Hey there 👋🏻

I am a Product Design Leader, a book nerd, and a cooking enthusiast living in Queens.

Currently, I am leading the Service Management and Automation Design team at Datadog, we work on a collection of tools for on-call developers and for technical teams to collaborate together.

Get in touch nellemcdade@gmail.com

👤  Linkedin

🧠 Understand Intrinsic Motivations

I truly believe that to be effective coaches, we need to dig deep and understand what people truly want in their life & career. Building trust means taking the time to understand their unique motivations. With this insight, I can tailor opportunities that keep them inspired and growing in their careers.

💥 Empowerment & Trust

As a design leader, I trust my designers to make thoughtful and informed design decisions. My job is to provide them with the support and tools they need to access quality data and shine in their roles. I empower my designers to be the decision-makers in their projects, while providing constructive feedback and design critique in safe spaces, so that in public I can support them 100%.

🎨 Quality & Creativity

I believe that creativity flourishes in pairs and teams. Great design doesn't happen in a vacuum. Pairing designers with mentors who challenge and inspire them, regardless of their level, sparks growth and excellence. This also means providing appropriate coaching for designers of all levels (intern to staff) to meet them where they are. Alongside weekly rituals as a team to provide design critique and collaborate on new challenges, we can create a supportive creative environment.

💬 Transparent Communication

Openness is key in the team culture I strive to build. I make it a point to keep everyone in the loop with regular updates on business decisions, organization changes, and insights from other design teams. By leading with transparency, I empower my team to make informed decisions and build trust within our organization.

👥 Collaboration is Foundational

Design doesn’t exist without collaboration. I know the importance of working hand in hand with product managers, engineers, and stakeholders to align on goals and vision. I actively engage with counterparts in Product and Engineering to shape our strategy and foster a culture of teamwork.

⚽ Build Resilient Teams

Change is inevitable, so we adapt quickly while supporting our teams through challenges, fostering resilience and perseverance. I am always thinking about the next opportunity for my current team, which will unlock new potential, and planning for future growth. This approach empowers our teams to navigate obstacles confidently and emerge stronger together.

Redesigning Checkout Experience

An overhaul of MongoDB’s checkout experience for each payment flow inside of the Atlas Platform. Rolled out as an experiment to a subset of MongoDB users and analyzed for impact.

Platform Navigation Redesign

Taking on a product redesign is always a lofty, ambitious goal for any company, but fundamentally MongoDB wanted to remedy some pain points we’ve been hearing from our customers and internal users around the hierarchy of our products. Over the past year and a half, we have been working on a redesign of our MongoDB Cloud platform that aims to solve customer problems and give us room to scale in the future when we release new products and features.

A unification project to allow users to login with and register for all of MongoDB’s web platforms with one account. This project aimed to introduce the new connect of a MongoDB Account to give access to MongoDB Cloud, MongoDB University, MongoDB Support, and more to come with a single account.