Utkarsh Seth

Product Manager

Mountain View, California, United States20 yrs 3 mos experience

Most Likely To SwitchHighly Stable

Key Highlights

17+ years leading UX organizations.
Expert in building scalable design teams.
Strong focus on aligning UX strategy with business performance.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a UX Leader in the Technology industry, specializing in user experience and product development.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

LeadershipUser Experience

Other Skills

Relationship BuildingManagementPriority ManagementCoachingAgile MethodsUser ResearchCollaborationData AnalysisUsabilityEthnographyHeuristic EvaluationUsability TestingCard SortingRapid PrototypingSurvey Research

About

With 17+ years leading UX organizations across complex product environments, I specialize in building scalable design teams and aligning UX strategy with business performance. My work centers on organizational transformation — designing effective team structures, improving UX operations, and embedding product thinking into decision-making. I have led teams to deliver measurable business impact by connecting user experience outcomes to organizational goals, demonstrating clear ROI through improved processes, stronger collaboration, and product innovation. In parallel, I actively contribute to design education, partnering with institutions such as the Savannah College of Art and Design to develop industry-grounded curriculum and prepare the next generation of product thinkers.

Experience

20 yrs 3 mos

Total Experience

4 yrs 1 mo

Average Tenure

11 yrs 4 mos

Current Experience

Google

8 roles

Senior Staff UX Manager

Promoted

Oct 2022 – Present · 3 yrs 7 mos

Extensive experience in managing UX teams across levels and locations that
have driven active product development in multiple domain areas like social, Search, Geo, Ads, Android and more.
Built and managed large domestic and international teams from scratch to staff business critical areas and drive decision making at the executive level. Currently performing at the Director level role profile.
Created an inclusive team environment ensuring team well-being is a top priority.
Created long term team vision and strategy using insights to transform teams from service level organization to one where they were integrated in the product development process.
Active mentor of teams & UXers within and outside Google on relationship building, core role
knowledge and taking research further from just insights to informing product decisions.
Regularly collaborated with senior execs at the company to understand business
objectives, building consensus and drove research to directly inform decisions.
Regularly attended and presented the team's work at the exec level and drove
next steps/decisions.
Created partnerships with xfn teams to enable triangulation of insights from
multiple sources (Data science, marketing, UXR) to build holistic point of views
on user behavior. Evangelized insights at the exec level to drive better products.
Ensured alignment of UX work with larger company objectives and that the
committed (and non-committed work) is regularly shared with xfn partners to
create alignment.
Built UX & xfn wide processes to better drive product development using agile
methods.
Extensive experience building scalable rapid research processes and
teams and integrated outcomes into engineering led efforts. Agile product
development
Responsible for directly managing multi-layered teams of various levels,
disciplines and geographically distributed. Built culture and psychological safety
among members and created effective and high functioning job environment

LeadershipRelationship BuildingManagementPriority ManagementCoachingUser Experience

UX Manager - Android

Aug 2021 – Jan 2023 · 1 yr 5 mos

Manager, UX Research - App Ads experiences

Jul 2018 – Sep 2021 · 3 yrs 2 mos

Managing a team of researchers looking at consumer Ad experiences across Web and Apps. Also leading a space for understanding user privacy, mental models and the need for transparency as it pertains to Ads

Manager, UX Research - Search, Assistant & Maps NBU efforts

Promoted

Aug 2017 – Jul 2018 · 11 mos

Managed a horizontal team of researchers working on our emerging markets initiatives in Google Search, Assistant and Maps. Responsible for core foundational & strategic work in understanding needs, behaviors and motivations in different cultures across the globe and bringing the insights to inform product development. Worked with senior stakeholders to prioritize and scope markets and research, led immersions with product teams in countries and managed a rapid research team internationally for fast turn around studies.

International User Experience Researcher

Feb 2017 – Aug 2017 · 6 mos

Head of UX Research, Social apps

Promoted

May 2016 – Feb 2017 · 9 mos

Managed a portfolio of 7 products in our Social group at Google including Blogger, Google+, social good among others

Senior User Experience Researcher

Promoted

Nov 2015 – Apr 2016 · 5 mos

User Experience Researcher

Dec 2014 – Nov 2015 · 11 mos

Nordstrom

Senior User Experience Researcher

Sep 2014 – Dec 2014 · 3 mos · Greater Seattle Area

Microsoft

User Experience Researcher

Apr 2009 – Sep 2014 · 5 yrs 5 mos · Redmond, WA

Windows Store – Core UI framework and navigation between apps
Planned, executed and delivered research on Ratings & Reviews by triangulating information from lit reviews, instrumentation and a lab study. Consolidated past research on Store into a UX insights work to effectively communicate the insights we know about the space and to give partners a way to get up to speed quickly
Is Horizontal scrolling better or vertical? What are the implications when factors like content type, form factor and screen orientation come into play?
Broke down a large complex problem space to develop and communicate a multi-stage plan to answer the prioritized research questions in the area. Came up with measures, prioritized variables, dimensions and a study design which would enable us to confidently define what success would look like at the end of the project.
Windows 8.1 core UX – Launching, switching & multitasking
Helped the team understand the ways people currently multitask in Windows by generating a multitude of scenarios through research and categorizing them into a comprehensible format. The scenarios covered various applications (Mail, IE, Photos etc.) and were used by partner teams in informing their own research plan.
Windows 8 – First run experience in Apps (FRE)
Partnered with multiple app teams (Mail, Photos, People, Calendar, Messaging) and brought everyone to consensus in terms of research goals around FRE with apps.
Experience with content access behaviors across devices and how people have different needs, motivations and beliefs when it comes to various types of contents

Lenovo

Usability Specialist Intern

May 2008 – Aug 2008 · 3 mos

Hardware/software interface designing, usability testing, user research, literature reviews to guide product development, heuristic evaluations, competitive assessment, contextual analysis, data analysis

Iowa state university

Graduate Research Assistant in Human Computer Interaction

May 2007 – Apr 2009 · 1 yr 11 mos · Ames, IA

Masters in Human Computer Interaction at Virtual Reality Application Center
Thesis: A virtual reality interface for the design of compliant mechanisms
Coursework:
Cognitive psychology in Human Computer Interaction
Human Factors
Computational perception
Graphic design and human interaction
Virtual Environments
Organizational and social implications of HCI

Tata consultancy services

Assistant System Engineer

Oct 2005 – May 2007 · 1 yr 7 mos

Interface designer and application developer for mobile applications.
Involved in designing, developing and coding the software solutions and also coming up with paper prototypes and mock ups for the mobile user interfaces.