Darren DeCoursey

LipDub AI

Senior Product Designer

Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies

Forsta

Dialpad

I worked with the brand team to develop components, maintain the website design library and update designs for various web projects in Figma.

I partnered closely with the web engineering team on making sure designs were translated faithfully from Figma to the CMS. 

I also wireframed and mapped out user flows to help support user adoption and sign ups with the Growth team.

Specifically focused on conversion design, I A/B tested design variants for high performing landing and overview pages to increase sign ups and lead conversion.

Senior Web & Conversion Designer

Elastic Path

Overseeing the entire website experience, I led several key initiatives:

• Managed a smooth and successful website rebrand and platform upgrade, working with both a design agency and web contractor over the course of six months, with zero loss in organic traffic

• Oversaw website migration during Elastic Path's acquisition of Moltin, a competitor company, organized 301 redirect strategy with the Product team, and reorganized the site architecture, resulting in a 200% lift in traffic over the next two months

• Led the SEO and strategy, partnering with Digital Brand Services to boost brand visibility, and increase site traffic over 1.5x by migrating the primary eCommerce blog to the main domain

• Developed and led the entire CRO strategy from the ground up, including A/B testing, heatmapping, personalization and Google Analytics to increase the conversion rate for enterprise prospects

• Designed the App Marketplace experience for all integrations that could utilize Elastic Path's custom APIs

• Created user journeys and empathy maps to understand the pain points of their current customers in the B2B ecommerce industry.

Outside of the day-to-day web activities, I also:

• Working cross-functionally with the product team, I designed and executed the complete User Experience for the launch of their enterprise Free Trial, starting with customer interviews, then wireframing, prototyping, and final UI delivery to the web engineering team

Senior Web & UX Designer

V2 Games

• Created a UX design pipeline for mobile games company from the ground up. 

• Established a process for iterative testing, prototyping and reporting on KPI's and metrics for Unity-based mobile game projects.

• Managed the UX team, built out documentation and heuristics guidelines for developers and UI designers to follow.

• Helped develop the interface and user flows for several titles, including "Beast Brawlers,": an innovative approach where players battle it out in a real-time Player-vs-Player arena in quick rapid-fire battles. Voted Top 10 Game of 2017 at the Google Play Indie Games Festival.

• Designed cut scene visualizations, reward system and player swapping mechanic for “Fantasy Football League” mobile and tablet based iOS and Android game.

Lead UX Designer

Centre for Digital Media

I organized and prepped class materials as well as marked and graded written assignments. Gave guidance on group activities and organized brainstorming sessions. 

The course provides an overview of the broad range of topics associated with User Experience: everything from design research and heuristics evaluations to wireframing and prototyping are covered.

Assistant UX Instructor

Sensate Digital

Specialized in the ideation, design, prototyping and building of interactive exhibits and User Interfaces for museums and knowledge centres located in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Co-Founder

Qube Films

Was brought on board Qube Film's latest film "Way of the Wicked" as their visual effects supervisor and principle artist.

• Managed and planned continuity for onset crew to best capture plates for visual effects augmentation.

• Oversaw practical special effects shooting and planning for stunt sequences.

• Successfully delivered 35 final shots on time and under budget.

Visual Effects Supervisor

Gener8 Digital Media Corp

• Worked with Gener8's cutting-edge, proprietary technology to generate 3D imagery from 2D shots.

• Improved pipeline efficiency, collaborated with IT partners, and customized software scripting to automate tasks.

• Worked closely with junior and senior employees to maintain depth and detail continuity among various stereo sequences.

Projects include: "Iron Man 3", "Thor: The Dark World" "300: Rise of an Empire"

Stereoscopic Visual Effects Artist

“Colour it and put a border around it!”

That's the advice my father would always give me about my homework assignments in school. My father was a marketing professional. I should have known his words would put me on the path to becoming a designer.

