I've always been a builder. Of teams sometimes, but mostly of things. I'm a product designer, and the job as I see it hasn't changed since my first project: take a complex idea and turn it into something people actually want to use.

I started in fine art and illustration. Over the next dozen-plus years I turned complex enterprise systems into software people didn't have to wrestle with, and taught myself to ship end to end along the way.

Most recently I led design at FactSet, where AI isn't a feature. It's the core interaction model. I design for how people actually work, and today that means working alongside AI. Designing for outputs users can't fully predict while keeping the whole experience coherent. Work like that makes you comfortable with ambiguity, evolving strategy, and large-scale product transformation.

The work I'm proudest of is the hands-on part. I've written more about where I think the craft is headed, the floor, the ceiling, and the gap between them, in this essay.

Credit where it's due. Almost nothing here shipped alone. I work best as a partner inside a strong team, and this site reflects projects I've had the privilege to work on with very talented teams. 

If you’d like to connect, feel free to email me: john@johnmanicke.com

I've had some pretty good clients.