About — Alex Cain

Hi, I’m Alex, a Staff Product Designer. I’ve spent 12 years focused on design and product thinking. Never quite a PM, never just a designer, and increasingly convinced that’s exactly where the most interesting work happens. AI is accelerating the shift away from rigid titles toward outcome-driven thinking, and I’m here for it.

I care deeply about the why behind what gets built: the strategy, the research, the ethical implications, and the craft of turning ambiguity into something people actually want to use.

Career Highlights

Marshmallow

Led a 0-to-1 physical device connected to the app. The MVP became their leading product in three months. I then changed focus to how Marshmallow becomes a multi-product company.

Bumble

Picked up Opening Moves after a failing launch and redundancies had left it struggling. Grew adoption by 40% and quality conversations by 5%. Then moved to the Women’s Experience team, where whilst our new PM was in visa purgatory the lead engineer, researcher, content designer and I made a roadmap and we shipped 80% of it. If you’ve worked in product, you’ll know that’s basically unheard of.

Zoopla

Worked across B2B and B2C, pulling strategy and shipping together with some brilliant colleagues until new home leads went up 4x.

Zalando

A contract pulled me to Berlin, where I designed an internal feedback tool for 16,000 employees across 140 countries. The scale and cultural complexity were unlike anything I’d done before and it completely hooked me. I stayed on to join their consumer app team, who were making bold early bets on the influencer market. I was skeptical. Guess who turned out to be wrong.

Agencies

I started in agencies, where managers like Dave had the genius, or possibly the recklessness, to let a junior run as a lead. It shaped how I work: understanding the context quickly, narrowing in on the problem to be solved, and adapting to how teams work to get products shipped.

What I value in a role

Talented, kind people to call colleagues

Products that don’t make the world worse

A team that sits in the ambiguity together but builds with real clarity

Work that keeps me learning