Iryna Baranova – Product & UX Designer, Berlin. Eight years. Fine art eye. Embarrassingly high standards.

You don't have a design problem. You have a product that's one bad onboarding flow away from losing the people it took six months to acquire. Templates, offshore teams, the AI tool everyone's "using" now — still not right.

I work with founders and small teams who've run out of patience for almost. The ones who want it figured out properly — the UX, the UI, the logic underneath both — and done in a way that holds when the product grows. I come in, look at what's there, and find what's actually wrong. Not what looks wrong. What is wrong. Then I fix that — and make sure the next feature doesn't break it. Based in Berlin. Working across medtech, SaaS, and early-stage products.

Chasing light and better flows. Berlin, Feb 2026

Fig. 1

Web Design Marketing Design Academia MedTech Startups

ScienceBank

Product Design AI Integration MedTech Startups

Banting AI

Product Design Data Visualization MedTech Enterprise

St. Jude Cloud

Work highlights – what I'm cleared to show

2018–2026

Fig. 2

What I can help with

UX, UI, brand — I follow the problem

End-to-end product & visual design

Design systems that survive the next hire

Interaction design & wireframing

UareUX

Creative Director, Co-founder

Jan 2026 – Present

Co-founded with Tanya Donska. A two-person UX/UI studio – no account managers, no juniors, no one passing your brief down the chain. You get us. That's the point.

Toptal

Senior Product & Visual Designer

Contract Nov 2018 – Present 7 yrs 6 mos

Senior product and visual designer, embedded in client teams. Deeply focused on Medtech. I come in, integrate fast, and get on with it. No hand-holding required. Eight years in the network. The projects are large, the domains are specialized, and the bar is high. That's exactly how I like it.

Senior Visual Designer & Head of UI/UX Team

Full-time Oct 2019 – Aug 2025 5 yrs 11 mos

Led a team of 7 designers. Built the process from scratch: how work came in, how it got done, how it went out. Medtech, AI, SaaS – the kind of clients where getting it wrong is expensive. Five years heading the team. The work got better every year. So did the people.

Senior UI & Visual Designer

Full-time Sep 2017 – Sep 2019 2 yrs 1 mo

Two years as the senior designer on everything: websites, branding, product, campaigns. In practice, more creative director than designer. The kind of role where the brief arrives and you figure out the rest.

UI & Visual Designer, Illustrator

Full-time Dec 2016 – Sep 2017 10 mos

Brand identity, illustration, and web design for digital clients. The full range of visual craft, from concept to final asset, across multiple industries and formats.

uareux.com [email protected]

If you're really curious

What does hiring you as a product design consultant actually look like?

You get a senior designer who comes in, understands the product, and tells you what's wrong before suggesting what to change. No brief-passing, no account managers. Depending on the scope – audit, product build, design system – we agree on the shape of the engagement before anything gets signed.

How long does a typical project take?

An audit is usually two to three weeks. A full product design engagement runs longer – typically three to six months depending on complexity. I don't rush work that needs to hold up at scale.

How quickly can you start?

Usually within two weeks. If it's urgent, get in touch and we'll figure it out.

How do you handle handoff to developers?

Properly. Annotated specs, component documentation, and I stay available during the build phase. The design shouldn't fall apart the moment it leaves Figma.

Do you do backend development as well?

No – I'm a designer, not a developer. I work closely with engineering teams and design to be built, but the backend is yours to handle.

Are you available as a freelance UX designer in Berlin?

I'm based in Berlin, yes – but I work entirely remotely. Clients are across Europe and the US. If you're in Berlin and want to meet in person, that's also possible.

Do you work with clients outside of Germany?

Most of my clients are outside Germany. Remote works well when the communication is good and the brief is clear – both of which I make sure of early.

Do you work with early-stage startups as a product designer?

Yes – if the problem is real and the founders are serious. Budget matters less than whether there's something worth building properly.

Do you work with larger companies or just small teams?

