Sasha Zaiats

Designer & Builder  ·  AI-Driven Platforms  ·  Conversational & Agentic Systems

Sasha Zaiats is a Senior Product Designer based in Toronto, focused on AI products and conversational interfaces. At Boosted.ai, she led design for AI agents, the AskAlfa™ assistant, and the Agents Worklog system, helping investment teams at firms like RBC, TD Bank, and McKinsey better understand, trust, and adopt AI in their workflows.

Alongside her core role, Sasha co-founded Milestone, a B2B onboarding platform that reached #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt, and continues to collaborate with early-stage startups on select projects.

With a background in economics, she approaches design through the lens of systems, incentives, and real-world constraints. For her, UX is not just about usability; it's about making complex things feel clear, building trust, and creating products that people genuinely rely on. She's known for working closely across teams, taking ownership end-to-end, and raising the bar on product quality.

Background

Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine, Sasha relocated to Toronto in 2022. Her path into design was shaped by a Degree in Economics, which taught her to think in trade-offs and long-term impact: how small decisions influence behavior and outcomes over time.

She has worked across fintech, AI, SaaS, ecommerce, and marketing, environments where design directly affects adoption, revenue, and trust. That experience shaped a practical approach: focus on what works, using design to drive clarity, performance, and measurable results, rather than aesthetic-only polish.

Principles

AI-native by intention

I decide where my judgment leads and where AI takes over. I use Claude to think through problems and test edge cases before I open Figma. AI gives me speed, but I still make the final call on what's right for the user.

Coherence at scale

The faster I can create, the faster mistakes can spread. So I build the system first: patterns, components, clear logic before I let AI speed up the work. Moving fast without a system just means shipping the same error faster.

Data-Informed Decisions

I don't design from gut feeling alone, and I don't design from data alone. I test my assumptions against how people actually use what I build, then let that evidence decide what changes next, not my own preference.

Business Alignment

Good design that doesn't move a business number is just a nice-looking failure. I hold my work to one standard: it has to solve the user's problem and show up in a metric the business cares about, like adoption, retention, or revenue.

Experience

Coordn8r

Product Designer · Feb 2026 – Present · Toronto, Canada

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    Sole designer on an early-stage B2B SaaS platform, working directly with the founder (formerly COO of Boosted.ai).

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    Designing a data product for small teams who lack dedicated PMs — surfacing bottleneck detection and workload balancing signals so lean teams get capacity visibility without adopting heavyweight tools like Jira.

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    Running rapid concept-to-MVP cycles solo: discovery, wireframing, prototyping, and structured spec hand-off consumed directly by engineering via Claude Code and MCP.

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    Built and shipped the marketing website end-to-end, including coding in Claude Code and deploying via GitHub.

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    Established the product's design system and component library from the ground up, built for consistency and developer hand-off from day one.

Boosted.ai

Product Designer · Dec 2022 – Feb 2026 · Toronto, Canada (Remote)

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    Designed Ask Alfa™ and Financial Agents when no comparable products existed — conversational AI interfaces for making dense, live financial data usable and trustworthy. Defined how users phrase intent, how the system surfaces its reasoning, and how users correct it when it's wrong. Drove +34% adoption of Ask Alfa™ and +23% agent engagement.

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    Designed agent orchestration end-to-end: dashboards and monitoring surfaces for how portfolio managers configure, monitor, and recover AI agents running against live market data, where a silent failure is more expensive than a visible one.

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    Re-architected Boosted Insights and redesigned the formula builder, turning dense financial data into a meaningful, digestible interface for power users under high-stakes accuracy requirements.

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    Owned portfolio construction workflows end-to-end: discovery, usability testing, prototyping, and validation in close partnership with Engineering, Product, and Quant Research, de-risking desirability, usability, and feasibility before build.

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    Ran rapid GenAI prototyping (Claude, Cursor, Lovable, Figma Make) to validate concepts and shorten time-to-implementation across design and product; became the team's go-to for AI enablement and workflow automation.

Milestone

Co-Founder, Head of Product & Design · Nov 2023 – May 2024 · Toronto, Canada

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    Identified that users were abandoning onboarding before reaching their aha-moment because most platforms show features, not outcomes. Designed gamified flows that made the product actionable within onboarding itself, turning passive feature tours into active exploration.

