ISAAC WOOTEN

IsaacWooten

Design leader at Google.
Founder of four companies.
Engineer who still ships.Sr. Staff UX Design Manager for BigQuery and Google Cloud’s AI data tools. Founder at Digital Pool, HangarX and Northlit.

See the work View résumé
About

Twenty-seven years building products and companies from zero. Twelve of them at Google, where I lead design for AI-native data tools.Design leader, founder and engineer, which in practice is one job. I’ve never been able to direct work I couldn’t build, and I’ve never built anything worth shipping alone.

Isaac Wooten outside Google’s Bay View campus
Now Sr. Staff UX Design Manager, GoogleGrew the team from 5 to 11. Leads design across a multi-thousand-person org. BigQuery is a top-3 revenue product in Google Cloud. Building NorthlitHangarX’s AI design suite. This site was designed with it.
Companies founded4
Designers led at peak11
Org I lead design in1,000s

Selected work

  1. Google Cloud Google Leading design for BigQuery, Agentic BigQuery and the Data Agent Kit. A team grown from five to eleven inside a multi-thousand-person org.
  2. Co-Founder & CTO HangarX An applied-AI venture lab. Four products on one shared stack: Northlit, Apex, the Obsidian plugin and Academy.
  3. HangarX Northlit The AI design suite. Explore directions, pick one, build it. This site was designed with it.
  4. Founder & CEO Digital Pool The scoreboard for competitive pool. 105,450 tournaments, native apps, custom hardware and live broadcast.
  5. Co-Founder & CDO LunarCrush Social and market intelligence for crypto. Brand, product and the first Galaxy Score™, built from zero.

Archive

Forty-four earlier projects, 2004 to 2013.

44 projects · 454 images

Sites, apps and identities from the agency years.

Browse the archive

How I lead

Player-coach. Close enough to ship, far enough back to set direction.

5 → 11

Grow the team

Grew Google’s Data Analytics UX team from five to eleven. I hire, mentor and own performance, and I measure myself on one thing: people leave more senior than they arrived.

Thousands

Lead across the org

Design lead across a multi-thousand-person org of UX, product, engineering, marketing and sales. Almost none of it reports to me, so the work lands by making the case. BigQuery is a top-3 revenue product in Google Cloud.

4 × 0 → 1

Run the company

Four so far. Levid Media, which I ran for fifteen years. LunarCrush, still growing under its co-founders. Digital Pool and HangarX today. Digital Pool runs thousands of tournaments a month on a team of seven.

Ship

Stay technical

I read the code and the Figma, and I still build: this site, Northlit’s front end and MCP server, Digital Pool’s stack. It means I know what a thing costs before I ask for it, and engineering can tell.

How I work, in detail

Experience

1999 to now. One agency, three companies and twelve years at Google.

  1. 2024Now Co-Founder & CTOHangarX One stack behind Northlit, Apex and Academy.
  2. 2020Now Founder & CEODigital Pool Zero to 105,450 tournaments. Team of seven, ~19M ad impressions a year.
  3. 20172022 Co-Founder & Chief Design OfficerLunarCrush Brand, product and a team of two. Still growing with its co-founders.
  4. 2014Now Sr. Staff UX Design ManagerGoogle Cloud · BigQuery and AI data tools Senior designer to Staff lead to manager. Team of 5 to 11, an org in the thousands.
  5. 20052014 Design and engineering rolesNintendo · RED Digital Cinema · Gaikai · AKTA · Kaleo · Column Five · Metagenics Gaikai acquired by Sony. AKTA acquired by Salesforce.
  6. 19992014 Founder & CEOLevid Media · design agency Fifteen years. Nintendo, RED, Coca-Cola, Gaikai.
Full résumé

Writing

Notes on designing when software acts for you.

Essay · AI · Agents · 2026

Designing for
the Agentic Era.

When software acts on intent instead of waiting for clicks, design moves from the screen to the loop, from polish to legibility, from control to trust.

Read the essay
  1. 02Building a New Kind of Design ToolEssay · Northlit · Tools for makingSoon

Contact

Let’s build
what’s next.

Always interested in the hard version of this problem: designing systems that act on someone’s behalf. If that’s what you’re building, say hello.

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