Both. Through Toptal I've been embedded in large medtech organisations for years. At UareUX it's mostly founders and small product teams. The problems are different. The standard isn't.

I'm a non-technical founder. Is that a problem?

No – it's often easier. You're focused on the problem, not the implementation. That's where good design starts anyway.

Do you work with SaaS products?

Yes. SaaS products are a large part of what I do – onboarding flows, dashboard design, complex UI logic, design systems built to scale. If the product is genuinely complicated, it's likely a good fit.

What does a UX audit involve and when does a product need one?

I go through the product end to end – flows, logic, friction points, what's breaking and why. You get a clear picture of what's actually wrong, not just what looks wrong, and a prioritised set of recommendations. Most clients find something they weren't expecting. If your product is losing users somewhere and you don't know exactly where, you need one.

What's your experience as a medtech UX designer?

Most of my deep product work is in medtech – clinical interfaces, complex data systems, high-stakes UX where getting it wrong has real consequences. Eight years working in the space through Toptal, including long-term embedded work with St. Jude Medical. It's the domain I know best and where I do my most serious work.

Can you build a design system from scratch?

Yes – and it's one of the highest-leverage things a growing product can invest in early. A system built properly means the next feature doesn't break what came before it. That's most of what I'm trying to achieve anyway.

Do you do brand and visual design or just product UX?

Both – and I'd argue you can't do one properly without understanding the other. Brand shapes how a product is trusted before anyone clicks anything. I follow the problem, not the discipline.

Do you work on a retainer or project basis?

Either – depending on what makes sense. Audits and one-off projects are fixed scope. Ongoing product work or embedded design support tends to work better on a retainer. We figure out what fits before anything gets signed.

How do you charge?

Project rate or day rate, depending on the engagement. I don't publish fixed prices because the scope always varies. Get in touch with a brief outline of what you need and I'll come back with something specific.

What tools do you work in?

Figma for design and prototyping. That's where the work lives. Everything else – docs, specs, communication – adapts to what the team already uses.

Efficiency over ego. Logic over templates. Structural integrity that complex products demand.

Long story short,

or, the TL;DR

Annex 1

Iryna Baranova is a Berlin-based Senior Product Designer and design consultant
originally from Ukraine who brings over eight years of experience in
bridging the gap between classical artistic intuition and rigorous
technical logic. She is currently recognized as a top-tier global
consultant through Toptal and serves as the co-founder of UareUX, a
specialized product consulting studio focused on high-stakes
architectural strategy and user experience auditing. Her professional
foundation was built over a seven-year tenure at Ester Digital where she
rose to the position of Team Lead, managing cross-functional teams and
setting international design standards. Currently, she leads design
initiatives for high-complexity medical technology projects,
specifically for St. Jude Medical, where she specializes in
transforming intricate data systems into intuitive, high-performance
interfaces. What distinguishes her methodology is a unique hybrid
workflow that integrates advanced artificial intelligence tools like
Claude into the prototyping phase, allowing her to build functional
code-based models that bridge the divide between static design and
engineering reality.

This technical proficiency is deeply rooted in her background from the
Academy of Arts, ensuring that her digital solutions maintain a high
level of aesthetic integrity and compositional mastery. Beyond her
digital consulting work, she maintains an active fine arts practice in
her personal Berlin studio, which allows her to approach digital
branding and product strategy with a fresh, experimental perspective
that resists the homogenization of standard industry trends. By
combining the precision of a product architect with the vision of a
fine artist, she focuses on solving complex business problems while
building sustainable systems that allow for both professional excellence
and creative freedom. Her digital presence spans across LinkedIn for
strategic insights, her portfolio at UareUX for deep-dive case studies
in system architecture, and her curated artistic presence which
highlights her studio work and analog painting. This comprehensive
profile defines her as a senior leader in the design space, capable of
navigating both the abstract challenges of creative production and the
functional requirements of high-load technical interface systems.