1998 — 2005
Endemol
UX & Engineering Lead. Multilingual content systems and large-scale web platforms across an international entertainment portfolio. Where the technical depth that still informs current judgment got built.
entertainmentSIGNAL // 01PORTLAND, OR
MARCO VAN HYLCKAMA VLIEG.
Product Designer / AI-Native Builder
Twenty years at the seam where intent becomes interface — designing, engineering and shipping AI-native products end to end.
CH 01Manifesto
A position before the work begins.
Why this practice. Why this way. Read once, then go look at what got built.
“
AI didn't shrink the design problem. It made the problem about judgment, not output.
I design products at the seam where intent becomes interface — where a half-formed idea has to choose what kind of system it wants to become. The interesting decisions live there: pacing, posture, what shows up first, what stays hidden, what the model is allowed to assume.
The work is choosing what to build and how it should behave in someone's actual life — then shipping it before the moment passes.
I'm strongest where strategy, design, interaction behavior and the realities of implementation collide. I write the prototype, ship the build, and stay around for the part where it has to be good for real users. The portfolio is the proof.
— M. van Hylckama Vlieg · Portland, OR
CH 02The Record
Six chapters. All the right rooms.
Twenty years across consumer scale, enterprise complexity and quiet labs where the right call wasn't obvious.
2005 — 2013
Yahoo!
Director of UX Prototyping & Senior UX Manager. Led global prototyping teams across offices and product lines. Shaped rebrand and personalization work, built scalable design processes, mentored senior designers and prototypers.
consumer · leadership2013 — 2017
Senior UX Engineer / Prototyper. Built high-fidelity prototypes for Google Cloud AI, Google Assistant and Android. Bridged design and engineering with prototypes that accelerated research, alignment and decisions.
ai · cloud2017 — 2021
Walmart Labs
Principal Product Designer / Design Technologist. Mobile, voice and personalization during Walmart's digital transformation. Translated complex recommendation systems into interfaces that didn't require explanation.
retail · ml2021 — now
Kohl's
Senior Product Designer & Generative AI Specialist. Led UX across cart, checkout, wallet, account and in-store self-checkout. Drove AI tooling, prompt libraries and education across the design org.
e-comm · aialways
AI-Created
Independent product lab. The place where ideas get tested in public. Shipped AI tools, design utilities, music, video and arcade games — all real software, all built end to end. Proof that the practice is current.
lab · soloCH 03Capabilities
Six modes of work. They overlap.
Most interesting projects use four of these at once. The titles vary by company; the practice doesn't.
01
AI-native product design
Designing systems where the model is the interaction, not a chat panel bolted onto a SaaS shell. Voice, agents, ambient assistance, model-aware interfaces.
Voice UXAgent UIPrompt systems
02
Design engineering
Production-quality prototypes that behave like real software because they are real software. Built end to end by one person, often before the team is convinced.
Next.jsTypeScriptTailwindVercel
03
0 → 1 incubation
Taking an ambiguous brief through research, framing, design, prototype and shipped product. Comfortable carrying the weight when there isn't a roadmap yet.
StrategyResearchPrototype
04
Enterprise UX modernization
Untangling legacy workflows in cart, checkout, account and internal tooling — and replacing them with systems people actually want to use. Years of this, at scale.
E-commerceInternal toolsA11y
05
Internal AI tooling
Custom copilots, prompt libraries, synthetic research environments and workflow accelerators built for design and product orgs. Used by real teams.
LLM pipelinesWorkflowsEnablement
06
Leadership & enablement
Built and led prototyping teams at Yahoo. Now drive AI adoption inside a design org through teaching, tooling and example. Comfortable as IC, lead or director.
MentorshipAI educationHiring
CH 04The Lab
Eighteen artifacts that actually exist.
Independent products shipped through AI-Created. Real software, end to end — the proof that the practice is current.
A-01AI · LIVE
My AI Diary
Voice-first journaling that turns raw speech into a written entry that still sounds like you. Whisper transcription, semantic search, weekly AI summaries, zero-knowledge encryption.
Next.js · OpenAI · Whisper · IndexedDB · Web Crypto
↗
A-02AI · LIVE
Human, Actually
Tailor your resume to the job — without sounding like a robot wrote it.
LLM · NLP · UX
↗
A-03AI · LIVE
WatchGPT
Realtime ChatGPT voice, on your wrist.
watchOS · Realtime API
↗
A-04AI · LIVE
AI Usage
Claude Code + Codex usage on your Mac desktop. A menubar utility for devs.
macOS · Swift · menubar
↗
A-05AI · LIVE
Calorie Counter
The most frictionless food intake logger ever built. Speak, photograph, done.
Vision · LLM · PWA
↗
A-06GAME · LIVE
Vectronix
Hardcore arcade space combat. No mercy, no filler — built as proof of interaction design depth and systems thinking.
Canvas · Web Audio · Vector
↗
A-07GAME · LIVE
Radial Drift
One finger. One mistake ends the run. A minimal arcade study in tension and feedback loops.
WebGL · Touch · Haptics
↗
A-08EXPERIMENT · LIVE
Audio Visualizer Suite
Captivating video visualizations of your music. Render-quality output, hand-tuned aesthetics.
WebGL · FFT · FFmpeg
↗
A-09EXPERIMENT · LIVE
Color Clock
A 1991 clock design, brought to life. A small love letter to vintage interaction craft.
CSS · Type
↗
A-10EXPERIMENT · LIVE
Jumbotron Simulator
See your name in lights at a major sporting event. Pixel-faithful arena LED simulation.
Canvas · WebGL
↗
CH 05Telemetry
By the numbers.
Numbers don't lie. They also don't tell the whole story. Here are a few honest ones.
0+ yrs
in the practice
0cos
Google · Yahoo · Walmart · Kohl's · Endemol
0shipped
independent products & experiments
0lang.
Dutch · English · German · Spanish
CH 06Method
How the work actually moves.
No process slides. No frameworks for sale. The four moves that show up in every project that ships.
CH 07Live Status
What I'm actually doing this week.
A live page. Updated by hand, because that's how you can tell it's real.
Currently
Leading UX & AI enablement at Kohl's.
Senior product designer / generative AI specialistShipping new artifacts through AI-Created most weeks.
Independent product lab · soloOpen to senior IC, lead and director conversations.
Product design · design engineering · AISpeaking at Imagine AI Live as a founding contributor.
Founding member · speaker
Tools in the rotation
- Figma · Figma Make · LovableDesign surface · prototyping
- Next.js · TypeScript · Tailwind · VercelProduction stack
- ChatGPT · Claude · Gemini · CodexModel fleet for product work
- Midjourney · Runway · ElevenLabs · SunoMedia generation
CH 08Contact
Open a channel.
The fastest path is a direct line. Tell me what you're building, what's ambiguous about it, and the timeline you're on.