Principal product designer in Seattle
My career has taken me from MAYA Design to Gates Foundation to Ancestry, with formative stops at startups and innovation labs in Seattle and Kampala, Uganda. I've always been drawn to designing products and services that improve people's lives. I love volunteering as a mentor and advisor to emerging designers.
I get positive feedback for being a bar-raiser with a bias for action who optimizes for collaboration. I'm an adaptable, confident design leader who values trust, radical candor, and continuous learning. I thrive in collaborative, inclusive environments. In my free time, you can find me swimming, exploring tide pools, and growing food.
👀 View my resumé
👋 Let's connect on Linkedin
✍️ Reach me via ckleid@gmail.com
360° Feedback from colleagues
Cara possesses a rare combination of deep product design expertise and a razor-sharp product mindset. She does not just design interfaces; she actively shapes the product strategy. She approaches every problem by asking how it drives customer value, ensuring our technical execution is perfectly aligned with user needs.
Cara has been an immense source of inspiration to our team. She consistently brings novel, forward-thinking ideas to the table. Her ability to transform complex capabilities into intuitive, high-impact experiences has been instrumental to our success.
– Principal Product Manager, Oracle
Through Cara’s mentorship, I’ve learned valuable techniques for stakeholder management that I’ve already applied and gotten value from, as well as ways to improve storytelling and communication. She has also shared books, resources, and perspectives that have genuinely impacted my career and growth. In the occasions where I’ve had the opportunity to work more closely with her, I’ve also learned a great deal about design, research, synthesis, and navigating complex workstreams thoughtfully.
– Principal Product Designer, Oracle
One of Cara’s greatest strengths is her ability to create scalable frameworks, references, and strategic foundations that extend beyond individual projects. The work she contributes often establishes reusable design patterns and approaches that can positively influence similar initiatives across teams.
She also has an exceptional ability to build meaningful cross-functional relationships and foster strong collaboration across and beyond our product space. Her networking and partnership-building skills are something many of us can learn from, as they help foster stronger alignment, communication, and innovation between teams.
– Senior Product Designer, Oracle
Cara's leadership on our design team is nothing short of exemplary. With an infectious passion for her craft, she infuses every project with a user-centric approach that well rooted in best practices. Her strategic acumen is evident in the meticulous planning and execution of her design initiatives, consistently driving impactful outcomes.
What truly sets Cara apart is her unwavering dedication to the success of her teammates. Whether mentoring more junior designers or collaborating with peers, she fosters an environment of growth and camaraderie.
– Director of Product Design, Ancestry
"Cara is just a gem. Can't say enough good things about her. She is so thoughtful about her work and looking at requirements and solutions from various angles and coming up with innovative solutions that work for our users."
– Principal Product Manager, Ancestry
Cara uses smart questions, new-to-us approaches, and a bias for action to solve some of our hardest design problems. As importantly, the way that she works is a bar-raising model for others.
– Director of Product Design & Research, 98point6
“Cara has a confidence that doesn’t require her to dominate a room in order to influence. She also has a warmth and understanding that disarms and immediately creates a safe space of collaboration, while unapologetically offering up her expertise and recommendations.”
– Head of Product, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
”Cara has done a really great job in building process within her product design team. This standardization has added clarity in how/when to engage design and what to expect, which is crucial as we continue to move at a fast pace to deliver our goals. Cara balances this empathy/warmth with high expectations to ensure her team is delivering high-quality work. Her initiative in pushing her team to continually improve is encouraging and allows me to lead my team with confidence, knowing she’s doing the same thing on her end.”
– Head of Product, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
“Cara has strong interpersonal skills in how she leads her team and how she engages with leads from other workstreams (i.e., Engineering and PMs). Cara has such an empathic and observant personality that leads to her championing her team and catering how she leads based on each individual’s needs.”
– Head of Product, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Cara’s collaboration and communication style are fantastic, and she's an absolute joy to work with... but when it comes to making our product better for our customers, Cara has a unique and incredible ability to lead with both her heart and her brain. We're so lucky to have her, and our users are too!
– Principal Content Strategist, Ancestry
"In one word, Cara is masterful. She’s masterful at being planful and organized, at leading a complex effort with multiple stakeholders, at deeply listening to everyone from peers to stakeholders, and obviously as a product designer. She has this incredible gift of using tangible design methods and proven practices while implementing them with a deeply intuitive and empathic sense that can only come from years of experience."
– Senior Product Manager, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
"Happiness, humor, and cheerful attitude — Cara has a can-do attitude, and it is infectious. Her work ethic is inspirational."
– Director of Product Design, Varsity Tutors, a Nerdy Company
"Cara constantly surprises me with innovative ways of looking at problems, cuts to the bone of issues from customer viewpoint."
– Sr. Manager Engineering, Varsity Tutors, a Nerdy company
"Cara puts the customer first and very thoughtful about a simple and efficient design that is informed by engineering...she doesn't overcomplicate, is highly collaborative with product and engineering, and her work reflects the team's efforts. She will hold her ground if the team is headed down a path she knows is not going to be a good pattern. I find her to be an industry expert and highly relevant."
– Senior Product Manager, Varsity Tutors, a Nerdy company
Cara has done a great job leading through ambiguity to support our work. The overview videos and walkthroughs she puts together help align the cross-functional team and she is exceptionally collaborative in problem solving. Thank you for all you are doing, Cara!
– Director of Product Management, 98point6