Richard Hawkes

Projects

Beliefs

Testimonials

I had the pleasure of working with Richard during his time at Customer.io. Over that time I watched him deliver real value for the business and our customers, while also helping designers like me level up and grow.

What stood out most about Richard was his range. He’s a skilled Figma craftsman, a strong systems thinker, and an engaging facilitator, equally comfortable leading a workshop as he is deep in the details of an interface. He also has a real gift for strategy and storytelling, taking something ambiguous and shaping it into a narrative people rally around, one that earns buy in and gets teams excited to build.

He was also ahead of the curve on bringing AI into our day to day work, shipping automations in the codebase to catch design quality issues early and helping other designers get comfortable shipping code with AI tooling. He was generous with what he learned, and the whole team was sharper for it.

But what I appreciated most was the space he created for collaboration. Put Richard in a room with designers, engineers, or cross functional stakeholders, and things click into place. People do their best work around him, and a lot of what our team shipped came out of spaces he helped shape.

Any team would be lucky to have Richard on it.

Shanil Patel, Customer.io

I had the pleasure of working alongside Richard as a fellow product designer for over six years, and few people have shaped how I think about great design as much as he has.

What sets Richard apart is his ability to move fluidly between big, bold thinking and rigorous, grounded execution. He’s a natural experimenter, always willing to push an idea further than felt comfortable, and confident enough to present that thinking to anyone, whether it was a small team critique or a room with the entire company watching. He frequently presented his work and ideas in front of our department demo days and his ideas through our hackathons were the most beloved. He has a gift for encouraging people to think beyond the brief in front of them, and teams were consistently better with him in the room.

But Richard never let big ideas outpace good judgment. He built a real discipline around checking analytics and metrics to validate our design decisions, holding our work to a standard of actual user impact rather than just aesthetic polish. He was a fierce advocate for the user experience, even when that meant slowing down or pushing back.

He was also one of the strongest cross-functional partners I’ve worked with. Product managers could count on him to help lead planning and exercises, not just react to a roadmap. Engineers trusted him because he never stopped at handoff. He’d jump into code himself to help ship the right solution. And as our design system was just taking shape, Richard was the first to fully embrace and craft its principles, personally defining components, researching and proposing data visualization standards, and laying the foundation for what’s become a mature, company-wide system.

On top of all of this, he’s humble and kind, and always positive. He’s the kind of teammate who makes everyone around him better and makes the work more fun along the way.

Annie Cocchia, Customer.io

Working with Richard is one of the highlights of my time at Customer.io. I’ve never met a designer so dedicated to improving not just the product, but everyone around him. What stands out most is how he gives feedback: he starts by making sure he genuinely understands the intent behind a design before touching a single pixel, then pressure-tests whether it’s actually serving that goal. His eye for hierarchy and information architecture is exceptional; he’ll spot exactly what’s quietly competing for a user’s attention and tell you precisely how to fix it. His instincts are always grounded in how a design behaves for a real customer, not just how it looks in a frame. Getting his eyes on my work made it noticeably better every time, and made me a sharper designer in the process. Any team would be lucky to have him. I know I was.

Akram S., Customer.io

I’ve worked with Richard for over three years at Customer.io, mostly as the engineer on the other side of his designs - across push notifications, in-app messaging, transactional email, and design system work.

What makes Richard exceptional is how easy he makes the design-engineering handoff. He’s never precious about pixels - he’s precious about outcomes. When I’d flag something mid-build, his answers were always fast, clear, and pragmatic: ‘spend a tiny bit of time on it, but if it sucks, leave it for another day.’ He knows exactly which battles matter, pushes back on scope creep before it eats a sprint, and trusts engineers to make good calls. Before one of his vacations, he told me to run with any design decisions I hit and that he trusted my judgment. That kind of trust is rare, and it made me a better engineer.

He’s also just generous. He volunteered design help for my hackathon projects and side ideas without being asked, and he was one of the first people to celebrate every win I had - promotions, milestones, all of it.

Any product team would be lucky to have Richard. Any engineer would be luckier.

Gyan Prakash Karn, Customer.io

I had the pleasure of working with Richard, and he is one of the most well-rounded product designers I have worked with.

Richard has a strong ability to use data to uncover UX issues, identify friction points, and turn those insights into thoughtful design improvements. His work consistently reflects a deep attention to detail, a strong emphasis on consistency, and a clear commitment to creating intuitive experiences for users.

What stood out most was how intentional and well-reasoned his design decisions were. He always brought thoughtful perspectives to discussions, which made him a great thought partner across product, engineering, and business conversations.

Richard combines strong product thinking, user empathy, and design craft in a way that makes teams better. I would highly recommend him to any team looking for a product designer who can balance user needs, business goals, and high-quality execution.

Harsh Deep Alang, Customer.io

Richard is one of the most effective product design partners I’ve had the pleasure of working with. He moves fast, iterates constantly, and relentlessly pushes for simplicity, clarity, and consistency—critical details when working to make a highly flexible and technical product more approachable. Beyond his design craft, he’s a powerful storyteller who can rally an entire company around the user in ways that stick. I couldn’t ask for a better collaborator, and I’d jump at the chance to work with him again.

LJ Ho, Customer.io

What sets Richard apart is his balance of brilliance and levity. He infuses joy into his work, whether it’s through playful prototypes, memorable presentations, or just how he says hello each day. Couple this with the tangible impact he’s made, from an empty state that changed an adoption trend to a redesign of the most-used interface in Customer.io, and you have a truly incredible Product Designer.

