Hugo H. Brito
LEAD UX/UI ENGINEER · AI PRODUCT ENGINEER — PRODUCT DESIGN & FRONT-END ENGINEERING
Summary
AI Product Engineer and UX/UI leader with 11+ years designing and building digital products end-to-end — from user research and prototyping (Figma, Adobe XD, Penpot) through production React, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS front-ends. Combines deep UX research and design-systems expertise with hands-on full-stack engineering, AI-assisted development workflows (spec-driven methodologies, AI coding agent guardrails), and cloud-native deployment (Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD). Track record shipping MVPs in under 4 months, building Storybook-documented, npm-packaged component libraries adopted org-wide, and advising founders, government, and enterprise stakeholders — translating ambiguous problems into intuitive, production-ready software with minimal handoff.
Core Competencies
AI & Product Engineering: Spec-driven AI-assisted development, AI coding agent guardrails & context design, in-app AI chatbot / LLM-powered UX, rapid prototyping & proof-of-concepts, product requirements definition
Front-End Engineering: React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, MUI (Material UI) v9, Redux Toolkit, react-grid-layout, Storybook, npm package publishing, component composition & hooks, performance optimization & memoization, responsive & motion design, design token systems
UX Research & Design: Figma, Adobe XD, Penpot (prototyping, design systems — tool-adaptable), user interviews, usability testing, journey mapping, information architecture, design systems & component libraries, WCAG 2.1 / Section 508 accessibility
Back-End & Infrastructure: Flask (application factory pattern), REST API design, Marshmallow, APScheduler, Microsoft Graph/MSAL OAuth2, GitLab CI/CD, Docker & Docker Compose, Kubernetes, Helm, Istio, FluxCD (GitOps), Azure
Methodologies: Design Thinking, Agile/Scrum, Lean UX, Human-Centered Design, Design Operations
Professional Experience
AI Product Engineer · Clarity Innovations (Government AI Consulting)
Jan 2026 – Present- Created a spec-driven, AI-assisted development methodology in one week, producing 42 prescriptive engineering specs (40,000+ lines) spanning UX, backend, security, quality, and infrastructure — establishing guardrails and shared context that let AI coding agents scaffold features consistently.
- Architected and personally delivered 87% (173 of 199 commits) of a full-stack enterprise developer portal — React 19, TypeScript, MUI, and a Flask REST API — taking it from concept to a scoped MVP shipped in under 4 months with 5+ core features.
- Shipped an in-app AI chatbot with a custom React chat UX and Flask routing/config layer, integrating conversational AI directly into the core product experience.
- Designed a full dark-theme ("command center") design system — tokens, color palettes, an 8-pt spacing scale, elevation shadows, and type scale — with component overrides and a persistent runtime theme switcher.
- Built and maintained a 70-component reusable React 19/MUI v9 component library across a 15-page application, backed by a documented 1,350-line design-system spec enforcing card patterns, motion, and responsive standards.
- Documented the full design system in Storybook and packaged it as an installable npm package — enabling other development teams to adopt it directly without hand-holding.
- Built a customizable drag-and-drop widget dashboard (react-grid-layout) with a runtime widget registry and Redux Toolkit state management.
- Engineered a Flask REST API (application factory; model-service-controller-route architecture) spanning 9 data models, 15 endpoints, and 10 services, with Marshmallow validation and centralized error handling.
- Authored a multi-stage GitLab CI/CD pipeline (lint → build → containerize → deploy) with Kaniko rootless builds, manual promotion gates, semantic-version release tagging, and automated health checks.
- Provisioned Azure infrastructure and designed a production-grade Helm chart (HPA, Istio, FluxCD GitOps, Key Vault CSI), enabling a phased Kubernetes migration.
- Enforced Section 508 / WCAG 2.1 accessibility across every screen and component by design, not as a retrofit — including the AI chatbot experience.
- Led end-to-end UX and product research — user interviews, prototyping, and iterative build/test/deploy cycles — identifying the tooling gaps that directly led to the developer portal concept.
Lead UX/UI Researcher & Designer · RAFT Tech
2022 – 2026- Integrated UX research and design into Agile/Scrum delivery, establishing workflows that reduced feature rework by 20% and mentoring designers to raise UX maturity org-wide.
- Led discovery mapping five value streams across two teams, improving operational efficiency by 30% through design-operations best practices.
- Elevated UX to a strategic function with C-suite stakeholders, embedding UX strategy in early discovery and increasing stakeholder engagement/adoption by 40%.
- Partnered with 8 cross-functional teams across 3 government organizations to deliver accessible, Section 508 / WCAG 2.1-compliant design solutions.
- Designed and launched an enterprise service desk ecosystem for 200+ developers and customers, cutting issue resolution time by 35%.
- Facilitated usability testing, UAT, and design sprints that improved task success rates by 25% and boosted user satisfaction by 30%.
UX Researcher & Designer · The Photo Bus
Mar 2015 – Sep 2022- Led end-to-end UX research and product design, identifying demographic patterns that boosted customer engagement by 25%.
- Developed personas and journey maps that drove a 30% improvement in user satisfaction; usability testing and A/B experiments increased conversion and retention by 15%.
Signal Support Specialist · U.S. Marine Corps & Texas Army National Guard
Dec 2001 – Sep 2021- Led cross-functional technical teams configuring and troubleshooting secure communication networks; applied design and systems thinking to improve system uptime and reliability by 25%.
Education & Certifications
B.F.A., Graphic Design
University of Texas at El Paso
- UX Researcher Certificate — Southern Methodist University
- UX Designer Certificate — Southern Methodist University
- Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Certificate — Southern Methodist University
- Nielsen Norman Group UX Master Certification