Jyllian Thibodeau

Download the PDF Every company, story and skill links to the portfolio.

Summary

I find out what people really need, then lead cross-functional teams to shape, design and ship it. I've often been the first product or design hire, taking new products from discovery to launch across healthcare, games, marketplaces and SaaS platforms, and I pick up new industries very quickly. Most recently, as founding designer at Coviu, I led research and design for a B2B healthcare SaaS product: the MVP shipped in four months, and 90% of onboarded design partners became paying customers.

• Learn fastA proper Jyll of all trades. I pick up new problems and tactics very quickly, and I love the learning.
• Stay curiousI start with the people: interviews, playtests, workshops and watching real work, so the team builds the right thing.
• Build togetherI work closely with developers and go-to-market teams, and lately with AI agents too, to get from idea to shipped product fast.

Experience

Product Research & Design Lead

May 2026 – Nov 2026 Coviu: Coflow

• Founding designer for a new B2B healthcare SaaS product, leading research and design from discovery to MVP.
• A pipeline built for speed: Built the design system, tooling and one monorepo; features went from concept to build in a day.
• From first prototype to MVP: Designed the MVP end to end; shipped in four months, not 18, with five integrations.
• Design partners and product–market fit: Field research and a 20-practice partner program; 90% of onboarded partners became customers.

Head of Product

May 2025 – Apr 2026 Vamp

• Partnered with the CEO to turn a service agency into a self-serve SaaS platform; mentored product and design leads.
• Creator Discovery: Led self-serve search, profiles and invites to a staged launch; about 80% of active creators updated profiles.
• Finding a new audience: Defined the ideal customer profile from self-serve customer research, and ranked the roadmap.

Head of Experience & Creative Design (from Jan 2022; earlier Product, UX & UI Design Lead)

Sep 2019 – May 2025 Immutable

• Scoped, hired and mentored a design team of twelve, and designed the company-wide analytics taxonomy.
• Hands-on design across games and platform: system flows and a shared UI component library, MVP to live service.
• Altar of Sacrifice: Designed a guaranteed-prize mechanic that rebuilt player confidence after the first sale.
• Eri's Store: Built a store from reusable platform parts: all primary sales within a year, and two more games on it.
• Band of the Wolf: Pitched and directed an ARG campaign: the best-selling set since launch, and the model for later sets.
• TikTok Top Moments: Designed auction tooling and guided TikTok's team on a collectibles launch with Lil Nas X.
• Immutable X Marketplace: Hired designers and shipped a first-of-its-kind marketplace in weekly slices; 10,000+ day-one trades.

Founding Product Designer

Oct 2018 – Sep 2019 SkoolBag (now Audiri)

• Helped rebuild a platform used by 40% of Australian schools as development moved in-house.

Founding Product Designer

Nov 2017 – Oct 2018 Hireup

• Led product and design through rapid growth, turning stakeholder vision into a roadmap.
• Support plans, evolved: Designed support plans that unfold like hiring, with a tagged needs model for skill-based matching.
• Automating documentation: Designed a compliance system with live status and automated renewals, so staff handle exceptions.
• Expediting onboarding: Analysed slow applications and redesigned registration and approvals, then made the case for automation.

Senior Product Designer & Researcher

Dec 2016 – Nov 2017 Medical Director: Helix

• Ran ethnography and co-design workshops, and prototyped experimental clinical tools.
• Proactive drug warnings: Designed and prototyped proactive drug warnings, using a parser trained on drug monographs.
• Self-building care plans: Designed self-building care plans that draw on the patient record and show each care-team member their part.
• Patient timelines: Designed patient timelines that summarise a record at a glance, the data model behind care plans and drug warnings.
• 2021: A GP Odyssey: Produced and creative-directed a 360° VR film from a journey-mapping workshop, shown at RACGP.

Product Manager & Designer

Jan 2016 – Dec 2016 Search Party

• Researched how customers really used a recruiting marketplace, and made the case for a pivot.

UX Consultant

Sep 2014 – Dec 2015 U1 Group

• Research and strategy for Qantas, Telstra, Westpac and Foxtel: ethnography, co-design and surveys.

Head of Player Research (also Gesture & Interaction Designer, 2009 – 2013)

Jun 2007 – Dec 2013 Harmonix

• Built player research into a department across projects; hired and mentored junior researchers.
• Designed and tuned gesture input with Microsoft on early Kinect hardware, seeding machine-learning motion data.
• Fantasia: Motion as magic: Designed gesture controls for Disney's Fantasia, and an ergonomic gesture library for ML detection.
• Dance Central: Finding the fun on a deadline: Research and gesture design for a bestselling Kinect launch title and two sequels.
• Rock Band: Founding player research: Formal methods, a playtester database and studio-wide playtesting across a dozen titles.

Usability Consultant

Jul 2006 – Mar 2007 Novell (Ximian, now SUSE)

• Designed and ran usability tests for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, and upgraded the test lab.

Skills

Tools

Education

Work rights and languages

Every role and story in full at jyllian.net/work.