Peter Bartsch, Staff Product Designer

PETER BARTSCH · STAFF PRODUCT DESIGNER

I make hard systems usable and get people to actually use them.

I don't stop at the spec. I prototype in code and ship design systems.

Available for Staff and Principal roles: remote, SF, or Chicago.

Email me → See the Work

Portfolio: download the PDF ↓ · click through it in Figma ↗

Peter Bartsch, Staff Product Designer, black and white portrait

34% → 87%Profile completion (Deere)

$3.8BBusiness line gated (Deere)

500K+Users reached

1→10Design org built (FourKites)

DESIGN RESEARCH FRONT-END PROTOTYPING HARDWARE / CAD SYSTEMS

How I work: the full approach →

// WHAT I DO

Five patterns, one job, each proven on real work:

01Making uncertainty understandableFourKites
02Driving adoption without coercionDeere
03Unifying fragmented platformsDeere
04Finding value inside constraintsGogo
05Building systems that stay alignedThios

Those names span industries most people never see the inside of: John Deere builds the machinery that plants and harvests food; FourKites tracks freight in real time for the shippers and carriers moving it; Gogo puts internet on aircraft mid-flight; Thios is my own company, selling open-source modular hardware plans direct. All of them are high-stakes systems with no tolerance for an interface people route around.

These patterns repeat across agriculture, aviation, logistics, mobility, healthcare & open hardware.

The AI work is concrete: a published Claude Skill (audit-design-token-drift), a live MCP server, and a product whose front door is an agent.

Enterprise Design Systems Design Org Leadership (1→10) Adoption & Retention 0→1 in Complex Domains

// CASE STUDIES

Not a highlight reel: the calls, the tradeoffs, and what I'd do differently.

START HERE 01

ENTERPRISE · ADOPTION AT SCALE

DEERE: FORCED ADOPTION, WITHOUT THE FORCE

Inherited a forced-adoption mandate and made completion something users chose, at 500K-user scale, without breaking trust.

Challenge: Most of 500K users weren't completing profiles. That flow gates Deere's connected-services business.

Approach: Led design of a multi-channel adoption flow across 8 product lines. Instead of forcing the form, I made completing it worth the user's time.

Result: 34%→87% profile completion · setup support tickets −16%

The unlock: the equipment owner accepts the data terms, not the dealer.

VIEW CASE STUDY →

DATA TRUST

FOURKITES: DESIGNING FOR UNCERTAINTY

Dashboards people staked million-dollar calls on. Built over a period when retention rose 38% YoY.

Challenge: Enterprise customers were making high-stakes decisions on dashboards they didn't trust, because we hid uncertainty instead of explaining it.

Approach: Led redesign introducing confidence levels that showed uncertainty instead of hiding it.

Result: Retention rose 38% YoY over the same period · repeated account expansion

VIEW CASE STUDY →

FOUNDER · 6-SURFACE SYSTEM

THIOS: ONE SOURCE OF TRUTH, SIX SURFACES

Built and shipped a product line solo. Six surfaces, one source of truth, AI-assisted engineering.

Challenge: 6 sub-brands across 4 production sites plus an Onshape CAD source. Drift is the default, not a possibility.

Approach: Six canonical surfaces (DESIGN.md ↔ tokens.json ↔ main.css ↔ design-system.html ↔ Onshape ↔ Figma); agent-driven audits keep them aligned.

Result: 6 surfaces in sync · 1 designer

VIEW CASE STUDY →

LIVE · OPEN BETA 04

CONSUMER 0→1 · AGENT-NATIVE

THIS TRIP, BTW: DESIGNED FOR THE AGENT ERA

A trip map an AI can build and a human can open. No account, no trackers, nothing fabricated.

Challenge: AI assistants are a new front door to travel, but they can't make accounts or pay, which locks them out of nearly every travel tool.

Approach: Designed the account out of the product entirely. Trip data rides in the URL fragment; an MCP server and Skill let an agent hand over a drawn map.

Result: No-account share loop · privacy as architecture · open beta on real trips

VIEW CASE STUDY → TRY IT LIVE →

// MORE CASE STUDIES

From $3M startups to $50B+ enterprises

Technical Depth

STRATEGY TO CODE, THREE.JS, VANILLA JS, AR

Built a real-time 3D product configurator with AR preview as Thios's customer-facing revenue surface. Staff designers who can prototype in code close the gap between vision and shipping.

Try the Configurator

// PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2024–Pres	Founder · Product Design & Engineering	Thios + Co
2020–2024	Senior Lead UX, Digital Customer Experience	John Deere
2017–2020	Lead UX / Manager	FourKites
2014–2017	Senior UX + Agile Lead	Maven Wave Partners
2012–2014	Product Marketing Manager	Nokia / HERE Maps
2008–2012	Product Manager, Signature Services	Gogo Inflight Internet
2001–2008	Co-Founder	Cognistar

// experiments, Kandelbrots (a zoomable board canvas) · MyBoards (400+ boards rebuilt in 3D, open data)

Complex systems don't fail because they're technically impossible. They fail because people won't adopt them. That's the problem I've spent my career solving.

LET'S TALK

Let's build something!

Prefer email? pete@petebartsch.com · LinkedIn