arjun's cv

i work in ambiguous environments, helping people realise (give form to) just intentions. in the past, i have operated as a researcher, product-manager, artist and engineer; while being primarily hired as a designer. currently, i'm a graduate student at the interactive-telecommunications-program at new-york-university, on a near-full scholarship.


jobs:

2024 - 2025,
8 mos.

design consultant @vunet systems

worked 3 days / week, as part of a small product-design team, for an observability platform that financial institutions use to identify, diagnose, and resolve errors across their distributed components. i was brought in to work on ambiguous asks; did so with curiosity & rigour; and:

  • synthesised siloed work done over the past 3 years by different engineering & product teams, to propose a new system for people to efficiently consume alerts — which makes up 1/4th of the product's job. did design-research; made design, engineering, and product recommendations; led validation studies; and worked with engineers to plan for deployment.
  • proposed a contextually-aware search-bar — deployable across the platform — to help people find specific items quicker, and write complex queries without previous knowledge of the query language. also presented a javascript-prototype to demonstrate technical feasibility and digital tactility.
  • proposed a wyswig-editor to configure different kinds of alerts, which is a fundamentally new approach in the industry.
  • spotted platform-wide copy inconsistencies, and proposed a system for writing action-oriented descriptions across the platform, to help people better understand what different modules (and sub-modules) do.
  • nudged a platform-wide change from card-based-layouts to list-based-layouts, by demonstrating how taxing it is for the eye to scan for an item in both layouts, using a self-programmed webcam-based eyetracking tool.
  • reimagined what dashboards on the platform could look like, and nudged front-end teams to move towards independent ui-elements (and away from frameworks), by proposing a customised landing-dashboard for cxos, it-heads and reliability-engineers.
  • resigned to pursue graduate education.

2024,
3 mos.

senior lead, products @treemouse

moved to another behaviour-design consultancy — chasing depth & impact at scale — and:

  • led design research for digital-green, identifying barriers against the adoption of their farmer-facing chatbot in jharkhand.
  • designed a proof-of-concept for a conversational-interface that is to be deployed in areas with high substance-abuse rates.
  • ran the inaugral design track for the code-for-gov-tech program, helping contributors from around the country to design more usable digital-public-goods.
  • resigned to grow my own practice.

2022 - 2024,
1yr. 11 mos.

design researcher @tinkerlabs

worked at a behaviour-design consultancy, with a desire to bring change into the world, and:

  • led design-research, ideation, prototyping & testing for private investors, to help them design a new chain of k-12 schools that aimed to revolutionise education in the country.
  • conducted primary research & led conversation-design for the just-ask chatbot, launched by unfpa, enabling 25,000+ adolescents in rural madhya-pradesh to get accurate social & sexual health information.
  • led ethnographic-research for udhyam-foundation, identifying enables & barriers for nano-entrepreneurs to achieve business growth.
  • led design-research & a ux-redesign for nayi-disha, enabling caregivers for p.w.d. to swiftly access appropriate resources.
  • led an appreciative-enquiry for vipla-foundation, identifying transformative practices at play for a training program that upskilled women from marginalised communities.
  • helped redesign resources developed by international-justice-mission, enabling different stakeholders to use them more effectively.
  • designed, tested, and helped re-design an intervention for project-concern-international, aimed at increasing contraceptive usage for women in rural-bihar with migrant husbands.
  • facilitated 15+ behaviour-design workshops for organisations & higher education institutes in india, such as iim and mica.
  • resigned in pursuit of depth, impact at scale, and to move out of bombay.

2022,
7 mos.

xperimenter @science gallery bengaluru

helped develop transdisciplinary public-engagement programmes for young adults to interface with the sciences, as part of the four-person xperimenters cohort, and:

  • programmed in between life & death — a web-game for young adults prompting them to question human needs.
  • led graphic design for earth 2052 — a speculative climate-vision workshop, presented at the 2022 science gallery youth symposium.
  • conducted various public engagement activities with college-students, to help them interface with the gallery.

2021,
5 mos.

product design intern @canonic

worked as a summer intern at a low-code backend development platform, helping them come out of beta, and:

  • redesigned their entire onboarding experience, increasing completion rates by 22%.
  • led design-research and testing for various product features.
  • proposed a keyboard-first prototype for the entire platform, and designed micro-animations to make the platform feel nicer.

2020,
2 mos.

design intern @whitenoise design

worked virtually as a summer-intern in a design studio, and:

  • contributed to identity, graphic and interface design projects.
  • proposed and designed whitenoise bridge: an internal project-management tool to help employees better manage their work in the studio.

2020,
2 mos.

identity designer @farmtheory

worked virtually with a startup in bengaluru that wanted to reduce food-waste by matching local farmers with businesses that don't mind purchasing 'poor-looking' vegetables, and:

  • proposed a dynamic identity system.
  • developed marketing strategies & advertising tactics.
  • helped them design the interface of their ordering application.

teaching:

2022 - 2025,
3 yrs.

faculty & mentor @and academy

taught postgraduate-diploma-students at a remote design school that wishes to make design-education accessible, and:

  • taught & evolved think lab — an experiential learning module, originally developed by prachi mittal, to foster the creative & critical thinking potential for new design students — to graphic-design students.
  • mentored ux-ui-postgraduate-diploma-students on their capstone projects.
  • ran a guided 5-week-long preparatory project to help students realise an end-to-end-digital solution for a local business vendor, as a precursor to their independent projects later.

2024

giving up control; workshop @o.p. jindal university

Made students feel comfortable with the idea of giving up control to variables to make their storytelling dynamic, reactive and/or interactive.

2024

in between life & death; talk @cc santè creative-coding community conference

Broke down the process used to develop In Between Life & Death — a web-game that prompts young adults to question human needs.

2024

what to do when adobe fails you; talk @s.p.a. bhopal

introduced graphic-design students, virtually, to creative-coding as a medium to make their own hyper-specific creative tools.

2024

Evolving Your (design) Portfolio; talk @iiad, delhi

spoke to undergraduate students virtually, reflecting about the evolution of my portfolio over the years.

2023

set rules, make art; workshop @mit-d, pune

introduced algorithmic-art & creative-coding to 180+ undergraduate-design-students.

2023

my journey across the levels; talk @iiad, delhi

reflected on my 4-year-long undergraduate journey, for professors & staff of iiad and kingston-university.

2022

On Documentation & Reflection; talk @science gallery bengaluru

introduced 20 summer-school participants to my process of documentation & reflection, along with kolb's experiential cycle.

2022

Designing & Shipping A Digital Product; talk @pearl academy

walked third-year-ux-students through a case study, to show them how products are actually designed & shipped in the real world.

2021

Things I Wish I Knew During Foundation Year; talk @iiad, delhi

reflected virtually on my first year of undergraduate-study, and shared advice for capstone projects with 100+ first-year-students.


residencies:

2021

b-side music production residency, by serendipity arts foundation

learnt about sound, music-production and explored the identification of rules that separate music from sound.


awards / honours

2025

tisch school of arts graduate scholarship

based on the school's determination of merit & need.

2023

part of the p5.js global showcase, by processing foundation

2022

Best Graduation Project, at iiad, delhi

2022

designathon winner, by lollyop design studio

for sumitra — a chatbot to help small businesses in rural india fill extensive applications for government schemes quickly; by scraping data & recommending relevant schemes.

2021

dcdc-3 communication-design winner, at d'source corona design challenge


education:

2025 - now

m.p.s. in interactive-telecommunications, from new york university

2018 - 2022,
4 yrs.

b.a. (hons.) in communication design, from indian insitute of art & design

graduated with first-class-honours.