Ask the portfolio

Hire a design engineer who ships.

Six years designing and shipping 0→1 products solo at YC-backed startups, using AI to move fast.

Previously at

Recent work

Recent products and websites, designed and shipped

Independent builds and freelance client work, from design to production.

Ion WorkspaceOngoing · A connected business workspace for email, calendars, contacts, and files, with a public sample-data demo.

Indus Best Mega Food ParkLive in production · Freelance redesign and custom build for a food-processing campus — clearer facilities, investor journeys, and enquiries.

PostforgeOn-brand social posts and slide decks — upload a logo, shuffle layouts, brief AI in chat, and export from one canvas.

RupeeLensPersonal finance from Indian bank statements — local-first import, AI categorization, and spending insights in ₹.

100x.Bot Marketing SiteYC-backed marketing site for browser automation — designed and built with Cursor.

Resume BuilderAI resume builder — public profile import and a private owner workspace sharing one PDF pipeline.

Case studies

Deep product design for complex domains

Deep dives from pre-LLM product design — Figma to shipped UI without AI codegen.

Kodo — Website, Cards & P2P

Enterprise FintechPre-LLM era

Unlogged — Java DevTools Plugin

Product UIPre-LLM era

Tulr — No-Code Platform

Product UIPre-LLM era

About Akshay Saini

A design engineer who takes designs to production.

Over 6+ years I've helped fast-moving startups and enterprise teams ship finance dashboards, configurable SaaS forms, devtools, and agentic AI workspaces. I stay hands-on from research and systems thinking through to accessible, production-ready React.

"Akshay played an important role in shaping the product and design experience for a dynamic forms and workflows platform we built, with its first major application in procure-to-pay and enterprise finance workflows. What I appreciated most was his ability to iterate quickly without becoming superficial. He was comfortable working through complex workflows, configurable UI patterns, and evolving product requirements while still keeping the product intuitive and usable. He was also unusually hands-on technically for a product designer, especially around prototyping, design systems, and collaborating closely with engineering and other stakeholders to ensure execution quality matched product intent. Akshay brings strong product and UI thinking, execution speed, and ownership, which makes him very effective in fast-moving startup environments."

Gaurav Thapa

Software Architect · Engineer · AI-friendly Human

"I worked very closely with Akshay at Kodo, where he was the designer on our procure-to-pay product. We partnered day-to-day from early discovery through enterprise rollout, and he played a key role in translating messy, ambiguous requirements into clear and intuitive product flows. What I really valued was how quickly he could move without being superficial. He took the time to deeply understand user workflows, edge cases, and system constraints, which mattered a lot in a finance and compliance-heavy product like ours. Akshay approaches design as a problem-solving exercise, not just a visual one. He consistently asked the right questions early, thought through requirements end-to-end, and collaborated extremely well with product and engineering. He was deeply invested in the quality of the product and cared about making complex workflows feel simple and trustworthy for users. He's someone I'd happily work with again and strongly recommend to any team building complex, high-stakes products."

Tumul Roy

Product & Platform Strategy · Kellogg MMM '27

"I have worked with Akshay for 3 years and highly recommend him. Super hard working, very committed, and loyal. Little bored of DevTools, he wants to try designing something else. From what I saw, he could pick up any tool from Figma to Amplitude at speed and deliver beautiful designs, on time. He has helped immensely with our marketing outreach too. From Product Hunt launches, twitter/Reddit ads, to marketing videos — he owned everything. Akshay will be a great asset for any team he joins."

Shardul Lavekar

100x.bot · YC · BITS