Brendan Fortune, Customer.io

I had a chance to work with Richard at Localytics and watch him quickly learn design skills from a standstill. He quickly soaked up experience in both Marketing & Product design and was effective immediately.

I then had a chance to hire him as a contractor for another Boston startup, and jumped at the chance to work with him again. Richard is dependable, down to earth, smart, visually adept, and a fast learner. His work was thorough and systematic, making flexible symbols that helped us scale his work and not just use it once. He asked great questions, understood the user and design problems comprehensively, and delivered quickly. I could also tell he was excited about both the problem and the design work itself, taking pride in his solution and having fun building it. Wouldn’t hesitate to work with Richard again in the future.

Tristan Harward, Localytics & Appcues

Richard is a highly versatile, productive, and inventive product designer. He has the unique ability to think about the big picture and the details simultaneously. He absorbs work and is highly communicative to his peers, clients, and to end users. Richard not only translates product requirements into design, he also has the talent to quickly gain context on existing codebases and conventions so that he can translate his design into fully-functioning code. I have engaged Richard as a design partner on many client projects and full-time work and continue to be impressed by his talent.

Chris Jelly, Edmit/Jelly Consulting

In my ten-year tech career, I directly hired over 50 people for my own teams and was part of the hiring decision process for hundreds. Of those I hired directly, all were top players. Richard is among the best three hires I ever made.

I hired him first as a co-op at Localytics. He was indispensable within weeks, and when he graduated, he returned as a Junior Designer on my marketing team. When I left Localytics and joined Barkly, Richard followed.

He’s the reliable backbone of any team he’s on. He’s easygoing, happy, and hard to fluster. To a person, everyone has always loved working with him.

It doesn’t matter the project; if I passed it to Richard, I knew it would get done on time and exceed any expectations I had. More data-driven than any designer I’ve worked with, he still has a great creative imagination that he applies to everything he works on.

Part of what’s special about Richard is his ability to both pay attention to every detail and simultaneously see the bigger strategic picture of what he’s working on. In practice, that means no loose end goes untended (so you sleep better at night) but you can also be confident he’ll either change course or work beyond what was called for if he realizes it’s necessary to fulfill the goal of the project. Put another way, he does everything you ask of him, and then brings you a finished product that not only solves the original problem, but solves another one or makes something else easier in the bargain.

I hired him twice, and would again in a heartbeat. You should, too.

Lucy Orloski, Barkly & Localytics

Richard brings skill, creativity, curiosity, and attention to detail to his work. His curiosity about design trends, user research, and new technologies help to drive his work ethic and productivity. Richard has a broad skill set that spans visual design, user experience design, and front-end development. His drive and determination helped our nimble design team to develop a new brand direction for Barkly and implement a consistent design system, spanning both marketing design and the product experience, within a short time frame. Richard is a valuable contributor and collaborator who would make an excellent addition to any team.

Stephanie Wykoff, Barkly

Richard is a driven and talented designer who knows how to focus on problem solving and deeply cares about the work he produces. He has a unique ability toward both exceptional attention to detail and broad conceptual thinking. He handles tight deadlines and ambiguous asks with calm professionalism and has a strong ability to break down problems to work through the details. Richard would be an asset to any company or team as a great designer but also as a good person and teamate.

Samantha Beachell, Barkly

When Richard joined the Barkly team, he was a great addition, not only for the designers, but for the company as a whole. He is a very talented designer and has a well-rounded skillset. He values company culture and is very much a team player, listening when necessary, but not afraid to speak his mind in a thoughtful and constructive manner when he has to. His work has a ton of personality and he finds inspiration in the many, many articles and design resources he reads. He’d be a great addition to any team and I would not hesitate to work with him again!

Aerica Lovett, Barkly

11/10 would work with again. Working with Rich is like working with a self-winding swiss watch—he’s punctual, reliable, and, most importantly, a self-starter. Rich was beginning his design career when he joined our team at Localytics. The amount of design tools and html/css he picked up in a very short amount of time is nothing less than stellar. He came to work hungry to learn and enthusiastic about even the most boring (and crucial) design work like improving our Jira configuration for project management or learning markup templating libraries in an effort to overhaul our email templates. If you’re looking for someone who knows when to (professionally) push back on half-baked ideas and advocate for better processes, anyone who has worked with him will tell you that Rich is that person.

Jake McKibben, Localytics

Rich is a true professional business athlete. You could literally give this guy any project (even outside of his realm) and it will get done on-time and with world-class quality. A great designer and strategic mind.

Trey Simmons, Localytics

Richard Hawkes is one of the most talented, organized, and thoughtful designers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. From the smallest graphic, to long-form content, style guides and brand creative, he gives every project the attention to detail that will really make it sing. His design work is uplifting and always founded in conveying a larger message. On top of that, he has a great mind for marketing, and is able to approach design work with dual mindsets. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him for any project.

Bryn Adler, Localytics

I had the opportunity to work with Richard at Localytics during his time as both a co-op and as a full-time designer...We worked very closely on a months-long project together that he really brought to life through his talent and his ability to convey technical content in a consumable way.

Aside from his measurable skills around design and front-end development, I always admired his thirst for knowledge. His ability to learn, test, get feedback, and improve only got better as he grew professionally. Additionally, the ambition and lightheartedness his brings to the office on a daily basis is contagious. I would highly recommend Richard to anyone as he would be an invaluable asset to any company!

Chris Kiertz, Localytics