Dave Panizales

Dave Panizales

Dave Panizales

Senior Product Designer

8+ years building platforms, workflows, and customer experiences, 12+ years in design.

About

I’m a Senior Product Designer with eight years of experience designing customer experiences, B2B platforms, and internal tools. I enjoy work that has a little more going on under the surface: complex workflows, changing data, multiple user needs, and systems that have to hold together in the real world.

I work closely with product managers and engineers to understand the problem before jumping to screens. My goal is straightforward: make the product clear, useful, and practical for the people who rely on it.

Off the clock: Chicago-native 🌭, girl dad 👨🏽‍🍼, home cook 🍳, guitar noodler 🎸, long-suffering Bears, Bulls, and White Sox fan 🐻🐂⚾

Portfolio

Transforming digital leads into dealer intelligence

Transforming digital leads into dealer intelligence

Bringing rich behavioral data directly into the user's daily workflow without login friction

Cars.com

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Internal Tools, Dashboards, Analytics

End-to-End Product Design, UX/UI

Internal Tools, Dashboards, Analytics

Designing both sides of the online car deal

Designing both sides of the online car deal

Designing confidence into online car buying and giving car dealers the context to close

Dealer Inspire

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UX/UI Design, Two-Sided Marketplace UX

Work History

Cars.com

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Senior Product Designer I

Aug 2023

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Apr 2026

Designed Shopper Details, a dealer operations workspace that brought inventory, merchandising, and lead analytics into one daily decision surface. The experience drew roughly 30,000 monthly views and was used monthly by two-thirds of dealerships on the network; it was later adapted for the dealer mobile app.

Modernized Admin Dash, an internal support and configuration product, by migrating legacy UI to the Fuse design system and designing data-quality flags that helped support teams identify and resolve problematic inventory before it affected customers.

Partnered with product, engineering, support, and operational stakeholders to translate workflow needs, data constraints, and legacy-system behavior into clear, shippable product experiences.

Cars.com

Senior Product Designer I

Aug 2023

-

Apr 2026

Designed Shopper Details, a dealer operations workspace that brought inventory, merchandising, and lead analytics into one daily decision surface. The experience drew roughly 30,000 monthly views and was used monthly by two-thirds of dealerships on the network; it was later adapted for the dealer mobile app.

Modernized Admin Dash, an internal support and configuration product, by migrating legacy UI to the Fuse design system and designing data-quality flags that helped support teams identify and resolve problematic inventory before it affected customers.

Partnered with product, engineering, support, and operational stakeholders to translate workflow needs, data constraints, and legacy-system behavior into clear, shippable product experiences.

Dealer Inspire

/

Product Designer

Mar 2018

-

Sep 2023

Led the v2 redesign of Online Shopper, a digital retailing platform spanning the customer shopping experience and the dealer tools used to complete a sale. Designed the Garage for vehicle saving, payment comparison, and three-step checkout, alongside Automatic, the dealer deal-management portal; Dealer Inspire reported a 15% higher close rate on pre-approved leads.

Designed the customer experience for Conversations, a messaging platform combining AI chat with managed human handoff. Defined interaction patterns for automation, escalation, and clear agent identity across a 3,200+ business website platform, later extending to the Cars.com marketplace and client CRM integrations.

Designed across customer and business workflows for digital retailing and messaging products, helping preserve context from initial customer interest through dealer follow-up and transaction completion.

Dealer Inspire

Product Designer

Mar 2018

-

Sep 2023

Led the v2 redesign of Online Shopper, a digital retailing platform spanning the customer shopping experience and the dealer tools used to complete a sale. Designed the Garage for vehicle saving, payment comparison, and three-step checkout, alongside Automatic, the dealer deal-management portal; Dealer Inspire reported a 15% higher close rate on pre-approved leads.

Designed the customer experience for Conversations, a messaging platform combining AI chat with managed human handoff. Defined interaction patterns for automation, escalation, and clear agent identity across a 3,200+ business website platform, later extending to the Cars.com marketplace and client CRM integrations.

Designed across customer and business workflows for digital retailing and messaging products, helping preserve context from initial customer interest through dealer follow-up and transaction completion.

Launch Digital Marketing

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Web Design Team Lead

Sep 2014

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Mar 2018

Led end-to-end website design for hospitality, restaurant, retail, and automotive clients, including Howl at the Moon, Aurelio’s, and Rosati’s Pizza. Worked directly with clients through discovery, design, feedback, and launch; directed a junior designer on a 6–8 person team after promotion from Web Designer to Team Lead.

Dave Panizales

Senior Product Designer

Let's make something great!

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© 2026 Dave Panizales