Nick Mikulin

I combine design thinking with technical awareness and product management experience to design, prototype, and ship user interfaces.

I co-founded and designed MODUL, a presentation tool for busy people, and created a minimalist self-reflection app smthmind.

I simplify product experiences as Staff Designer at Manychat and teach product design ↗ at Harbour.Space University in Barcelona.

Nick Mikulin

MODUL

For years I watched developers, teachers, students, and seniors struggle with presentation tools that are overly complex and clunky. I wanted to make slide building easy and playful for people who need to present but don't have time to fight the software. Together with a technical co-founder, I built the product from scratch — covering user research, design, and UI development with React. Try for free at modul.page ↗

MODUL Screenshot 1
MODUL Screenshot 0

smthmind.com

Challenged myself to code solo and ship a working product over a weekend. Built a clean, minimalist web app for quick reflections using IndexedDB for local-only data storage. Achieved 5th Product of the Day ↗ on Product Hunt and open sourced ↗ it. In 2025 with the help of Claude Code I converted it into a minimalist iOS application and published it on the App Store. Try the Web App ↗ or download the iOS App ↗

smthmind hero
smthmind iOS screens
smthmind web app

Manychat

As a Staff Designer I'm not attached to any specific team, so I lead product-wide initiatives around navigation, accessibility, UX patterns, and information architecture. I build live prototypes to support product vision, test ideas with users, and set the visual direction. I help our designers to tackle legacy UI debt with historical context and review their designs to maintain quality and craft.

Building vision prototypes with Codex / Claude like this one ↗
Manychat Design Setting visual direction
Designed conversational builder for visual flows
Manychat Color Fix Fixed UI colors for accessibility
Page Anatomy Redefined page anatomy for product-wide consistency

Experience

2022 – TODAY
Senior → Staff Product Designer @ Manychat

In addition to design work shown above, I'm heavily involved in hiring — I've interviewed over 90 product designers and design managers, and helped hire and onboard 15 new design team members. I also coach designers on improving their day-to-day operations and presentation skills.

2021 – 2022
Product Designer → Design Team Leader @ Ozon

Redesigned Ozon Advertising Platform for Sellers and later led the team of two designers in Russia's second biggest online-marketplace. Set up a design system to balance delivery speed and quality of the experience.

2020 – 2021
Lead Presentation Designer @ Gazprombank

Led presentation design for IT department of a top-5 Russian bank, from building slides and animated prototypes to helping with keynote delivery.

2019 – 2020
Freelance Designer

Used my presentations experience to design slides and coach keynote delivery for major Russian tech companies like Yandex, Ozon, Lamoda, and several startups. Did my first full UX design project for my friend: an audio guide for walking around Saint Petersburg that is still live at golosa.app ↗

2018 – 2019
Account Manager @ Huawei Russia

Managed smartphone sales, product marketing, and supply for federal retail channels. Learned a lot about hardware and retail, but realized that my interest is back in software and design.

2017 – 2018
Business Development Manager @ Redmadrobot

Did pre-sale analytics and product management at Russia's biggest mobile app development studio. Learned a lot about design. Loved designing presentations so much that later switched to doing them full-time.

Education

2013 – 2017
B.A. Computational Linguistics @ HSE Moscow

Instead of learning to speak a specific language, studied how all languages work as systems. Also learned Python coding and data analysis.

2016
Product Management Student @ Yandex School of Managers

Learned best practices of product management and user research from Yandex employees. Teamed up with a designer and developer interns to build a working app in 6 weeks: an easy-to-use Android launcher with accessible mini-apps for seniors.

[email protected] ↗ Connect on LinkedIn ↗ Check out GitHub ↗
Nick Mikulin
Barcelona, 2026