Head of Design · 15+ Years · Brisbane · Sydney · Remote

MATIAS
RODRIGUEZ

Product Design Manager · Kindred Group · FDJ United

I lead product design where customer behaviour, commercial performance, and technical delivery need to work together. Complex problems with no obvious answer — the kind that sit at the intersection of competing constraints — are where I do my best work. Over the last 15+ years I have helped teams improve conversion, reduce delivery friction, scale design systems, and turn complex regulated journeys into clearer product experiences.

My value is not domain-specific. I specialise in regulated, high-volume digital environments where small UX decisions affect conversion, operational cost, compliance risk, and product margin.

Kindred Group · FDJ United · 2025–Present

THE NUMBERS

Delivered
Modelled w/ metrics team
Benchmarked
Team / Org impact
📈Commercial
Modelled
10×
BetBuilder margin vs singles
Worked with the metrics team to understand the margin ratio between product tiers — frames every BB design decision as a commercial one, not just a UX one.
Modelled
2–3%
Singles migration target to high-margin products
Related bets UX, BB placement, and upsell moments designed to shift volume into higher-margin products. Multi-million gross win opportunity modelled with the metrics team.
Delivered
2×→4×
BetBuilder ROI — current to next phase
Enhancement strategy validated at 2× ROI. Next phase modelled at 4×. Cannibalisation risk of singles derisk built in via user-gated content — singles users protected by design, not policy.
Modelled
+5%
ARPU per 1% product mix shift
Each percentage point shifted from singles to higher-margin products generates material ARPU uplift across six regulated markets — modelled with analytics and metrics teams.
⚙️Technical & Delivery
Delivered
1 Qtr
Design ahead of engineering
Arrived with design 2 weeks ahead. Embedded into leadership planning cycles — now one full quarter ahead. Creates space for technical feasibility conversations before architecture is locked.
Delivered
–20%
Handover time reduced
Discovery → Test → Spec → Dev Support model keeps design active through build. Fewer defects, less rework. Structured ticket model separates exploration from build-ready work.
Delivered
First
WCAG embedded in Acceptance Criteria
Accessibility requirements in ACs for the first time — closing years of accumulated debt. Makes a11y a delivery gate, not a retro audit. Targeting 50% app coverage as baseline.
Delivered
Live
Promotions engine across 4 markets
Front-end and back-end design strategy across Uniboost, CMS/Playbook, BFF, and multi-jurisdiction regulatory constraints — coordinated with engineering and compliance to ship across GB, FR, RO, NL.
👥Customer & Research
Delivered
–25%
Testing drop-off reduced across UK, RO & FR markets
Enabled and delivered unmoderated testing infrastructure across UK and Romania, running alongside French market work — three regulated markets tested simultaneously, not sequentially. Redesigning question structure reduced participant drop-off by 25%, improving data quality per test and changing how stakeholders evaluated testing ROI.
Benchmarked
25%
Users adding to betslip from homepage
Analytics showed homepage was already a conversion surface — 15% placed a bet from it. Reframed page priority across product and content teams without a lengthy research cycle.
Benchmarked
80–85%
Carousel clicks concentrated in positions 1–2
Positions 1–2 drive 80–85% of clicks regardless of how many items are shown. Evidence used to reduce carousels from 7–8 options to 3–4 — cutting DOM load, improving page speed and time-on-page, which directly feeds conversion. A UX simplification that became a technical performance and commercial argument simultaneously.
Team impact
40+
Workshops across trading, risk, growth, engineering
Different language per room — same design direction. MoSCoW prioritisation and hero journey scoring used to resolve conflicting priorities without escalating to leadership.

Proof of leadership,
not just strategy

Head of Design roles ask whether you can lead people, not just own a product surface. Here is the direct answer.

