Who is Devin Pickering?

A design and AI leader with about eighteen years across startups and the Fortune 500. He leads design teams to solve hard problems and deliver products that work, and he builds the tools his teams run on.

Is Devin available to hire?

Yes. He is open to Director and Head of Design roles, and he takes on fractional design leadership and consulting through his studio, Surf Studios.

What makes Devin different from other design leaders?

He leads design teams and drives AI adoption at a senior level, a rare combination, and he builds the tools his teams run on.

An AI-native company Devin founded, where AI agents write and illustrate personalized hardcover children’s books while humans supervise. It is live and delivering.

Where is Devin based?

Austin, Texas, and he works with teams anywhere.

How do I get in touch with Devin?

Send Devin a note from the contact page at devinpickering.com/contact/, which also has a button to copy his email address.

About

Hi, I’m Devin.

I lead design teams to solve hard problems, create clarity, and ship products that work. I also build the AI tools my teams run on. Eighteen years across startups and the Fortune 500, seven of them managing design teams. I don’t bulldoze. I align, then raise the bar.

What I can do for you.

Lead your design org: Build, coach, and keep strong teams. Clear vision, candid critique, and designers who grow into leads.
Make it AI-first: I took the design org at a multi-billion-dollar company AI-first, from novelty to the default way we work, and I build the tools my team runs on: design systems with the front-end built in, and product data that AI tools can use. I run an AI-native company too.
Raise the craft bar: Org-wide design systems, evidence over opinion, and taste. Communicate, don’t decorate.

Selected work

Story Genie: I founded Story Genie and run every part, design to build to growth. Parents turn their kid into the hero of a printed hardcover storybook.

Story Genie2023–Now

North America’s Largest Apparel Platform: I built the UX, UI, and research practice here, from one designer to seven, and made AI part of how the team works. An agent I built cut launch-catalog writing from weeks to under an hour.

North America’s Largest Apparel Platform2022–Now

Kinjo: I built the shared design system and directed both iOS apps with product and engineering. Kinjo is built to turn Roblox time into learning.

Kinjo2021–2022

Surf Studios · Client Work2020–Now

See all my work →

How I got here.

2008: Founded iceDive Creative Solutions. My first company: a full-service design and web studio. It grew from my freelance work into a partnership with an established studio owner that ran under my brand, hundreds of sites plus our own web and email hosting, before its 2016 acquisition by nvision solutions (opens in new tab).
2016: Mary Brown’s, Creative Manager & Senior Designer. Led design and creative for one of Canada’s fastest-growing franchises, owning every touchpoint from menus and web to signage and TV.
2017: The Mysterious Package Company. Web Director in Toronto. Rebuilt the flagship store, made weekly A/B testing a habit, and built ad landing pages that drove $30 to $50K a day in direct sales. Learned that story sells.
2018: Enverus, Creative Director. One creative voice across 10+ international brands at a multi-billion-dollar energy data-analytics company. Built a 10-person design team fast for the Drilling Info to Enverus rebrand.
2019: Supply Drop, Design Director. Made a prediction engine feel simple enough to trust, then took a stalled launch over and drove 100+ paying subscribers in its first week.
2020: Founded Surf Studios. My design and web studio. Clients include the automotive brands of Fortune 500 manufacturer ITW, like Permatex, Evercoat, and Fast Orange. I lead the design and do the building, so nothing gets lost in a handoff.
2021: Kinjo, Design Director. Shipped two iOS apps on one design system. Learned to make growth a design problem.
2022: North America’s largest apparel platform, Manager, then Sr Manager, of UX Product Design. Grew the team from one designer to seven, started its research practice, and took the org AI-first. Still leading it today.
2023: Founded Story Genie. An AI-native company where agents produce and humans direct. Live and delivering hardcovers.
2026: Opened early access to My Accomplishments. A private Microsoft 365 assistant that remembers what you got done and writes it up in your voice. Designed and built solo.
Now: One full-time role, three ventures. The apparel platform is my full-time job. On my own time I run Story Genie, lead design at the studio, and build My Accomplishments.

