Available Now Let's talk about your next project.
Email dmarsee@mac.com
Phone 425-306-6057
Address Seattle, WA
Skills
Team Building & Mentorship
Process Development
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Stakeholder Management
User Research & Usability Testing
Information Architecture
Figma
Sketch
Adobe Creative Cloud
Specialties
Cloud Computing
Game Design
AI-empowered scaling
Tournaments and Events
Requirements specifications
Experience
Carde.io (Tech Startup)
Director of Product
Seattle, WA · Dec 2024 – Oct 2025
Served as Director of Product Design for tabletop-gaming lean startup modernizing complex tournament workflows on mobile web. Owned relationships with Ravensburger (Disney Lorcana) and Riot Games (Riftbound: League of Legends), including contract negotiations, requirements-gathering, and acceptance criteria.
Managed team of writers, designers, product managers, and project professionals. Introduced responsive design mobile web UI systems and interaction patterns reducing cognitive load for players and event staff. Created multiple bespoke design systems (3+) for client-specific CRM content management tools. Conducted product management, market research and competitive analysis for new game products regarding estimated customer value.
Leveraged decision-making and strong interpersonal skills with an entrepreneurial mindset as the main point-of-contact between founder CEO/board and two cross-functional (product-focused) teams.
Ravensburger
Senior Digital Product Manager (Contract)
Seattle, WA · Oct 2023 – Aug 2024
Owned end-to-end program management for $2M card production pipeline tool for Disney Lorcana. Led requirements gathering, vendor evaluation, and contract execution across 8 cross-functional teams including Game Design, Creative, Art Direction, External Artists, External Approvals, Print Production, and Manufacturing.
Conducted Kano model surveys and statistical analysis to prioritize features across 8 stakeholder groups, ensuring alignment on critical workflow improvements. Wrote comprehensive RFP and evaluated 30+ vendor proposals, managing procurement process through successful $2M contract signing. Established stakeholder communication plans and project governance ensuring transparency and alignment throughout multi-month engagement.
Amazon
Senior UX Designer (Photos with Alexa+)
Seattle, WA · Mar 2024 – Dec 2024
Designed Alexa+ (Machine Learning LLM AI) customer experiences for Amazon Photos on multimodal devices including Echo Show (natural language processing, all sizes and resolutions) and Fire TV (all iterations). Untangled confusing and counter-intuitive interfaces that made customers' photos difficult to access.
Documented the as-is system architecture, then proposed streamlined information architecture specification that made photo access obvious and friendly. Ensured cross-device consistency across all Echo Show sizes/resolutions and Fire TV iterations while respecting platform-specific interaction models.
Collaborated with engineering teams to identify feasible solutions that balanced customer needs with technical constraints.
AWS
Manager, UX Design & Research
Seattle, WA · Oct 2022 – Mar 2024
Led UX strategy and team development for enterprise software at AWS Game Tech, delivering multiple flagship enterprise software cloud infrastructure services that transformed customer onboarding and product adoption. Scaled team from 2 to 9 members while doubling individual designer throughput through systematic process improvements and design operations framework.
Successfully shifted AWS GameLift annual roadmap from new feature development to fundamental usability improvements through evidence-based advocacy. Conducted rigorous 6-week research study revealing zero target customers successfully completed evaluation. User research presented to team resulted in halting all new feature work within 24 hours. Team's design improvements ultimately decreased Amazon GameLift onboarding time by 94% (from 38 hours to 2 hours). Developed junior designer to senior level communication skills through Amazon's rigorous people management promotion process.
AWS
User Experience Lead
Seattle, WA · Jun 2021 – Oct 2022
Reduced user on-boarding time for Amazon GameLift from ≥38 hours to ≤2 hours through comprehensive UX research, documentation strategy, and systematic improvement prioritization
Created cross-team systems and tools that accelerated customer integration timelines by 95%.
AWS
Senior User Experience Designer
Seattle, WA · May 2020 – June 2021
Designed the entire UX process for multiple AWS services, including:
Doubled AWS Amplify’s customer base by tens of thousands by designing and shipping innovative Admin UI: a low-code/no-code platform for creating application back-ends.
AWS AppSync: the IDE (development environment) for more elegant creation of APIs; Adding the ability to federate multiple APIs into a single source for app use.
Applied Research in Acoustics (ARiA)
Senior UX Designer
Seattle, WA · Dec 2019 – May 2020
Doubled end-user acceptance ratings over any previous tool in the space.
Secured 2 high-value government contracts through design excellence, including a purchasing & acquisition regulatory-research tool; and a sonar/oceanography training game.
Wizards of the Coast
UX Design Lead, Organized Play
Renton, WA · 2018 – 2019
Transformed digital tournament experience for Magic: The Gathering through integrated player and merchant platform serving global player base.
Leadership:
Managed team of four designers across full experience spectrum, providing training in customer research, best practices, and developer handoff
Implemented integrated design standards, sprint planning, and prioritization processes that streamlined designer-engineer collaboration
Product Impact:
Reduced tournament wait times by half by designing integrated Organized Play system connecting player-facing app with store management tools
Enabled worldwide tournament discovery, registration, and participation at scale
Starbucks
UX Prototyper (Contract)
Seattle, WA · 2018 – 2018
Researched and prototyped 6 revolutionary display technologies (AR, projection mapping, holographic) for C-suite evaluation
T-Mobile
Principal User Experience Designer (Contract)
Bellevue, WA · 2018 – 2018
Designed multi-line management (DIGITS) and visual voicemail solutions
Maana (Acquired)
Principal User Experience Designer
Bellevue, WA · Mar 2017 – Mar 2018
Led design vision and team management for enterprise data insights platform that contributed to successful company acquisition.
Managed team of four designers in fast-paced startup environment
Designed groundbreaking features enabling non-technical users to extract insights from complex data
Presented innovations directly to C-suite and enterprise customers for validation and buy-in
Wizards of the Coast
Senior UX & Game Designer, Magic Arena
Renton, WA · 2016 – 2017
Designed player-facing experiences for Magic: The Gathering Arena, now the primary platform for digital Magic gameplay.
Increased first-hour player comprehension from 20% to 90% through innovative "just-in-time" instructional design
Created the now industry-standard learn-to-play approach, solving the endemic "tutorial problem" in trading card games
Collaborated with engineering and product management to maximize delivery efficiency
Infosys
Principal Enterprise Architect
Bellevue, WA · 2015 – 2016
Delivered enterprise solutions for Fortune 500 clients (Caterpillar, Allstate) through user research and journey mapping
Wizards of the Coast
Senior UX Designer and Game Designer
Renton, WA · 2009 – 2015
Revolutionized Magic: The Gathering console and tablet experience through complete UX redesign of Magic Duels platform
Various
Additional Experience
1999 – 2009
Apple, Nordstrom, AT&T, Siemens, and others
Education
Western Washington University
Bachelors of Fine Arts
– 2000
Emphasis in Graphic Design
Awards
| 2022 | Top-rated performance, AWS |
| 2016 | Editor’s Choice, Apple iOS App Store
Magic Duels |
| 2014 | Editor’s Choice, Apple iOS App Store
Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 |
| 2014 | Silver Award, Game Informer Magazine
Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 |
| 2006 | Gold Award, Multichannel Merchant Magazine |
| 2005 | Gold Award, Multichannel Merchant Magazine |