Trajector Medical

Trajector Medical (formerly VetsComp & Pen)

Role: Product Developer (UX/UI & Front-End Hybrid) Duration: December 2018 – March 2020 Location: Gainesville, FL

Executive Summary

Joined a product team within a high-growth legal-tech and medical-consulting environment. Served in a hybrid capacity, bridging the gap between high-fidelity UI design and front-end implementation (HTML, CSS, JS). This role was foundational in developing an "engineering-first" design mindset and mastering the complexities of enterprise-scale product ecosystems.

Key Contributions & Learning Milestones

• The TNT Design System: Contributed to the architecture and maintenance of a multi-brand design system. This involved creating reusable components that standardized the UI across various internal and external platforms.
• Front-End Integration: Actively translated design mockups into functional code, gaining deep empathy for the technical constraints of developers and ensuring pixel-perfect implementation.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Integrated into a professional "Squad" structure, participating in daily stand-ups, sprint planning, and design reviews alongside senior engineers and product managers.
• User-Centric Refinement: Assisted in the iterative design of internal tools meant to streamline complex medical and legal workflows, focusing on reducing the cognitive load for high-volume users.

The Business Impact Perspective

Even as a junior/hybrid developer, your work contributed to Operational Efficiency:

• Scalability via Systems: By working on the TNT Design System, you helped create a "single source of truth." This reduced technical debt and allowed the team to launch new features faster because the building blocks were already designed and coded.
• Reduced Handoff Friction: Because you were writing code (HTML/CSS), you eliminated the "lost in translation" phase between design and development, saving the engineering team hours of styling adjustments.
• Internal Process Optimization: Your work on internal tools directly impacted the speed at which the company could process veteran claims, translating to faster service delivery for the end client.

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Key Contributions: Accessibility Leadership

• WCAG Certification & Implementation: Earned a professional certification in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and took full ownership of the product's inclusive design strategy.
• Comprehensive Platform Audits: Conducted end-to-end accessibility audits across all internal and external platforms, identifying and remediating critical blockers for users with visual, auditory, and motor impairments.
• Measurable Optimization: Successfully spearheaded the technical and design efforts to improve the company's digital accessibility rating from approximately 40% to over 90% compliance.

The Business Impact: Risk Mitigation

• Legal Compliance & Protection: By drastically increasing accessibility scores, I significantly reduced the company's exposure to ADA-related legal risks and ensured the service was legally compliant for its primary user base (Veterans).
• Expanding User Reach: Removing navigation friction for users with disabilities directly increased the platform's successful claim-completion rate, ensuring the business could serve the widest possible demographic without manual intervention.

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Ethical Reflection: The Decision to Pivot

During the final months of my tenure, a significant ethical challenge emerged regarding the company's automated data-tracking practices. As a designer dedicated to User Advocacy and Accessibility, I found the lack of transparency regarding how veteran data was being utilized to trigger aggressive fee structures to be in direct conflict with my professional values.

Rather than remain in an environment where "business impact" was being prioritized over "user trust," I made the strategic decision to transition to Haneke Design. This move was a deliberate choice to align myself with a firm that prioritized ethical design and transparent user experiences.

The Lesson: This experience solidified my belief that a designer's role is not just to build efficient systems, but to serve as the ethical gatekeeper for the user's data and financial well-being.