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    Owned product vision, roadmap, UX architecture, and go-to-market strategy as sole designer and co-founder.

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    Achieved #1 Product of the Day, #1 Product of the Week, and #3 Product of the Month on Product Hunt with 1,090+ upvotes.

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    450+ waitlist signups and 10+ paying customers within weeks of launch.

Product Design Consultant

Self-employed · Feb 2021 – Present · Remote (part-time)

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    Shipped 30+ production websites across SaaS, healthcare, NGO, and e-commerce, leading full discovery-to-delivery cycles from research and MVP definition through high-fidelity execution.

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    Redesigned the landing page for Prinker Inc., driving a +64% improvement in e-commerce profitability through conversion-focused UX and visual design.

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    Designed and launched a virtual care clinic for Richmond Hill Sleep & Lung Institute, increasing online patient inquiries by +40% through UX-driven information architecture.

STUD-POINT

Designer · 2018 – 2019 · Kyiv, Ukraine

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    Launched and optimized the company's website, strengthening digital presence and supporting growth across marketing channels.

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    Maintained visual consistency across digital platforms and large-scale events.

AIESEC

Team Manager & Designer · 2017 – 2018 · Kyiv, Ukraine

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    Led a team of five and organized a multi-track hackathon within a global youth organization. Delivered conferences for 300+ attendees in partnership with international organizations and brands.

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    Directed brand strategy and multi-channel campaigns to drive visibility, engagement, and attendance.

Beyond Work

Outside of design, Sasha is endlessly curious about places, people, and how things work. She has traveled to 27 countries, and her other pursuits share a common thread: presence, movement, and craft.

🥾Hiking
✈️Travel — 27 countries
🍵Matcha
🧘Pilates
💃Dancing
🍳Cooking
"Travel keeps my perspective fresh and my empathy sharp."

Interested in Working Together?

Sasha is open to senior product design roles, consulting engagements, and advisory work — particularly in AI, fintech, and SaaS. The best way to reach her is by email or LinkedIn.

Manager

"Sasha is a versatile product designer who raises the quality of both the product and the team around her. She delivers high-quality work with speed and thoughtfulness, and demonstrates sound judgment in balancing user needs, technical realities, and business goals."

RY

Head of Engineering Delivery at Boosted.ai

Senior Stakeholder

"She thinks in products, not just screens, asks the right questions, pushes back when something doesn't serve the user, and consistently advocates for simplicity over complexity. Her end-to-end ownership is uncommon — she stays engaged from discovery to delivery."

BT

Head of Design at Boosted.ai

Senior Stakeholder

"What sets Sasha apart is a rare mix of strong product instincts and an extremely practical delivery mindset. She doesn't just produce polished mocks — she brings clarity to ambiguous problems and proactively partners with engineering to ensure the work actually ships."

SK

Group Product Leader · HPC, AI & Quantitative Finance

Peer

"Sasha has a sharp product instinct and a strong ability to navigate complex, AI-driven systems without losing sight of the user experience. She asks the right questions, challenges assumptions thoughtfully, and brings structure to ambiguity."

XC

Product Designer at Boosted.ai

Manager

"Sasha is a versatile product designer who raises the quality of both the product and the team around her. She delivers high-quality work with speed and thoughtfulness, and demonstrates sound judgment in balancing user needs, technical realities, and business goals."

RY

Head of Engineering Delivery at Boosted.ai

Senior Stakeholder

"She thinks in products, not just screens, asks the right questions, pushes back when something doesn't serve the user, and consistently advocates for simplicity over complexity. Her end-to-end ownership is uncommon — she stays engaged from discovery to delivery."

BT

Head of Design at Boosted.ai

Senior Stakeholder

"What sets Sasha apart is a rare mix of strong product instincts and an extremely practical delivery mindset. She doesn't just produce polished mocks — she brings clarity to ambiguous problems and proactively partners with engineering to ensure the work actually ships."

SK

Group Product Leader · HPC, AI & Quantitative Finance

Peer

"Sasha has a sharp product instinct and a strong ability to navigate complex, AI-driven systems without losing sight of the user experience. She asks the right questions, challenges assumptions thoughtfully, and brings structure to ambiguity."

XC

Product Designer at Boosted.ai