Dongho Koo

Product & UX architect · Design technologist · San Mateo, CA

I architect the experience, then build it.

Product and UX architect with an engineer's hands. I take ambiguous ideas to shipped products: UX architecture, design systems, interaction prototypes, and the code that makes them real. Founder of DNNR Tech with 20+ AI products live. Before that, AR design team lead at Samsung on a platform used by 20M+ people.

See the work Resume boss@mrsap.com
20+AI products shipped on iOS and Android as a founder
20M+monthly active users on the AR avatar platform I led at Samsung
10K+partner apps built on a design system I published
iFiF Design Award, 2020
2patent families, 4 publications
Samsung ElectronicsPhygtlDNNR TechUC BerkeleyUniversity of Washington

Selected work

Shipped work with real users. Every number comes from a store, an analytics report, or a launch.

All work
DNNR Tech2025–present

TJ Near & Hot

An AI discovery app for Trader Joe's shoppers that grew to 100K+ iOS installs a year on organic search alone, with a store rating rebuilt from 1.9 to 4.4 stars.

Semantic searchLLM moderationGrowth
Samsung Electronics2019–2023

Samsung AR Emoji

Led the AR design team behind Samsung's AI avatar platform, used by 20M+ people a month: a redesigned avatar, the creator pipeline and authoring tool behind it, partnerships with Disney and other IP holders, and an iF Design Award.

Design leadership3D pipelinePlatform
DNNR Tech2025–present

AutoMiles

A mileage tracker that logs every drive automatically on-device, with the best retention in my portfolio: 38% of users still active on day one, 17% on day seven.

On-deviceRetentionPermission UX
Samsung Electronics2014–2016

Tizen mobile design system

Architected the design system for Samsung's Tizen platforms across mobile, wearable, and TV: principles, component library, and interaction patterns, shipped on 10M+ devices and published publicly, enabling 10,000+ partner apps.

Design systemPlatformEmerging markets
2025–present What to EatPoint your camera at a menu in any language and a multimodal model identifies every dish and shows you what it is. Shipped to both stores with cost and failure cases designed in from day one. DNNR Tech 2025–present One person, 20+ appsThe system behind building and running 20+ live apps alone: shared modules, one analytics standard, a KPI pipeline across five data sources, and AI agents that handle QA, growth, and store operations. DNNR Tech 2024–2025 Phygtl: a GenAI social platformFounding head of design and product for a social platform that turned user-generated content into immersive 3D experiences with generative AI. Architected the UX, creator tools, onboarding, and community mechanics from zero. Phygtl, Inc. 2017–2018 Samsung PhoneCast VRSole UX designer for the Gear VR app that brought mobile apps onto a 200-inch virtual screen. Used store reviews, interviews, and usage data to decide what to build next, reaching 1M+ monthly active users. Samsung Electronics 2023–present Swing Like ProOn-device computer vision that tracks a golfer's body pose frame by frame and compares the swing with a pro's in 3D. No sensors, no uploads, free. The first app I built end to end, now in its fourth year. DNNR Tech

What I bring to a team

What I actually do on a team, not a keyword list.

  • UX architecture

    Information architecture, navigation models, interaction patterns, and the design system that keeps a product coherent as it grows.

  • Prototype to production

    Interactive prototypes that become the shipping code: Flutter, native iOS and Android integration, Firebase, Cloud Functions, Python.

  • AI interaction design

    LLM and multimodal features designed around latency, cost, and failure: prompts, structured outputs, moderation, on-device models.

  • Design systems and developer UX

    Component libraries, guidelines, and creator tooling that other teams and partners build on. 10K+ apps on one of them.

  • Evidence-driven iteration

    Retention cohorts, funnels, and store data decide what ships next. I remove more than I add.

  • Leading across disciplines

    Led design teams and worked with engineers, 3D agencies, legal, and partners such as Disney. I can read the code, so the conversation is short.

How I work

Habits from shipping alone, and from shipping with hundreds of people.

  1. 01

    The first screen earns the second

    One clear action on the first screen, no permission walls, no modals at launch. Most of my retention wins came from removing things.

  2. 02

    Prototype in the real material

    A design that can't survive the platform's constraints isn't finished. I prototype in code early so the constraint shows up before the launch date does.

  3. 03

    Ship, measure, then decide

    Small scope, real users, quick iterations. Data from the stores and analytics outranks the roadmap I wrote before launch.

Hiring for product design, UX engineering, or product leadership?

I'm looking for a staff-level product designer, UX architect, or design technologist role, or hands-on product leadership, on a team building with AI. US permanent resident; no sponsorship needed.

Email me LinkedIn