# Soraia Soares

> Senior Product Designer based in Lisbon, Portugal. Nine years in design (brand → UX → product), now working on AI and SaaS products.

Soraia works across design systems, design & product maturity, design-to-production and AI experience design. She builds the systems that let design scale and works in code with engineers so designs ship as intended. Currently at Metal.

## Pages

- [Home](https://www.soraiasoares.com/): overview, selected work, how she works
- [About](https://www.soraiasoares.com/about): bio, experience, convictions and contact
- [Thinking](https://www.soraiasoares.com/thinking): journey notes
- [All Here case study](https://www.soraiasoares.com/work/all-here): iOS organizer app, designed end-to-end
- [Friday Resources](https://www.soraiasoares.com/friday-resources): design resources she shares weekly
- [Mentoring testimonials](https://testimonial.to/soraia-soares/all): feedback from designers she has mentored

## About

I'm a senior product designer, currently at Metal. I thrive where design, product and engineering meet, and I care as much about how a team works as about what it ships.

I do my best work in teams that are still figuring out how they want to work: turning half-formed processes into systems people actually use, and staying close to the work until it ships the way we imagined it.

At Metal, I lead design for our AI agent, own our design system from Figma through to production, and work closely with our product and front-end teams to help the product mature. In an (almost) previous life, I ran my own branding studio, where I was named Woman Graphic Designer of the Year in 2022. I also mentor designers at Floxies Community and build small (but mighty) products of my own, like [All Here](https://www.soraiasoares.com/work/all-here).

## Experience

- 2025: Product Designer, Metal (current)
- 2023: Senior UX/UI Designer, Boost.
- 2022: UX/UI Designer, R&G Strategic
- 2019: Brand Designer & Strategist, SS Design & Branding
- 2018: Design & Marketing Intern, LuniStudio
- 2017: Freelance Designer, websites & logos

## Convictions

### Complexity is not the enemy

Powerful products are often complex, and that's fine. The real enemy is a lack of clarity. My job isn't to strip the complexity away but to make it legible: respecting how people already think about their work, and showing them what's happening, especially when AI is doing part of it.

### Design in systems

Great design at scale is a systems problem, not a screens problem. I build the foundations that help a team perform at its best as it grows: design systems that live in code, clear rituals and feedback loops, and research habits that keep decisions grounded in real users.

### Fail fast to learn fast

I'd rather put a rough version in front of people early and be wrong quickly than polish the wrong idea. Speed only matters when it has a direction, so every experiment should test an assumption that actually changes what we build next.

## Focus

- Design systems
- Design & product maturity
- Design-to-production
- AI experience design

## Currently

- Metal (2025 to now): the AI agent (chat → context-aware sidebar → Agent Mode) and the design system, shipped to production with the FE team. Work in progress, under NDA.

## Selected work

- [All Here](https://www.soraiasoares.com/work/all-here): iOS organizer app. Owned product and design end-to-end; shipped to the App Store with an engineering partner.
- [Four-role engagement system](https://www.soraiasoares.com/case-study/b2b-gamification): B2B SaaS. A badges brief, reframed.
- [Stratiko](https://www.soraiasoares.com/case-study/stratiko): SaaS website rebuilt for clarity and conversion.
- [Africa Born](https://www.soraiasoares.com/case-study/africa-born): experience-first redesign.

## Speaking & mentoring

- Talk: "Design that isn't communicated doesn't exist", Ladies That UX Lisbon, 2026
- Mentoring designers at Floxies Community, 2024 to now

## Friday Resources

27 articles and tools, shared every Friday on LinkedIn. The most recent resource is [Matt Przegietka: a LinkedIn profile worth following](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/soraia-soares_productdesign-uxdesign-designcommunity-activity-7483822885644517376-5gWk). Browse the full list at https://www.soraiasoares.com/friday-resources.

## Journey

- 2017: Started in design
- 2019: Her own branding studio
- 2022: Into UX
- 2024: Mentoring designers
- 2025: Product and AI Design
- Now: Design and Code

## Thinking

- [Design that isn't communicated doesn't exist](https://www.soraiasoares.com/thinking/design-that-isnt-communicated): Waiting wasn't protecting my work. It was making it invisible. Four habits that make design visible to the team. Learned while mentoring designers (2024). Design maturity · Ladies That UX Lisbon · May 2026 · 3 min read.

## Contact

- Email: hi@soraiasoares.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/soraia-soares/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ux.by.soraia/