Jeff Schwerdtfeger
I live in the Santa Cruz Mountains and lead UX at HP, inside Industrial Design. My team owns the software roadmap for Poly Studio, has a hand in the hardware that runs it, and includes our human factors and ergonomics group.
Most of my work sits where hardware, software, and AI meet. In practice that usually means I write the spec, build a working prototype in Claude Code, and take it straight to our execs to get it funded. That has worked three times running so far.
Before HP, I built Poly’s UX team from almost nothing and carried it through the acquisition. Earlier I spent a few years at Apple, on Music, News, WWDC, and iMessage, and made retail experiences for Specialized. A couple of patents came out of all that, in videoconferencing and Siri.
When I’m not working, I’m usually climbing somewhere in the Sierra, building or riding trails closer to home, or out in the garage making something.
Mostly, I just like making things.
01
Experience
Director of User Experience
Nov 2022 – PresentHP
I run UX within Industrial Design, across both hardware and software. My team drives the software roadmap for Poly Studio on desktop and mobile, and has a hand in five to ten hardware launches a year. I also own human factors and ergonomics. And I brought AI prototyping into how we design, which has become the way I make the case for product concepts to HP’s exec leadership and get them funded.
UX Leadership
Apr 2017 – Nov 2022Poly (acquired by HP)
I built UX, research, and prototyping from the ground up, and scaled the team through COVID, fully remote. We designed and launched the Poly Lens platform from scratch, across macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, ChromeOS, and the cloud management layer behind them. Then I carried the team through HP’s acquisition and into the Industrial Design org.
Sr. Product Designer / Design Manager
Dec 2013 – Mar 2017Apple
I designed and prototyped experiences for Apple Music, Apple News, WWDC, and iAd, and helped build out the Apple Human Interface Guidelines site and its supporting assets with the Evangelism team. The products I worked on now reach more than 100M monthly active users. I also hold a patent for Siri integration in iMessage.
Sr. Interaction Designer
Aug 2012 – Dec 2013Plantronics
I designed software across mobile, gaming, and a few experimental products, and ran the user research that shaped where they went. Plantronics later became Poly, and this team turned into the foundation for everything I built there.
Sr. Visual + Interaction Designer
May 2011 – Aug 2012Specialized Bicycle Components
I created digital and interactive retail experiences as part of Specialized’s worldwide marketing team, and managed creative agency partnerships across global markets.
02
Education
- California State University, Channel Islands BA
- Cabrillo College AA
03
Patents
- 01 US 20160360039 · 2016
Virtual Assistant Aided Communication With 3rd Party Service
Siri integration in iMessage, letting a virtual assistant broker interactions between users and outside services without leaving the conversation.
- 02 US 20160335532 · 2015
Virtual Assistant in a Communication Session
Peer-to-peer financial transactions within a messaging session, mediated by a virtual assistant.
- 03 US 20220051541A1 · 2020
Preventing Unsafe Meeting Attendee Counts at a Videoconferencing Endpoint
Camera-based room occupancy detection that enforces capacity limits at videoconferencing endpoints automatically.
04
Skills
Practice
- Applied AI Product Design
- Product Strategy
- UX Leadership
- Prototyping
- Design Systems
Technical
- Claude Code
- SvelteKit
- React
- Electron
- Figma
- HTML / CSS / JS
05
Get in touch
Building something with hardware, software, or AI in it? Say hello.
jeff@fieldnotes.cc