Sam King

Founder at Refrakt

Refrakt is a platform for photographers to share their work in a more meaningful way beyond the vanity metrics of current social media. The goal is to allow photographers to better connect with each other, inspire, and help each other to make their best work.

Building everything as a solo developer has been challenging at times, but I've learnt so much about what it really takes to architect such systems. I've gone much deeper on backend and infrastructure than I've done before, and now feel like I can build pretty much anything which is awesome.

refrakt.app

Software Engineer at Future Primitive

I joined FP to work on a new product called Perma , a photo sharing app geared towards emulating film photography. I helped launch an initial version of the app in React Native, along with an image processing pipeline using shaders to turn iPhone photos into film-like images. I also built an internal tool to help the team generate new effects and filters for the app using the same shader tech.

futureprimitive.xyz

Freelance Software Engineer and Designer

I took a break from full-time work and went freelance to allow me the opportunity to explore some of my side projects in more depth. I taught myself Solidity for programming on the Ethereum Network, and I ended up working with some smaller teams and individuals to build games, art projects, and memberships. I mainly worked as a Software Engineer, but still I dipped my toes in design here and there.

Senior Product Designer at Plain

Plain is an API first customer support platform. Plain was partly inspired by learnings from building the customer support tool at LloydsDirect. There weren't any good customer support platforms with really good API's at the time. I joined Plain to help build the early version of the support application used by agents to resolve customer issues. I also worked on a very early version of the Design System for Plain.

plain.com

Senior Product Designer at LloydsDirect (formerly Echo)

LloydsDirect is a service that allows NHS patients to get their presciptions delivered to their home without having to go to a physical pharmacy. Initially I worked on warehouse tooling for delivering medicine, but moved to the Patient team to improve the web and mobile apps for patients. We had a huge number of new patients in 2020, so this was a big priority for the business at the time. The goal was to reduce anxiety and streamline the experience. We did this by being more transparent about the process in app, and building a tailored customer service tool to allow our agents to work more efficiently during this period of rapid growth.

lloydsdirect.co.uk

Product Designer at Deliveroo

Deliveroo delivers the food you love, straight to your door. I was part of the Restaurants team building apps and tools to make their experience better on the platform. I worked on products like the app used to accept and manage orders in the restaurant, alongside analytics dashboards and menu management tools. This also meant I worked closely with the Design Infrastructure team to build and maintain the React component library for all internal tools at Deliveroo.

deliveroo.co.uk

Freelance Product Designer at MutualArt

MutualArt aims to connect collectors of art with private sellers while also providing in depth art market analysis. I came on to help to polish the site after an external agency redesign, and introduce some new features like auction analytics and a new artist detail page. I also worked on designs for an exhibition finding app on iOS.

Product Designer at Lyst

Lyst is a global fashion aggregator, where you can shop over 9 million items in one place. I worked on the web experience where our goal was to make the sheer number of products more discoverable without being overwhelming. This was also the first role where I was able to put some of my software engineering knowledge to use, and I contributed new frontend features on the website, and built internal tools and dashboards for the marketing and sales teams.

lyst.com

Product Designer at RetailMeNot

I worked for the UK branch of the money saving website, RetailMeNot. This was my first full-time design role where I helped design the in-store coupon experience which was both print and mobile. I also worked on various parts of the website, designing seasonal campaigns and marketing collateral.

Freelance Photographer & Designer

I co-founded a small photography, design, and software agency. I worked with BMX magazines and brands on the photography side, and with local businesses on the design and software side.