSS, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor