About me

I’m a Staff` Product Designer in San Francisco. I care about helping our most vulnerable populations and driving social change.

Currently, I work at Checkr where I’m devoted to removing biases from the hiring process and expanding access to jobs for people with criminal records. I lead design strategy for our Enterprise products, shaping how Fortune 500 companies approach fair chance hiring.

What I care about

Designing with empathy. Developing emotional connections with people with the underlying drive to make things better.
Being mission driven. Feeling accountable towards how I’m impacting direct customers and the greater world.
Solving what’s most impactful. Thinking beyond what’s quantifiable to solve the problems that will have a lasting impact.

Champion of in-person discovery

My favorite part of design is spending time with the people who use our products every day. Nothing beats in-person conversations for understanding real needs, challenges, and opportunities.

Design influence

Presenting on design for social impact in front of an audience of 2000

Organized a 2025 SFDW criminal justice reform panel with Recidiviz, Designing for Justice and Spaces, and ideas42

Testimonials

Melanie is one of the most engaging, energetic and positive people I’ve had the pleasure to work with. Her real strength and success is founded on her passion for understanding and then serving customers, both internal and external. Her natural ability to listen thoughtfully, and then recognize and distill insights into fresh, meaningful, real-world value, means that she can easily carry a wide range responsibilities. Melanie is an incredible self-starter and has exactly the right mix of moxy and humility you want in any team member. I look forward to the day when we can work together again. - Michele Don Durbin, Senior VP of Marketing @ Evernote

Melanie is a natural leader with excellent relationship-building skills and huge potential. She helped GoodHire during a critical time of rapid growth and market discovery. Melanie is also quite thoughtful and wise beyond her years. Definitely recommend. - Matthew Monahan, Co-founder and CEO @ Inflection

Testimonials

Recent art