20+
Designers mentored
Across Kindred, NBN, and Tabcorp. Multiple promotions to Senior and Lead roles. Skill matrices, tailored progression plans, and structured performance assessments run against defined benchmarks — not just annual reviews.
0→1
Design practice built from scratch
At both Kindred and NBN I arrived without a functioning design ops infrastructure. Built Jira and Confluence templates, documentation standards, delivery governance, and team rituals from nothing — adopted org-wide within months.
3
Delivery lanes introduced
Discovery, Design Delivery, and Dev Support — a structured ticket model giving engineering, product, and design shared maturity expectations across the pipeline. Reduced handover friction and made design work visible at the right level.
6
Regulated markets governed simultaneously
GB, FR, RO, NL and beyond. Each with different regulatory constraints. Maintained a single design direction while adapting research framing, ACs, and feature scope per jurisdiction — without slowing delivery cadence.
40+
Workshops — and the hard conversations to protect them
Ran workshops across Trading, Risk, Ops, CRM, Growth, Engineering, and Compliance. Made the deliberate call to exclude managers and heads of from user research sessions to protect data quality — then had the direct conversations explaining why their presence would bias findings. MoSCoW and hero journey scoring used to resolve priority conflicts without escalation.
0
Team turnover during app redesign
Full-scale app redesign at Tabcorp under a fixed launch deadline across multiple squads. Zero team turnover — maintained morale, output quality, and cross-squad alignment throughout a high-pressure multi-month programme.
Designers are the glue — this is what that looks like in practice
Customer layer
  • User researchers
  • CRM teams
  • UX specialists
  • Unmoderated / A/B testing
  • Behavioural analytics
Commercial layer
  • Heads of Growth
  • Product leadership
  • Analytics / metrics teams
  • CRM strategy
  • ARPU and margin modelling
Technical layer
  • Back-end engineering
  • BFF / API teams
  • CMS / platform architects
  • Firebase / feature flags
  • Tech feasibility sessions
Risk layer
  • Compliance teams
  • Regulatory advisors
  • Responsible Gambling
  • Legal / market requirements
  • Research framing for sign-off

How I lead

Three principles that run through everything above — and explain why the work holds up across different domains.

01
Connect the dots between people who don’t naturally talk to each other

I see design as the glue between commercial strategy, technical delivery, customer behaviour, and compliance. None of those teams have the same language or the same incentives — and most of the time, nobody is connecting what they know into a single product direction. That’s the job. Not just running workshops, but synthesising what comes out of them into something engineering can build and leadership can stand behind.

02
Take things from 0 to 1 in real environments, not ideal ones

The best design work I’ve done has happened inside constraints — regulatory, technical, organisational. I don’t wait for the perfect conditions. I work out the smallest thing that can go live and prove value, phase the rest, and use each release to generate the evidence that earns the next one. A/B tests, overnight unmoderated studies, staged rollouts — the method fits the environment, not the textbook.

03
Let the evidence earn the next phase

I don’t pitch big design visions and ask for trust. I design the first phase to generate the data that justifies the second. When stakeholders see real metrics moving — conversion, drop-off, margin, time-on-page — the conversation shifts from “should we do this” to “how fast can we scale it.” That’s when design gets a real seat at the table.

Work History

CAREER

Detail for the conversation — enough to verify the numbers above and generate the right questions.

2025 – Present
Kindred Group · FDJ United
Product Design Manager

Design strategy across sportsbook's highest-margin surfaces

Six regulated markets · Betslip · BetBuilder · Promotions Engine · Event Cards · Back-office tooling · Distributed international team
Commercial
  • BetBuilder enhancement — 2× ROI validated, 4× next phase. Cannibalisation derisk via user-gated content
  • Related bets UX targeting 2–3% singles migration — multi-million gross win opportunity modelled with metrics team
  • Promotions engine — Uniboost, contextualised surfacing, multi-jurisdiction constraints across GB / FR / RO / NL
  • Homepage reframed as conversion surface: 25% add-to-betslip, 15% bet placement from analytics evidence
  • Carousel data (positions 1–2 driving 80–85% of clicks) used to reduce options from 7–8 to 3–4 — cutting DOM load, improving time-on-page, and connecting a UX simplification directly to a conversion and page performance argument
Technical & Operational
  • Fluent across BFF, back-end services, CMS/Playbook, Firebase, and feature flags — in tech planning rooms before architecture is locked
  • 1 quarter ahead of engineering from 2 weeks on arrival
  • Discovery → Test → Spec → Dev Support — –20% handover time, fewer production defects
  • Jira / Confluence practice built from scratch — governance, templates, maturity visibility adopted org-wide
  • First WCAG a11y in Acceptance Criteria — targeting 50% app coverage
People & Research
  • Distributed team managed (Lead + Senior designers) — progression frameworks, performance assessments, design-ahead rhythm
  • Enabled unmoderated testing across UK, Romania, and France simultaneously — three regulated markets in parallel, not sequentially. Excluded managers and heads of from sessions to protect data quality, then had the direct conversations to explain why — a decision that shifted stakeholder perspective on testing ROI and contributed to the 25% drop-off reduction through cleaner question design
  • 40+ stakeholder workshops across Trading, Risk, Ops, CRM, Growth, Engineering
  • AI tooling embedded across documentation, synthesis, and stakeholder communication
iGamingBetBuilderDesignOpsa11yRegulated MarketsBFF / Back-endAI-augmented
2023 – 2025
NBN Co
Lead Digital CX Designer

