TARA COUGHLIN
Product design leader defining experiences and the teams behind them.
my story
Designer, builder, and leader. Across fifteen+ years leading design at RetailMeNot and Raise, I've turned quality into a business strategy, shipping experiences used by more than a 500k people, growing designers into leaders, and following curiosity into every aspect of design.
select works
A few case studies in design leadership and the products I've built. The problems, the bets, and what shipped.
RETAILMENOT / DESIGN SYSTEM
the global design system THAT REBUILT EVERYTHING
RETAILMENOT / APP
Instant Cash Back 45 days to instant
RETAILMENOT / EXTENSION
redesigning the moment a visitor becomes a loyalist
RAISE / NEW APP
Slide — a cash back app from zero
How I work is shaped as much by what I believe as what I know how to do. These are the values I come back to when things get messy, when the ask is unclear, or when the stakes are high.
how i work
Commitment to success.
01
I care a lot about the quality of the work, so I'll speak up when I think something is off. But once we've made a call, I'm all in. Teams move a lot faster when people stop protecting their own opinions and start executing together.
team mindset
02
The best teams I've been on feel coordinated, honest, and resilient. They celebrate the wins together, learn from the losses without the drama, and keep showing up for each other when the work gets hard.
be genuine
03
I'd rather work with people who are real than people who are polished. Kindness isn't weakness and honesty isn't rudeness. Those two things are usually the foundation for trust, clarity, and collaboration that actually lasts.
NOW BUILDING
I've spent this past year standing up programs, ramping up AI integration, designing crypto flows, web design, and feature buildout for companies large and small.
BOLT.NEW
Contracting as Lead Product Designer to stand up and scale Bolt.new's display ad program, working directly with the Head of Design and Product Design Lead. I used Claude Design to generate concept volume and get fast reads on direction, then rebuilt winners in Figma Make and turned them into slot-based components for plug-and-play testing. AI covered exploration, I made the creative calls.
The program scaled with roughly 50% more output across 80+ testable ad variations.
CONTRACTING NOW
raise.com
Six-month contract as Lead Product Designer for Raise.com, working daily with the Head of Product and Design to help the team move fast on their consumer-facing website. I designed the core pages including brand landings, category pages, gifting, onboarding, and modal flows, plus crypto payment flows for app and web, site architecture and mapping, design system buildout, and creative direction.
Trust and SEO performance improved significantly through breadcrumb navigation, ADA compliance, and a content and site-mapping strategy that gave the site real structure.
CONTRactor • 6 months
