Three decades shipping product. Now leading design and building inside AI-native teams.
Geoffrey Thomas
Currently Head of Product Design at Veylan. 20+ years running Guiceworks, a product strategy and design consultancy started in 2003, with head of product design work at Gridpoint and HireGuide.
I've been designing and shipping software long enough to watch a half-dozen tool revolutions reshape the work without ever changing the job. The job is still the same: Figure out what's worth building. Put it in front of people. Learn. Fix. Ship.
What I believe
Shipping is the only feedback loop that matters. Product-market fit isn't found in research decks. It's found in production. Teams that ship faster learn faster.
AI is a skill multiplier and a production multiplier. I use it daily — for ideation, for code, for visual direction, for cutting the coordination tax out of the parts that used to slow everything down. Designers who use these tools well will outpace, outproduce, and outlast the ones who don't.
The lines aren't just blurring between design and engineering. They're blurring across product strategy, design, and engineering all at once. Designers prototype in real code. Engineers think in flows and user journeys. Product people shape the artifact instead of writing specs about it. AI tooling collapses the seams between all three, and those seams are where product inefficiency lives. The result is closer to one team doing the work than three teams negotiating it.
Less is more. In design, in product and in process.
What I do
I've run Guiceworks, my product strategy and design consultancy, for 20+ years. Currently I'm full-time at Veylan as Head of Product Design.
I'm a player-coach. Strong IC by default, strong collaborator by instinct, and comfortable in code. Willing to lead small, senior teams when the work calls for it. I take direct responsibility for outcomes, not just deliverables.
Three decades, roughly. I started as a classically trained designer and grew up with product. The tools, the processes, and the way the discipline thinks about itself have all changed underneath me. I've run Guiceworks, a product design consultancy, for twenty years. The last five, client-side, as a senior IC and lead.
What I want next
A full-time role, principal or staff level, on a product team that's actually shipping — preferably one where AI is in the product, not just in the marketing. Close to the work, close to the customer, close to the engineers.
Open to consulting engagements with Series B+ and AI-native teams on compressing product, design, and engineering into one motion.