Accomplishments.

20+designers led and mentored, many now leads and principals

30+major product launches across B2B and B2C

300+Figma users I grew across a 6,000-person org

2×faster design and research cycle, 8–12 weeks down to 4–6, same quality

“The most talented and innovative creative director I have ever worked with. Any team would be so lucky to have Devin leading the charge.”

VP of Marketing, managed Devin directly

Off the clock.

I’ve been designing since I was a kid. I sold my first website at 13 and never really clocked out since. Design isn’t a 9 to 5 for me, it’s how I think, and the work doesn’t stop when the workday does.

I build things because I like building them, not because anyone asked, the same instinct that became Story Genie. Here are a few of them. Off the screen, it’s usually the tin whistle, some Irish music, or a trail.

I’m a designer, a builder, and a craftsman. I don’t wait to feel inspired before I commit. I get good at the work, and the passion follows. It always has. It also keeps my judgment honest: the calls I make on AI and prototyping for my team come from building this way myself, not from reviewing slides.

A browser game I built

Typing Quest: a keyboard game that draws magical creatures, set on a starfield — Typing Quest. Press a letter and a magical creature appears. Drawing, unicorns, and a glowing keyboard, all in the browser. A separate little thing I made for the fun of it.

A classic I brought back

Sheep Tag: a sheep walled in by hay-roofed barns while a wolf watches from the pines. Wall yourself in before the wolves get through. — Sheep Tag. I played the Warcraft III original in internet cafes as a kid, so I rebuilt it for the browser. Sheep wall themselves in with straw, sticks and brick, and the wolves try to break through before the clock runs out. Play the bots or send friends a room code, on a laptop or a phone. Play it → (opens in new tab) Watch the 30s trailer, sound on (opens in new tab)

Built by me, from my phone

An AI version of me.

The chat bubble in the corner is me: my real voice, my real work. For fun, you can also dress me up as one of sixteen characters and talk to that version instead. I built the whole thing myself, from my phone, with AI.

Or switch me into a character, hover a portrait and it’ll talk back.

The arcade.

Three games living inside the chat, each one I coded and built from scratch. You can beat me at all of them.

Fun fact

One of my Reddit RPAN livestreams once peaked at more than 840,000 viewers.

Delivered, end to end

storygeniebooks.com (opens in new tab) · permatex.com (opens in new tab) · fastorangeclean.com (opens in new tab) · spraynine.com (opens in new tab) · versachem.com (opens in new tab) · training.evercoat.com (opens in new tab). All designed and built by me. No cookie cutters.

Tools

I’m tool-agnostic and pick what the job needs. I design in Figma, and I’ve worked in Adobe since I was twelve: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, and Premiere. On AI, I run frontier models through Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini alongside local models through Ollama, and pick the model by what each job needs. I work in GitHub, read and write front-end code as fluently as English, and start from the problem, not the platform. I’ve shipped on Vercel, Fly, Netlify, and WP Engine, plus hundreds of production sites on WordPress and Shopify. I take the work seriously, not myself. I ask good questions, coach without ego, and still think a well-timed GIF is sometimes the best UX.

Questions people ask.

Who is Devin Pickering?: A design and AI leader with about eighteen years across startups and the Fortune 500. He leads design teams to solve hard problems and deliver products that work, and he builds the tools his teams run on.
Is Devin available to hire?: Yes. He is open to Director and Head of Design roles, and he takes on fractional design leadership and consulting through his studio, Surf Studios.
What makes Devin different from other design leaders?: He leads design teams and drives AI adoption at a senior level, a rare combination, and he builds the tools his teams run on.
What is Story Genie?: An AI-native company Devin founded, where AI agents write and illustrate personalized hardcover children’s books while humans supervise. It is live and delivering.
Where is Devin based?: Austin, Texas, and he works with teams anywhere.
How do I get in touch with Devin?: Send me a note on the contact page. There is a button there to copy my email too, if you would rather write to me directly.