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Hamburg, DEWorking with US and European teams

I design products end‑to‑end. From strategy and systems to shipped interfaces, I operate as a senior design partner who eliminates handoff friction and delivers business outcomes directly.

Anima app on a phone held between two handsFour phones with Norlu app screensTwo laptops with Wieldy sign up and claims screens
About
Portrait of Alex Cortes

I build products from design to engineering, working end‑to‑end, with full ownership and no handoff waiting.

17
Years in design, since 2009
1,200+
Hours mentoring on ADPList
€600M
Capital platform supported at Reneo

My work sits at the intersection of design systems, product strategy, and AI-augmented execution. That combination lets me operate across the full product lifecycle, from defining what to build to delivering prototypes that teams can act on immediately.

I started out in marketing, so brand and graphic design are part of my work too: visual identities, brand guidelines and the pieces that carry them.

What makes my approach different: I do not just design. I build living prototypes, structure component libraries from token level up, write product copy, and use AI tooling to compress weeks of cross-functional iteration into days of focused execution.

I am based in Hamburg and work primarily in English with US and European teams.

Work

Over the past decade, I have built design systems used across multiple products, led UX strategy for software companies, and designed products that directly impacted conversion, retention, and operational efficiency.

I work with international clients through Toptal and directly with companies across the US and Europe.

Operate as a full-stack design partner for US and European startups, owning product definition, UX design, and technical prototyping from brief to shipped product without handoff dependencies.

Build functional prototypes and production-ready interfaces using design systems, no-code platforms (Lovable, Webflow, Framer and others), and AI tooling, compressing what typically requires a cross-functional team into a single, fast execution loop.

Use AI at the right points of the workflow: generating and validating design decisions, accelerating frontend output, and automating data and copy tasks. That becomes speed on every client engagement, without giving up originality in the creative work.

Education
  • User Experience Post-graduate
    Universidade Anhembi Morumbi
    2021
  • Industrial and Product Design
    USP Universidade de São Paulo
    2020
  • Bachelor of Social Communication
    Universidade Paulista UNIP
    2008
Community

Companies and products I have designed for
  • Toptal
  • Reneo Group
  • Condo Group
  • Exactaworks
  • Covered
  • Wieldy
  • Norlu
  • Textmimedia
Get in touch

If you are building a product that needs a senior operator who can own design from strategy to execution, let’s talk.