James Madson

Contributing to internal software that helps product teams design and build faster. I take the lead on prototyping and concepting new tools, moving between design and production code with Claude, Cursor, Figma, and VS Code, alongside custom tooling I'm helping build in house.

• Prototyping and concepting new internal design tools, from templates through working code
• Building design systems used across internal product teams
• Working across Claude, Cursor, Figma, and VS Code, plus custom internal tooling

I design and build internal AI tools at Pfizer: a digital health platform where UI/UX, design systems, and AI-driven workflows get built in from day one. I'm a builder first, prototyping in code rather than static screens, and using agentic tools alongside engineers to move from concept to something testable, fast.

• Contributing to the product design system: components, patterns, and tokens used across the platform
• Designing agent-driven interaction patterns, including AI-assisted UI and agentic workflow flows
• Prototyping with agentic tools (Figmake, Weavy, Cursor) and Python to explore and validate concepts quickly

St. Jude Cloud is a global genomics data platform, home to petabytes of childhood cancer research data made accessible to researchers and clinicians worldwide. I was the lead designer for six years, covering everything from day-to-day feature work to major platform overhauls.

Drove the full redesign of PeCan, a prominent research tool, introduced a design system used across eight+ applications, and shipped a series of zero-to-one products that are now actively used by the research community. Worked directly with PMs, engineers, and research scientists, often as one of the first to define what we were trying to build.

• Led end-to-end redesign of PeCan, a pediatric cancer knowledge base serving researchers at 300+ institutions
• Built and maintained the platform design system, spanning components, patterns, and documentation
• Designed the Visualization Community from the ground up, a tool for creating and sharing interactive genomics research
• Ran critique and process for a small design team, mentoring junior designers and keeping work moving without a lot of overhead

Joined the founders as the lead and only designer, which meant owning everything. Brand identity, marketing site (designed and built a large part of it), pitch decks, whitepapers, email templates, client-facing materials, product concepts, and prototypes. Learned geospatial mapping tools specifically for this work. The scientific credibility was there from day one; my job was to make everything feel as serious as the research behind it.

NatureDose was a mobile wellness app that helped people track and build nature habits against a research-backed dose target. NatureScore was a location-based index, essentially a walkability score for nature exposure. Both shipped. Both worked. I'm proud of the brand as much as the product work; we made something that looked genuinely different in a crowded wellness market.

• Created the full visual identity and brand language for NatureQuant from zero
• Designed and shipped NatureDose on iOS and Android, from concept through App Store launch
• Designed NatureScore, a data-dense consumer product that had to feel approachable
• Covered the full scope: product, brand, marketing, pitch materials, client consulting, and art direction
• Built Juniper, the NatureQuant design system, used across all product and marketing surfaces
• Defined UX strategy and product roadmap alongside the CEO and engineering leads

Designed consumer mobile apps and digital wellness tools, including Moodhacker, Jauntly, and a series of CBT-based programs. Handled UI/UX, branding, and user research, and wrote front-end code for most of what I designed. Good early experience in moving fast and figuring out which corners are worth cutting.

Ongoing freelance practice running alongside everything else. Work has ranged from product design and data visualization to brand identity and front-end development. Clients have included Reuters, Stack Overflow, St. Jude Children's Hospital, REI Cooperative Action Fund, XPRIZE, Kirkus, Hoka One One, UGG, John Lewis, and a lot of smaller projects I find just as interesting.