Kit Oliynyk
Kit Oliynyk

I design for humans and machines.

Over the past 20 years I’ve delivered multi-million enterprise projects, coached, managed and mentored over 100 designers, helping them grow into leaders themselves. I’ve worked across industries, from financial institutions to government agencies, shaping work that’s good for users and good for the business. I’ve been a design leader, a mentor, public speaker and writer, a product designer, an inventor, a consultant, a non-profit founder, a karate black belt and a loving father of three.

Product and Agentic Design Leadership

I’ve consistently delivered results that matter. At PadSplit, I rebuilt the home page on a new brand for +15% conversion. At OneMain Financial, I led the loan application redesign for a 50% increase in conversion and a 15-point NPS gain. At Fannie Mae, I drove $5–10M+ applications with 3x savings in development costs through an enterprise design system. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, a workflow and form builder saved $18M.

AI & Design Innovation

I build with AI, I don’t just talk about it. At PadSplit I built an AI-native design system that AI agents read to generate on-brand UI, shipped straight to code (cutting one build from a month to under a week). I also lead design at Answersfrom.me, an AI-native knowledge platform. Black belt in Figma and design systems (not just karate).

Building & Leading Teams

I’ve hired, managed, and coached 100+ designers, many now leading teams of their own. I’m an ADPList Top 100 UX Design Mentor (2026) with 1,000+ pro-bono mentoring minutes. At Fannie Mae I launched a division-wide UX Community of Practice, training 200+ employees to 35% adoption of UX methods.

Brand & Org Impact

At PadSplit I led a company rebrand from concept to production in 3 months and grew the design team from 6 to 8, with one promotion to senior. I drove brand adoption across sales, marketing, CX, and leadership. Earlier I built the enterprise design brand for a 450+ designer org at Capital One.

Case studies

PadSplit homepage hero with a rotating headline

AI-first Design Strategy

AI-native design system that agents read to generate on-brand UI, shipped to code (cutting build time from a month to a week).

  • +15% conversion on the rebuilt home page
  • 4× faster front-end dev
  • 3 months to redesign brand
View project
ACheck loan verification app for Fannie Mae, scrolling the nomination detail screen

Commercial Lending SaaS

Loan verification B2B app for risk and compliance.

  • 3× dev-cost savings
  • 9.3 avg. stakeholder rating

Also check out OneMain Financial highly successful acquisitions flow, Fannie Mae applications for commercial lenders and Department of Veterans Affairs $18M-saving workflow/form builder.

As a leader, I’m happily sharing my experiences with other designers and technologists. I’m mentoring over 100 designers, frequently speak at design and tech conferences, and write articles about product design, management, philosophy and ethics.

Mentorship Public speaking Writing

My design approach

While I am happy to lead others, I am accustomed to contributing myself: as a strategic consultant, or simply as a fellow designer. To me, being a human experience designer means caring deeply about people and using my skills to make their lives better, help my company grow, and develop our society as the whole.

I’m a systems thinker.

My brain works in frameworks, journey maps, and complex integrated systems at large scale. I excel at navigating various zoom levels of a design project: from huge enterprise ecosystems and data streams to small UI components and design patterns. It all matters to me, and I love how those things fit together in a product or service I’m designing.

I start with “why”.

I start every design project by clearly defining a problem we’re trying to solve for the people, as well as the business objectives this project is trying to achieve. I’m also thoughtful about the design ethics, and the impact this project might have on the sustainability of our human society as a whole.

I blaze trails.

I love starting from scratch, and I love working on some big hairy problems. I don’t like to move fast and break things, but I sure love to learn fast. I prototype something quickly (with Figma, AI or just paper) to get collaborative insights and validate the idea as soon as possible, then iterate on the solution.

For five years I ran my own studio: a fully remote team of designers, researchers, and engineers delivering for hundreds of clients worldwide, from enterprise apps to brand and marketing sites, on time and on budget. More of it lives on Dribbble and Tumblr.

Dribbble portfolio Tumblr portfolio

That’s my story.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to reach out anytime, I’m always looking for new and exciting opportunities! Email me at k.oleynik@gmail.com or send me a message on Twitter or LinkedIn.