36.1627° N, 86.7816° W
DESIGN / LEADERSHIP / CODE / MUSIC
DENNIS
CORTÉS
I currently work at Instagram on the Growth Web team, and I was most recently Head of Design at Northstar. Outside of work, I create music as Cordio & Horizon Radar, restore and mod old game consoles, and make videos.
I specialize in product design for both web and mobile apps and thrive in 0 → 1 work. My expertise is in design leadership, visual design, user experience, and design systems. I also have a background in Engineering, with a focus on React, CSS architecture, and component systems.
I'm currently available for full time and contract design roles for early stage startups and sound/music design projects for games, apps, podcasts, and films.
I produce music under the alias Cordio, and create tracks for films, shows, and podcasts. Listen to all my music anywhere you stream music, or snag some on my Bandcamp.
Select Work
Making financial wellness for the 100% at Northstar
My most recent full-time role, where I led our design efforts as the Head of Design. I worked on our product, was involved in strategic business decisions, and managed a talented incredible design team as we built the future of financial wellness.
I was involved in shipping countless features including Cash Flow, Retirement Calculator, Emergency Fund, Multicurrency Support, Global Advisors, Action Plan, Healthcare Comparison, and more.
I was also in charge of creating and managing our design system, Bodega, at scale as we expanded our product offerings and pitched to larger companies. My contributions led to closing a $24.4M round of funding from GGV as well as landing deals with Snap, Workday, Discord, Superhuman, Nerdwallet, and more.
Building the future of freight for growing businesses at Mothership
A previous full-time job, where I led the design team to work on modern solutions for freight delivery and ordering.
I worked on the brand, website, our web application, and our native mobile app while hiring a design team. I built the design system and helped Mothership scale its products from supporting just a few hundred shipments to thousands daily through user experience, automation, and a scalable design language across the company.
Creating your ultimate financial friend at Dave
In a previous full-time job, I was hired as the first designer at Dave back in 2018. The company has since gone public via a deal valued at $4B.
We made the world’s friendliest banking product that automatically budgets, offers $250 of overdraft advances at no interest, and helps find new job opportunities. I created the design system there and worked on the transition to becoming a bank, advances, side hustle, and our growth efforts to scale to more than 10M+ users.
Help the world’s top companies build and ship amazing products at MetaLab
In a previous full-time job, I worked at MetaLab as a product designer and got to work on a vast amount of projects.
I was able to work with large clients like Uber and Keller Williams, to smaller startup projects like Ambi and EagleView. We worked with teams on everything from user research to high-fidelity handoff with internal teams. I also worked with a few other designers on the new MetaLab marketing site, changing how we communicated our work with prospective clients.
Creating soundscapes and sonal experiences at Cordio Music
Outside of design, I produce music under the alias Cordio. I've been a musician for 14 years and have been releasing music for the past 4 years. To date, I have released 15 projects. You can listen to my first full-length album, Sonder, on all platforms now.
My music is best described as ambient, hip-hop instrumental music, inspired from the music I grew up on with modern minimal, jazz, electronic, and beat music genre influences. Some of my main influences are Nujabes, Shigeto, Teebs, Flying Lotus, MF Doom, Stlndrms, J Dilla, Tycho, Baths, Nosaj Thing, Shlohmo, and Aphex Twin.
I design all my own cover artwork, work on sound design for apps, and make custom music for podcasts/videos/films. Currently open to music and sound projects.
Helping people find the next place to call home at Keller Williams
Worked on these projects with a team of designers during my time at MetaLab. We worked closely with the Keller Williams team to create a brand new experience around their web and mobile apps, including a brand new initiative called Keller Covered.
The new web and mobile product helps people find, buy, and sell homes. We even designed neighborhoods, a full home buying guide, a recommendation algorithm, a way to purchase insurance, and more.
Other Work
Design Videos
Over the past 8 years, I've been making videos on tech and design including strategy, interviewing, tips/tricks, and more. I have over 250 videos you can watch.
Etsy Store
In my free time, I create apparel, posters, stickers, resources and more that I sell on Etsy. Feel free to pick up something for yourself or a friend!
Dribbble
Where I post bits and pieces of work that I am able to share publicly. I post full-time work, personal projects, music and more here.
OS Icons
A set of custom iOS icons I made all from scratch to make your iPhone more streamlined, sleek, uniform. Over 100+ icons to mix and match, free setup guide, and free wallpapers included as well.
My Coffee Blog
My personal blog about coffee methods, roasts, and shops that I've tried and rated. Designed and coded by yours truly.
The Rate of Change
My personal blog that I've written 100+ articles for over the past few years.
Prompter
A tool that creates randomized prompts for artists and illustrators to use. A side project designed and coded by yours truly.
Uncle Kragers
A salsa delivery app that I worked on back in 2013. Users were able to order Kragers's salsa on demand and have it delivered that day.
12 Ounce
A coffee subscription product where you could get unlimited coffee each month. I worked on the mobile app, brand, illustrations, and rails app in 2012.
12ounceapp.com
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