Built the design practice for Australia's national broadband network

Token design system · Journey benchmarking · B2B2C ISP/RSP · Technology, Product, CX, Marketing
Commercial
  • DSAT 25% → 19% by redesigning key digital touchpoints and aligning UX with CX priorities
  • Key contributor to Product Playbook — personalisation incentives and API triage for ISP/RSP B2B2C journeys
  • Most Sparks awarded in the cohort for business impact and cross-team leadership
Technical
  • Token-based design system — +25% delivery speed, –50% inconsistencies, component changes from two sprints to hours
  • Python script audited all CSS colors — 200+ variants against 6 core colors, used to secure stakeholder buy-in
  • Embedded design into Technology Feasibility Studies — influencing direction at the planning layer
Customer
  • Benchmarked 4 customer lifecycle journeys — uncovered 40% task completion rate
  • Ease-of-use score lifted 3.5 → 5/5 on NBN installation journey by pivoting within CMS constraints
  • External research partner oversight — briefed, managed, and synthesised into internal roadmap
Design SystemTelcoWCAGJourney BenchmarkingB2B2CPython
2019 – 2023
Tabcorp
Lead / Senior Product Designer

Design leadership across Australia's largest wagering company

Multi-squad · App redesign · Racing Feeds · ARPU improvement · Figma org migration
Commercial
  • Racing Feeds: video CTR +185%, Popular Bets 10×, Tips & Rankings +385% post-repositioning
  • Racing Key Stats: ~20% ARPU increase in targeted segment by surfacing stats at peak betting intent
Technical
  • Scaled Figma company-wide — replaced Sketch, InVision, Miro; standardised tooling and governance
  • Staged rollout process (research → prototype → production) defined and implemented across all squads
People
  • Full-scale app redesign under fixed deadline — zero team turnover across multiple squads
  • MoSCoW and SWOT used to resolve competing roadmap priorities across squad leads without escalation
WageringARPUApp RedesignFigma OrgMulti-squadA/B Testing
2012 – 2019
FoodMatters · Canstar · Orange Digital
Lead / Senior Designer

Conversion, acquisition, and agency design across health, fintech, and retail

FoodMatters · Gaia (2016–2019)
  • +25% mobile conversions — platform redesign and SVD product. Platform acquired by Gaia Inc.
  • A/B testing across every funnel — design and copy congruency from top-of-funnel to conversion drove highest rates
Canstar (2019–2020)
  • Improved outbound CTR with Head of Optimisation — revenue-tied UX experiments
  • GA, Evolv/Ascend, Hotjar used for data analysis and decision support
Orange Digital (2012–2016)
  • 18-month credit union redesign — branding, UX, retail, and in-store experience
  • RACQ, Your Town, National Tiles — executive stakeholder collaboration
SaaSA/B TestingConversionFinancial ServicesAgency

If this resonates,
let's go deeper.

The numbers on this page are a starting point. The work behind them — the methodology, the stakeholder conversations, the decisions that didn’t make the page — is a better conversation in person than on a screen.

Case studies, process detail, and work samples are available on request. I’d rather walk through them with context than leave them unattended on a page.

Brisbane · Sydney · Remote · UAE open

Australian · Argentine · Italian citizenship — eligible to work in AU and EU · open to relocation