HawkEye 360

Mission Space began as a simple but difficult premise: HawkEye 360 needed a software interface for its RF geolocation data. The company had a novel capability, but the user experience, product workflow, and design discipline still had to be created.

Working with the VP of Product and engineering leadership, I helped take Mission Space from early concept into a researched and prototyped product direction. I conducted user research with maritime domain awareness users, including on-site interviews, to understand existing workflows, pain points, and how RF geolocation could fit into serious analysis.

The product challenge was not just plotting dots on a map. RF geolocation data is inherently uncertain. Signals indicate presence, timing, frequency, and probability rather than absolute identity. Analysts needed ways to reason about emissions, error ellipses, spoofing indicators, time trails, and geospatial context without pretending the data was more certain than it was.

I designed the core Mission Space experience, including the map interface, timeline, iconography, shell UI, signal workflows, and analyst-facing data interactions. The goal was to create a system that respected uncertainty while still helping users form hypotheses, tell stories, and make decisions.

Before my role, HawkEye 360 did not have an established design process or design system. I led the company’s first design thinking workshops, helped define how design contributed to product and company strategy, and created methods, templates, artifacts, and review habits that gave design a durable role beyond visual polish.

I managed two designers, helped hire and mentor the team, and expanded design’s role across product, internal tooling, marketing, customer demos, and investor storytelling. Design became a way to clarify the company’s value, not just a way to make finished screens look better.

I built the initial frontend design kit in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which evolved into the company’s product design system. As the product became more real, I learned and worked hands-on across React, Redux, TypeScript, GraphQL, SCSS, Deck.gl, and Luma.gl.

One of the technical moments I am proud of was improving map interaction performance from roughly 10-15 FPS to 60 FPS. The solution came from a UX realization: while the user was panning or zooming, the system did not need to recalculate every visual layer on every frame. Deferring expensive recalculation until movement stopped made the experience feel dramatically more usable.

Mission Space also influenced related product work, including an ArcGIS plugin that brought a Mission Space-like experience into tools analysts already used. That helped customers access HawkEye 360 data through familiar workflows while retaining the visual language and organization of the product.

The work also became important to demos, sales enablement, investor storytelling, and internal confidence. Mission Space helped turn a complex data capability into a scenario people could understand quickly, which made the value of the data easier to communicate.

HawkEye 360 proved that product design can help create a category. The company did not simply need screens; it needed a way to show what RF geolocation data meant, how analysts could use it, and why it was valuable.

The richness of the company’s design culture started there. Mission Space became a foundation for product experience, design systems, demos, investor materials, and a broader understanding of what design could contribute inside a technical company.