I'm Robert Garbowski — a Senior UX/UI Designer based in San Diego with 14 years of experience designing products at the boundary of hardware and software. I hold an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and I bring the rigor of fine arts training together with the pragmatism of someone who has shipped embedded firmware UI to real businesses.

At Digium/Sangoma, I led UX on the D80 — the industry's first fully button-free executive desk phone — and the P-series family. I worked directly with hardware engineers and firmware developers, designing within display, power, and processing constraints that most UX designers never encounter, while maintaining consistency across multiple GUI frameworks through a tokenized design system I helped establish.

At Betterview, I moved into data-dense SaaS — designing for insurance professionals who needed to trust AI assessments with real financial consequences. I was embedded in customer research from day one, presenting at executive summits and running underwriter roundtables to validate design decisions with the people who used the product daily.

Before deep-diving into tech products, I worked with brands including Ford, Disney, Red Bull, Dish Network, Schwinn, and MotorTrend — a range that trained my ability to understand any audience, match any aesthetic, and design with serious commercial intent.

I was born and raised in Connecticut, the son of Polish immigrants — I'm fluent in the language and familiar with the culture. Outside of design, I play drums in several San Diego bands, cook for my wife and daughter, and have been known to name untitled artworks in museums. I wear colors besides black.