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Portrait of Peter Fitzsimons

About

Define. Design. Deliver.

I'm a passionate product and UX designer.

I started my design journey in graphic design, then expanded into digital media. Over the past decade, I found my focus in user experience and product design, and formalised it through further education.

Since then, I've been committed to creating user-centred, data-driven solutions that improve digital experiences.

I enjoy collaborative, cross-functional environments and working with motivated teams to build meaningful, impactful products.

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The short version.

I’m a product designer who makes complex services easier to use. I combine strategic thinking with hands-on design, helping teams find a clear direction and carry it through to the details that make a product work.

My experience spans travel, energy and public services, with work at CarTrawler, DEPT and the Irish Government. From booking journeys and design systems to AI-powered search and conversational experiences, I connect user needs with business priorities and build solutions that can grow.

Experience

  1. Lead Product Designer — Contract

    Jun 2025 – Sep 2026

    Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (DPER)

    Dublin

    Designed across strategic digital initiatives within the Irish Government, shaping public-facing services, shared platforms and the evolution of gov.ie.

    • Led UX work to bring cohesion across the Life Events programme, including working with external parties to create an easy-to-review component inventory in Figma using connected libraries.
    • Improved how people find government information and access public services by designing gov.ie's AI-assisted search and chatbot experiences, working directly with LLM specialists and developers to refine answer relevance and prepare content for AI.
    • Evaluated and helped introduce research tools including Optimal Workshop and Qualtrics to strengthen the team's research practice.
    • Played a foundational role in introducing product-management practices within the design team, helping establish clearer team structure, prioritisation and product direction.

  2. Lead Product Designer

    May 2023 – Dec 2024

    CarTrawler

    Dublin

    Senior product design practitioner working across customer-facing travel experiences, combining research, interaction design, prototyping and delivery on complex B2B2C partner products.

    • Increased interactions across the airport-transfer booking funnel by 20% by leading UX for CarTrawler's Mobility 2.0 platform. Tested the journey across four usability sessions and eight rounds of iteration before launching with more than 10 partners, including Ryanair and Emirates.
    • Established a lightweight, reusable Figma component system that sped up engineering handover and let the team iterate and scale design quickly across the new platform.
    • Took Jet2's hotel-delivery service from discovery to production in 16 weeks, designing around a constrained legacy API and an unproven customer proposition. The service remains live across 12 countries.
    • Strengthened evidence-based design across the design team through the Baymard UX audit and certification programme, increasing certification by 30% and applying recognised ecommerce practices to product decisions.
    • Mentored three product designers through design critique and a skills-assessment framework that gave each designer clear development priorities, alongside continuing to contribute directly to high-impact product work.

  3. Senior Product/UX Designer

    Nov 2018 – May 2023

    DEPT Agency

    Dublin

    Senior product and UX designer working across multidisciplinary agency and client teams, designing digital products, services and design systems across travel, energy, consumer, healthcare, utilities and enterprise organisations.

    • Led the end-to-end redesign of PrepayPower's website, covering research, information architecture, UX, UI and design-system implementation. The redesigned experience launched successfully and remains live today.
    • Contributed to Diageo's Honeycomb design system, designing reusable components while helping shift its direction towards the needs of the designers and developers using it across the organisation.
    • Delivered UI/UX work across public services, utilities, healthcare and enterprise organisations, including HSE (Health Service Executive), Irish Water, Gas Networks Ireland, Euronext, SES and Nivea.
    • Worked as an embedded product designer within CarTrawler's cross-functional product teams. An extended DEPT engagement that ultimately led to joining the business directly as Product Design Team Lead.

  4. UX Designer

    Jun 2018 – Oct 2018

    HMH

    Dublin

    Full-time UX design role on HMH's Education platform.

    • Designed UX and interaction flows for HMH's Education platform, working closely with product and engineering to shape core learning journeys.

Key skills

  • UX & Interaction Design
  • Product Design
  • User Research & Testing
  • Prototyping
  • Information Architecture
  • AI-Enabled Product Design (Claude, ChatGPT, Framer, MCP)
  • Design Systems
  • Enterprise & B2B UX
  • Usability Testing
  • Cross-functional Collaboration
  • Stakeholder Communication
  • Figma · FigJam · Optimal Workshop · Qualtrics

Education

  • Professional Diploma, Digital Product Management (with distinction)

    UCD Professional Academy

    Sep 2025

  • PG Dip in User Experience Design

    Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dún Laoghaire (IADT)

    Sep 2017 – Sep 2019

  • Bachelor's in Design and Digital Media

    Atlantic Technological University – Donegal, Letterkenny Campus

    Sep 2003 – Jun 2004

  • Bachelor's in Visual Communications (Graphic Design)

    Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands

    Sep 1999 – Jun 2002

↓ Download resume (PDF)