My background

Senior Digital Product Designer and Project Manager with 12+ years of experience designing, prototyping and delivering mobile and web products. I combine product strategy, UX/UI design, project leadership, technical understanding and AI-assisted workflows to help teams transform complex business needs into scalable, user-centered solutions. I lead products across their full lifecycle, from discovery and concept to launch and production.

Currently at Nautes, I lead product discovery and strategy, gather business and user requirements, manage priorities across design and development, mentor junior designers and contribute hands-on to interface design and interactive prototyping using Figma, FigJam, Notion, Jira, Claude and other AI tools and agentic frameworks. I regularly use AI to accelerate research synthesis, ideation, prototyping, documentation and product exploration, while making sure outputs stay aligned with user needs, business goals and technical feasibility.

My background in development and a previous AWS Certified Developer – Associate credential give me a strong technical foundation, letting me write accurate implementation specs, collaborate effectively with engineering teams and support smooth, high-quality delivery. Curiosity is my driving force, pushing me to keep exploring emerging technologies and to design better ways for people, businesses and intelligent systems to interact.

I have grown my entire product career inside one company, Nautes S.p.A. (Jesi, Italy), moving from writing code to shaping strategy, so I understand a product from the database all the way up to the pixel.

• Senior Digital Product Designer & Project Manager · June 2021 – Present. Leading discovery, strategy and delivery across multiple client products, mentoring designers and owning the design–development handoff.
• Digital Product Designer · January 2016 – June 2021. Full-time UX/UI design and prototyping, growing from execution into product ownership.
• Software Engineer · March 2014 – January 2016. Building the products I would later design, the technical grounding I still rely on every day.

Having been the person who has to build it makes me a better person to design it.

• Research Assistant, University of Illinois at Chicago · September 2012 – December 2013 (Chicago, IL, USA). Research work alongside my master’s in Computer Science.
• Software Engineering Lab Tutor, Politecnico di Milano · March 2012 – June 2012 (Milan, Italy). Tutoring undergraduates through the software-engineering lab.

Teaching and research taught me to explain complex systems simply. That skill turns out to be most of what product design actually is.

Across my career I have designed, built and shipped software for corporate clients in a wide range of sectors. That keeps my toolkit broad and my analogies plentiful:

• AI, IoT and home automation
• Logistics and aviation
• Insurance and sustainability
• Pharmaceutical and food
• Luxury fashion, textile and retail
• Construction, manufacturing and furniture

Alongside work, I keep sharpening the design side deliberately. Since 2024 I have been taking UX Courses at the Interaction Design Foundation (2024–2026), turning years of hands-on practice into structured, up-to-date UX theory — from AI for Designers and UX Management to accessibility, research and agile methods.

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My foundations sit at the intersection of engineering and computer science: two master’s degrees earned on two continents.

• MSc in Computer Engineering · Politecnico di Milano · 110/110 cum laude · Sept 2011 – Apr 2014 (Milan, Italy).
• MSc in Computer Science · University of Illinois at Chicago · 4.0 / 4.0 GPA · Mar 2012 – Dec 2013 (Chicago, IL, USA).

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While in the US I also took a few Stanford Online extra classes in Cryptography and Artificial Intelligence (2011–2012). Curiosity rarely stays inside the syllabus.

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• BSc in Computer Engineering · Politecnico di Milano · 105/110 · Sept 2008 – Sept 2011 (Milan, Italy).
• Scientific High School Diploma (PNI) · Liceo Scientifico Leonardo da Vinci, Jesi · 100/100 · 2003 – 2008.

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The Piano Nazionale Informatica track meant I was writing code as a teenager. That was the start of a long relationship with building things.

1st prize at the hackathon organized by Bitrock (May 2023, Milan), prototyping a smart tool to help remote workers maintain healthy social relationships, stay motivated and collaborate with their colleagues.

“Teoria della Relatività, dai suoi fondamenti ai reattori nucleari” won a scholarship at the Physics Contest organized by the Fondazione Occhialini at Liceo Scientifico G. Marconi (January 2010, Pesaro).

The project “XIV Edizione della Biennale dei giovani artisti dell’Europa e del Mediterraneo” won a trip to the XIV Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean in Skopje (3–12 September 2009) to present a project in the Applied Arts category.

29th place in category C1 at the Bocconi University Mathematical Games (2002), the national final of Italy’s annual mathematics competition.

• TOEFL iBT · issued by ETS · September 2011.
• First Certificate in English (FCE) · University of Cambridge, ESOL Examinations · March 2008.

Issued by Amazon Web Services · January 2019, renewed January 2022. This is the credential behind the “ex-AWS certified” line. It keeps my design decisions grounded in what the cloud can actually do.

A different kind of certification: the ones that come with a mask and fins:

• PADI Advanced Open Water Diver · August 2020 (ID 2008EN1457).
• PADI Open Water Diver · June 2017 (ID 1706EV9089).
• Apnea International Free Diver, Level 2 · PSS Worldwide · July 2018 (ID E18ZX3116).
• Apnea International, Level 1 · CMAS World Underwater Federation · July 2005 (ID ITA-F03-Ap1-0044).

Volunteering has mattered to me as much as any job. It gave me the chance to put my skills to work for others and a broader view of the world around me, with plenty to bring back to my work.

This track gathers the things that sit outside the résumé bullet points: volunteering, extracurricular projects and the occasional stage. They matter to me as much as anything on the other tracks.

Drin Drin is a civic-political movement working to found a new Italian party that speaks to young people who feel politically unrepresented. It promotes innovation, transparency and participatory democracy through technology and collective intelligence, aiming to redesign politics to be more open, inclusive and effective.

I have been actively involved with the TeamAI group (processing candidates’ CVs to connect people with the right skills) while leading the redesign of the party website and designing features for the members’ private area, including tools to support the internal elections process. I was also elected provincial coordinator in the movement’s first founding elections. (Italy · 2024 – Present.)

• Voluntary Blood Donor · AVIS Comunale Jesi · 2014 – Present.
• E!State Liberi! · Libera. Associazioni, nomi e numeri contro le mafie · Aug 2006. For two summer weeks I helped clean olive fields confiscated from the mafia and reassigned to the public, alongside training on accountability and democratic legality. More about the initiative.
• After-school Tutor · Il Castagno, Istituto Comprensivo Federico II, Jesi · Dec 2006 – Jun 2007. Assisting children with school or family difficulties during afternoon study.
• Soup Kitchen Assistant · Mensa dei poveri, Chiesa di San Nicolò, Jesi · Dec 2005 – Jun 2006. Helping cook and serve meals.

Tower of Hanoi: Politecnico di Milano’s CTF hacking team (Sept 2009 – Apr 2014). Competitive security challenges that scratched the same itch as design: take a system apart, understand it deeply, then bend it to your will.

AGESCI, the Italian scout association (Sept 1998 – Aug 2011). More than a decade of scouting shaped how I think about teamwork, responsibility and leaving a place better than I found it.

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Yes, I am a dreamer. Of course, I’ve always wished to be a rock star 🎤. Away from screens, music has been a constant thread. Rehearsing, arranging and performing in bands turned out to be another lesson in collaboration, timing and shipping something in front of a live audience.

Perimetro Zero

June 2025 – Present · my current band. Follow us on Instagram @perimetrozero.

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Joe Hey! …and the beer

January 2020 – May 2025 · five years of gigs, beers and setlists. @joehey_band on Instagram.

We even made it to the finals of Sanremo Rock 2021. A side project can take you farther than you planned.

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