Close-up of designer Melissa Santos, a woman with black hair, glasses, hoop earrings, and a slight smile.

I make complex designs simpler & teams stronger

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  • Wireframes and final mobile layout showing modal overlays

    Clear specs for engineers

  • Flowchart titled 'Add Number Logic' illustrating a process for verifying a phone number through SMS, including steps such as submitting a number, receiving and entering a code, system acceptance, error messages, and resend requests.

    Logic diagramming

  • Miss Piggy as glamourous cover model for bon my-muppetit magazine, with pun article summaries surrounding her image

    Magazine layout

  • Illustration of a laptop and a smartphone, with the text "Keyboards for Kamaya" and a cute cat face icon.

    How-to gif

  • Collection of six email screenshots from Lendtable, a financial services platform, including messages about approved applications, how the platform works, offers, and customer success stories. Features include illustrations, a 'Review offer' button, and links to schedule calls, FAQs, and cash calculators.

    Drip campaign brand & template

  • Black and white graphic with a fish, a coconut drink with a straw, and the word 'MIK' arranged vertically.

    Illustration

  • Mobile screen detailing fee updates

    Content design

  • Sequence of three mobile screens showing the process of connecting email accounts for financial management in Excel, with step-by-step instructions, checkboxes, and call-to-action buttons.

    Reducing onboarding friction

  • A collage of various digital banking and financial service websites displayed on computer screens and devices, featuring mobile banking apps, investment tools, savings accounts, and promotional banners.

    Fintech landscape analysis

Experience

  • 8 years in product & content design

  • Seed to Fortune 500 companies

  • Fintech & drive safety specialist

Strengths

  • Driving collaborative design process

  • Building culture & systems

  • Writing for understanding & action

Interests

  • Energized hybrid SF startups

  • Applying fintech & location background

  • Cracking into health or transportation & doing some good

What people are saying

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What people are saying 〰️

“Melissa is a thought partner to any leadership team considering how product/business decisions impact customers and product identity.”

Mitchell Jones, Co-Founder

A young man with dark curly hair and a short beard poses in front of a colorful flower wall. He is wearing sunglasses on his head and a dark jacket with a white, fluffy collar.
Close-up portrait of a man wearing glasses, a black cap with red lettering, and a black camo jacket, against a dark background.

“Melissa is a naturally gifted Player/Coach and can drive complex cross-pillar design solutions at scale. She's an entrepreneur and problem solver at heart…. adaptable, capable of dreaming big, and determined enough to actually make things real. Don’t sleep.”

Jonathan Remulla, Product Design Leader, Educator, Coach

“She is not afraid to ask technical questions and is always doing her best to lighten the workload for engineering without comprising user experience.”

Faith Tan, Software Engineer

A woman smiling outdoors near a body of water with greenery, wearing sunglasses on her head and a black top.

Personally

A collage of three images: the first shows a person taking a selfie with a black dog on a sidewalk, the second depicts a woman mountain biking during sunset with misty hills in the background, and the third features someone relaxing by a pool with an open book, a cup of tea, and a towel.

I love getting outside, big laughs, long rides, being the fun aunt, books and tea, and hanging with my #1 land seal, Taters.

Get to know my work

The password’s in my resume if I’ve applied to your company. To request access, send a message on LinkedIn with job details.

View portfolio 🔒