Top
About me
Here you'll find a more detailed story of my past years, mostly the relevant part. If your time is limited, make sure to skip and click the TLDR button bellow
Short intro
Born in Hunedoara, Romania, I grew up in this small city and eventually followed my high school studies in the tourism field from 2011-2015 at this point I had to choose a career path and this is where life and interesting things started to happen
Corvin Castle, Hunedoara, Romania
Memories from Military School
2015
After graduating high school I had to choose my career path and since I couldn't afford university studies I enrolled in the Military School for NCO Gendarmes which was 500km away from my hometown for a 2 year period, but that was fine, I was 18 and I matured a lot dealing with the military regime
2017
- I graduated from Military School in 2017 and got assigned to work in the center of the country in Târgu-Mureș where I stood for 1.5 years and eventually moved to another city which was Timișoara and again, I stood there for 1.5 years (I guess this timeframe is really following me lol) and after this I moved back in my hometown in Hunedoara, still working as a cop.
- In 2018 I also got introduced to UI/UX as a tester for a platform called TryMyUI which eventually died and I jumped into UserTesting in 2019 until 2022, making some beer money
- In 2019 I first got introduced to Web Design by a friend of mine who was a Freelancer for some time and he quickly became my mentor and taught me everything I knew in terms of Design and helped me get my first projects in web design
Photo from Electric Castle Festival, July 2018
Working out in the gym
2020
In 2020 Covid-19 happened, we as law enforcement worked a lot, overtimes, and it was a hard time for everyone. So this year I was mainly focused on growing more as a web designer, as a person, and I also took care of my physical and mental health, hitting the gym.
2021
This year was really intense for me, it shaped me the most because I was focused on doing so many things at the same time:
I started doing my first paid web design projects and not just helping my mentor with his
me and a friend tried to land a business on Amazon with a private labeled product that we researched for, some baby blankets which didn’t turn out good in the end, but it’s fine because we didn’t lose a lot of money and we learned a lot
in September 2021 I set a goal to quit my job as a cop in 3.5 years (I quit 8 months after this)
I was still doing usability tests on UserTesting in the meantime
and all of this while I was working 40-50 hours a week as a full-time cop
My 3 kids (not the Bambi toy though)
Some random personal moments
2022
In late 2021, in December, I got burnout for a month and a half, because my amazon business didn't work out and then, out of a sudden I wanted to do more again.
And then I thought why would I be a web designer and just be focused on doing one website and that's it? I wanted more, I wanted to help companies scale and the freelance attitude it's exhausting if you depend on it, so I wanted to get hired.
There weren't a lot of jobs as a web designer and I got to a point doing websites that I just couldn't do crazy stuff just with CSS & HTML without involving code, and no, I'm still trying to stay away from code because it still terrifies me so then I heard about Figma, in January 2022.
Here is where the party began
I started reading job descriptions, I wasn't checking any of the requirements for the job postings but I kept learning, I started building mobile UIs in Figma, prototyping them and doing that consistently, listening to Product Designer podcasts, joining webinars and watching tutorials on Youtube.
HOW DID THIS TURN OUT?
Well, I still didn't get hired as a Product Designer, I had the experience of an Intern close to Junior and I couldn't quit my job as a cop for an Intern position, as my Web Designer portfolio wasn't enough, I needed projects.
FIRST OPPORTUNITY APPEARED
I found an opening on LinkedIn where an Elementor Web Designer (me) was needed, I quickly messaged the hiring manager and the next day I got the job, I was thrilled.
CURRENTLY FEBRUARY 2022
I started to understand better the project, crypto world and NFTs, the focus on getting an IDO and then I built the landing page in a week, literally. Weeks passed by, I finished the website with nearly 20 pages at that time.
SECOND OPPORTUNITY APPEARED
In a team meeting our CTO was really pleased by the feel and refresh I gave to the new website and he thought that we could use the same style on our DApp that was currently in early stages and really needed a design update because it was made only by developers
WHAT A COINCIDENCE I WAS LITERALLY LOOKING FOR THIS
I was very excited about this, was exactly what I needed, I said yes instantly and got to do the new DApp design, I managed to finish this really structured and fast, in 2-3 weeks! Everybody was happy about it!
After this, shortly we were in April and Coorest proposed an irresistible job offer where I could easily quit my job as a cop and so I did in May, after settling everything with the Police Department.
Since then I've been impacting the company's UX in all the areas we have projects on, such as the website, DApp, Metaverse Game and also a mobile game. Mostly using my design thinking whenever needed.
OCTOBER 2022
Since I've built everything at Coorest and the developers still had a lot of work to do, I wanted to explore more options and I got hired at a French Fintech Startup!
What happened since OCTOBER 2022?
I joined Qori, got briefed shortly in a week, and after that I was put up to speed and went on to fix the company's products and do the MVP for other ones (Case Study coming soon).
March 15, Qori merged with Synalcom and now we are called Sylq, yooow.
We made it to present days, yeeeww 🤙🤙
I'm very transparent, sorry if it's a bit overwhelming at first, but I like to be open to anyone who wants to know me.
Summary of events
- 2015 – Finished high school, didn’t know what to do and I chose the safest solution, becoming a cop
- 2017 – Became a cop, wandered around the country with this job and eventually moved back home
- 2018 – Got introduced to UI/UX by doing usability tests for some extra money
- 2019 – Got introduced to Web Design by a friend who became my mentor
- 2020 – Covid happened, tough times where I focused mostly on my physical/mental health
- 2021 – Pretty intense year, did a lot of projects at the same time and managed to keep it steady, until I burnt out
- 2022 – I got out of burnout, fell in love with UI/UX and Figma, and successfully transitioned into being a full-time UI/UX Designer and quit my job as a cop
- Late 2022 – Quit Coorest, joined Qori and built successfully more than 4 products from scratch and fixed the experience for others.
Truly grateful for my friend and mentor, Alex
Let's work together!