Founding Design Engineer · Design Lead, Spera.bot. Bengaluru, India - 560102.
This portfolio is a UX research file. The user under study is me. Each section below is the artifact a researcher would produce — applied to my own way of working.
Why Kiruk
Design tools, experimental websites, and whatever feels right.
When UX craft and production code live apart, products lose soul and speed.
I own design, frontend, and interaction — leveraging UX experience to make complex products feel human.
One designer. One builder. Better experiences.
About
2001, Salem, Tamil Nadu: A house of thirty people
I was born in Salem, Tamil Nadu, into a joint family of nearly thirty people. My aunts crocheted, lettered and painted. My uncles ran projects, shops and small companies, and every plan got talked through over chai before anyone did anything. I grew up thinking that was just how work happens: loudly, together, and with a lot of opinions.
2008 – 2012, Salem, the family home: Critiques over tea
Between seven and eleven I spent most evenings watching. My mom crocheted, one aunt lettered scripts, another painted murals, and my cousins and I doodled next to them. When something was finished it went around the room over tea, and everyone said what they thought. Nobody was offended. That was just the last step of making something.
Class 6 – 10, Uncle's office, school notebooks: Bug reports for biryani
At school my notebooks had more drawings than notes. Outside school I had a side job: my uncle built ERP software, and I was his tester. He'd hand me a checklist, I'd click through every screen trying to break it, and I'd write down what went wrong. The pay was biryani. It was the best deal I've ever taken.
Summer 2018, Salem, and clients online: The first paycheck
The summer before college, family friends started asking me for posters and illustrations. Then their friends asked. It was the first time someone paid me for something I drew, and the first time I had to name a price, take feedback I didn't agree with, and still deliver on the date I promised. I got a few of those wrong.
2019 – 2023, Sona College of Technology, Salem: Computer Science, and a sketchbook
I studied Computer Science and Engineering at Sona College of Technology from 2019 to 2023 and finished with a CGPA of 8.9. Days were algorithms, systems and networks. Evenings were sketching and design work for anyone who asked. For four years I kept both going, and that's where the design engineer in me comes from.
2019 – 2021, Sona cultural crew and incubation lab: Leading the campus crew
In college I ended up leading the cultural design team: stage branding, posters, everything with the fest's name on it. I also redesigned the college website and worked on a medical incubation app with developers from the lab. It was my first time being responsible for other people's work, not just mine, and for keeping stakeholders happy without losing the fun.
2020, Home, and the Play Store: Lockdown games
When the pandemic shut everything in 2020, my cousin and I started making mobile games. I did the art, the motion and the UI, we shipped them to the Play Store, and every evening turned into a game jam. None of them made us rich. All of them taught me how a player feels in the first ten seconds.
2020 – 2023, College studio, freelance clients: Writing it down, teaching it
From 2020 until I graduated I freelanced for a design studio, resorts and smaller clients: branding, UI, web and print. Working with many teams at once forced me to write things down, so I started documenting UI kits, motion rules and UX playbooks. I also ran UX workshops and guest lectures for more than a hundred students.
Nov 2022 – Jan 2023, PeopleGamez.com, remote: Making HR playful
My first internship was at PeopleGamez, a company that turns HR into games (4Plantz, Motivuz and others). I did user research and storyboards, designed flows and interaction models, drew more than a hundred game assets, and built dashboards and a design system for their reports. Every week we had a critique jam where prototypes changed while people reacted to them.
Feb – Jul 2023, SNS Square, remote: Leading designers on Square Bridge
In 2023, through my mentor Jothi Sekaran, I joined SNS Square to lead design on Square Bridge, a platform that connects students, recruiters and college placement officers. I led three designers, built one design system and over 150 screens, and tested with more than 200 candidates. The portfolio builder we made lifted student engagement by 45%.
Feb 2023 – Feb 2026, HP Inc, Innovation for India, Bengaluru: Three years at HP
I joined HP's Innovation for India team as an R&D intern in February 2023 and became its main UX design engineer that August. For three years I worked on HP Print AI, a design system called Mudra used by more than 500 employees, a doorstep printing app and a WhatsApp flow for parents. Most of it is under NDA, so the story here is the thinking.
Feb 2026 – now, Spera, remote: Designing Spera from day one
In February 2026 I left HP to join Spera, a platform where you can build, backtest and paper trade crypto strategies without hiring a developer, as its founding design engineer. We're three people. Praveen, our CEO, leads the product. I lead design and frontend end to end: the logo, the voice, the design system, the interface, and the workflows that turn a sketch or a bug report into shipped UI.
Always, Mountains, mostly: Off hours
Outside work I try not to live the same day twice. I keep three toothbrushes so mornings don't start as copies. I order the strangest thing on the menu. For the last few years I've kept going back to the mountains, including Buran Ghati at 4,572 metres. When I'm happy I play the ukulele and make up my own words. This site is the same idea: one portfolio, ten eras.
Empathy map
Says: I build whatever feels right — and make it work for people.
Skills: Product Design, UI/UX Design (Web & Mobile), Design Systems, Prototyping
Thinks: Design IS the experience. Experimental can still ship. UX is leverage, not decoration
Does: Figma, Blender, React, Next.js, Splunk, Three.js, WebGPU, Howler.js, GSAP, Prompt Engineering
Feels: Passionate about craft & detail. Excited by gamified and playful interfaces. Curious about AI, fintech, and new mediums