I lead design for products that have outgrown how they were built.
I’m Jakub Parka. For about fourteen years I’ve worked as a product designer and design lead — usually with founders and teams whose product has outgrown the way it was first built. The features still work, but the system underneath has drifted: patterns that don’t match, decisions no one remembers making, an interface that’s harder to change every month. That’s the point where I’m useful. I bring the whole thing back to one coherent system, and set the standards that keep it coherent while the team keeps shipping.
I work inside your system, not alongside it.
I join a team the way a good senior hire would — I learn how you already build before I change anything. I don’t arrive with a fixed process or a stack everyone has to adopt; most teams are already doing plenty right, and my job is to sharpen that, not replace it. I stay transparent about the tools and the thinking behind my work, so the people around me can follow the decisions, not just receive the files. When I lead, I lead by setting a standard the rest of the team can build to — and then getting out of their way.
What I’m good at
The work I’m known for is a product’s connective tissue: design systems, scaling design as the product and the team grow, and handoff that developers can actually build from. Along the way I’ve built and recruited design teams, worked inside software houses across very different methodologies, and shipped early versions of products that are now used by companies like NBA and SiriusXM. I care less about the pixels of any single screen than about whether the hundredth screen someone designs after me still fits.
Working with AI
I design with AI in the loop — not as a gimmick, but as a way to validate ideas faster, explore more directions, and spend my judgment where it actually matters. It’s changed how much ground one designer can cover, and I’ve leaned into it rather than around it.
Now
I lead design at StormIdeas, a Scottish agency, where English is my working language day to day. I’m based in Poland, on Central European time — a full working day’s overlap with the UK and the Nordics.
Alongside that I take on a small number of outside engagements. I’d rather go deep with one team over the long run than spread myself thin across many, so I’m selective — I usually take on work where a product needs to hold together, not a one-off screen.