
Manoj Venkatesun
Open to new opportunities
Product Designer based in Chennai, with a habit of building what I design.
Recent projects
Jan 2026 - Present
Our Ability, AI Platform for Disability Employment
Our Ability helps people with disabilities find jobs and get the support they need at work. I directed the design and build of three AI tools that help match candidates to jobs, reach out to them over SMS, and answer their workplace questions automatically.
Role
Technical Product Designer
Company
Our Ability
Check Back Soon

Mar 2024 - Jan 2026
PlatePost: Designing a video-first menu platform for restaurants
Restaurants spend thousands on food photography that lives on Instagram and dies on their website. I designed PlatePost's entire product experience, from the marketing site to the white-label VideoMenus that restaurants use in-store, to make food video the center of the dining decision.
16 Weeks
OrangeWork Hub: Replacing paper schedules with a mobile app for Syracuse University student workers
Syracuse University Food Services managed 200+ student shifts on paper. I designed a mobile app that lets students view, schedule, swap, and drop shifts without ever needing to track down a supervisor.
What others have to say
About

Just don't ask him to design before his first caffeine fix - that's a whole different user experience!
I grew up in Palani, a small town in Tamil Nadu. The plan was to become a doctor. That didn’t work out, and I ended up in computer science, which honestly wasn’t my first choice. For a long time, coding felt like something I was stuck with.
I did my master’s at Syracuse University and found UI/UX there. First time something in tech actually made sense to me. I volunteered, took unpaid work, did a co-op, built up experience the slow way.
Startups pulled me back into engineering. When there are only three people on the team, you do what needs doing. I kept picking up technical work until I got good at it. Now I can take something from idea to working product without handing it off, and that part I genuinely enjoy.
Outside work I’ve been getting into Formula 1. Lewis Hamilton is my driver. What I like about him isn’t the titles, it’s what he does when things aren’t going his way. Last year at Ferrari was rough. He just kept showing up. This year he’s back to his best. That kind of thing stays with me.
If you want to talk design, engineering, or F1, I’m probably free.
Work Experience
Technical Product Designer
Our Ability
Jan 2026
-
Present
Product Designer
PlatePost
Apr 2024
-
Jan 2026
User Experience Designer
iConsult Collaborative, Syracuse University
Mar 2023
-
Mar 2024
UI/UX Designer
Case at Syracuse University
May 2022
-
Jan 2023
Skills
The tools and languages I actually use day to day, across design and engineering.
HTML5
CSS3
JavaScript
React
Figma
Python
User Research
Framer
Figma Make
FastAPI
PostgreSQL
OpenAI API
RAG Pipelines
Accessibility (WCAG 2.1)







