Leading Product Discovery design at AutoZone.
Senior UI design and team leadership for a Fortune 500 e-commerce site used by millions of customers. I shipped the Product Finder, the AZ Rewards flows, and contributed to a full site relaunch that went live with no reported loss in traffic, right in the middle of a global pandemic.
Modernize the e-commerce experience for a Fortune 500 parts retailer used by millions. Make it easier for customers to confidently find the right product for their specific vehicle, then ship a full site relaunch without losing the people who depend on it.
Senior UI Designer and design lead for a cross-functional Product Discovery team. Hands-on UI work, team direction, design approvals, and mentorship for junior and associate designers.
Shipped the Product Finder (still in production, expanded from 3 to 8+ product categories), all AZ Rewards enrollment states, and contributed to a full site relaunch with zero reported traffic loss at cutover.
The challenge
A Fortune 500 e-commerce site where every customer's first question is: "will this part fit my vehicle?"
AutoZone serves millions of customers who aren't browsing for fun. They show up because something broke, something needs replacing, or they're mid-repair and missing a part. The hardest design problem in this space isn't selling. It's confidence: helping a customer feel absolutely sure that the product on the page is the right one for the vehicle sitting in their driveway.
When I joined as Senior UI Designer leading the Product Discovery team, the company was deep into a complete site relaunch. My job was hands-on UI work across our key initiatives, team leadership and mentorship, and making sure the new site shipped without disrupting the millions of customers who depended on it. And we had to do all of that during a global pandemic, when DIY auto repair was surging and the stakes for getting it right were higher than ever. We figured it out and shipped anyway.
Selected projects
The work that defined the role.
Product Finder (still in production)
Designed the UI for a feature that shows customers vehicle-specific specs like oil weight and capacity, wiper blade sizes, and spark plug type once they've set their vehicle. We launched with 3 product categories: oil, wipers, and plugs. After launch it expanded to 8 categories including antifreeze, wheel nuts, brake fluid, and transmission fluid. It's still running on autozone.com today.
AZ Rewards flows
Designed multi-state enrollment flows covering every Rewards scenario: anonymous customer with no ID, anonymous customer with an ID from prior in-store visits, and a signed-in customer who hasn't enrolled yet. All 3 paths needed their own prompts, their own friction points, and their own recovery flows. Designing each state explicitly is what made the whole thing feel seamless.
Full site relaunch
Contributed to the design and launch of a completely redesigned, responsive AutoZone.com. It went live at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic with zero reported loss in traffic at cutover. On a site serving millions of customers, that kind of clean handoff doesn't happen by accident. It takes every team aligned and every design decision made with stability in mind.
Team leadership
Led design across Product Discovery: direction-setting, approvals, and onboarding new designers. Mentored junior and associate designers and helped them grow their craft. Teaching what I know has always been something I care about, and a strong team compounds everybody's impact.
Decisions that mattered
Surfacing vehicle specs at the point of decision
Most customers don't know their oil weight, wiper blade size, or spark plug spec off the top of their head. They look it up or they guess. We surfaced those specs directly on product list pages once a customer had set their vehicle. That removed the uncertainty right at the moment they were deciding what to buy, which is exactly where it needed to be removed.
Designing every Rewards state, not just the easy one
The Rewards experience had to work for first-time anonymous customers, for returning customers who had an ID from in-store visits but had never enrolled online, and for signed-in customers who hadn't yet joined Rewards. Each had different friction and different goals. Designing each path on its own terms is what made the whole thing feel natural instead of confusing.
Treating stability as a design value, not just a QA concern
For a site this large, a relaunch isn't a hero moment. It's a high-wire act. We held the line on continuity, backward compatibility, and consistency all the way through. Zero reported traffic loss at cutover doesn't happen because QA caught everything. It happens because every design decision along the way respected the customers who were already there.
Accessibility built in from the start
With millions of customers and a wide range of contexts, from a phone screen in a parking lot to a laptop at a repair shop, accessible design wasn't optional. We designed for keyboard navigation, clear tap targets, color contrast, and screen reader compatibility from the first wireframe, not as a final pass.
What changed
Specific metrics covered in the full case study Public-facing highlights:
Product categories in the Product Finder at peak, up from 3 at launch. The UI I designed is still in production on autozone.com today.
Reported traffic loss at full site relaunch cutover, in the middle of a global pandemic when DIY auto repair demand was surging. That's a rare outcome on a redesign of this scale.
Distinct AZ Rewards enrollment states fully designed and shipped, each with its own flow, prompts, and recovery paths. No state left to the happy path.
Mentored and onboarded junior and associate designers across the Product Discovery team. Strong teams compound their impact, and this one did.
What I'd carry forward
In auto parts e-commerce, the whole question is "will this fit my car?" The Product Finder was about removing that doubt at the exact moment of decision, not before, not after. That's where conversion lives in this category.
Enrollment flows fall apart when you only design the happy path. Knowing exactly which state a user is in and designing for it explicitly is what makes the whole thing feel natural instead of duct-taped together.
Leading a design team is its own skill, separate from doing design. Mentorship, direction-setting, and onboarding aren't overhead. They're how you multiply your impact past what you can build yourself.
Have an e-commerce problem? Let's build something.
I love talking about design and hard problems. Drop me a line or connect on LinkedIn. I'd genuinely love to hear from you.