But it wasn't a straight path. My first love was making movies. Designing special effects, shooting miniatures, blowing them up in my backyard. Trying to replicate scenes in “Empire Strikes Back” with toys and a cheap camcorder on a chilly fall day.

After completing my degree in Art History, I raced into visual effects because it was my passion. I learned all about colour, composition, lighting, dimension, and motion. Oh, and I was fortunate to work on some sweet blockbuster movies and television series too. However, I spent enough years in the film industry to realize that a crucial element was missing: interactivity.

That's why I decided to switch gears and pursue a Masters Degree and focus on learning interaction design. Working with teammates from different backgrounds, exploring UX research and cognitive science with academics. This felt more ME.

Fueled with a desire to make engaging and accessible digital products and web experiences, I spent the last six years in the tech industry, evangelizing the power of UX.

What kind of projects have I been involved in? Mobile game menus, web designs for SMB and Enterprise-level tech companies, tablet-based ecommerce demos, interactive touchscreens for museum exhibits and large-scale LED displays for music festivals.

When my father started to experience cognitive decline, I began to notice how much technology had failed him. Almost every digital experience felt like a chore. His frustrations became my frustrations. It instilled in me a deep, personal understanding of empathy, and how important user testing and accessibility are to the core of every product design.  And it made me want to design better.

And while he's no longer with me, I would like to think that he inspired me to add colour and a border around everything I do.

Specialties: Product Design | Web Design | UX Research | Wireframing | Prototyping | Design Systems | Interaction Design | Motion Design | Conversion Optimization | Copywriting | 3D Visualization | Installation Design

Service Corporation International

Service Corporation International is North America’s leading provider of funeral, cremation, and cemetery services. 

I support 250+ hiring managers who are responsible for 2,500+ staff across the 250+ locations we have in Canada. We also have a 30-person recruitment team in North America and I'm lucky to learn from some of the best in the business.

We facilitate the hiring of operations, sales, and corporate positions. 
In 2023, I filled over 300 roles!
In 2024, I've filled over 300 roles as well.

Selling Power Magazine has named Service Corporation International as one of the 50 Best Companies to Sell For 4 years in a row (2014, 2015, 2016 & 2017)

We are also a certified Great Place To Work
2019 - #34 in Best Workplaces in Health Care & Biopharma
2020 - #28 in Fortune Best Workplaces in Health Care & Biopharma
2021 - #22 in Fortune Best Workplaces in Health Care & Biopharma
2024 - #41 in Fortune Best Workplaces in Health Care™ (Large)
2024 - #21 in Fortune Best Workplaces in Texas™ (Large)

Please reach out to connect if you're interested to learn more.

Corporate, Operations & Sales Recruiter II - Internal

Quartech

Quartech is one of the largest privately owned IT consultancy companies in BC.

I worked on a team of 3-4 recruitment specialists supporting a 200+ person organization with long-standing clients and products. I left the role to take on a faster-paced challenge with more responsibilities.

Talent Acquisition Specialist - Internal / Management Consulting

RVezy

RVezy is the largest RV rental e-Commerce marketplace in Canada.

In 2017 when RVezy started, they did $500,000 in gross sales. After going on Dragon’s Den and partnering for a $150,000 investment from Michele Romanow, the company grew to over $3 million in gross sales in 2018. By mid-2019, RVezy had $12 million in annualized sales and was approached by investor Markus Frind, founder of the online dating app Plenty of Fish. In order to meet the growing demand for RV rentals, Frind invested an initial $3 million in the fall of 2019 to attract more RV owners to the platform. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, the demand for RVs went through the roof! Frind invested another $20 million in 2020 and recommended that RVezy expand operations into the United States. 

From 2021 to 2022 I partnered with the Head of HR to double RVezy's headcount, including doubling their tech team, in just under one year. RVezy established itself as the #1 RV rental platform in Canada and has continued to expand rapidly in the US. The team members we hired made an incredible impact on both the product and company culture. I left when the hiring needs of the company slowed down.

Senior Recruiter - Internal

Spud

At the time that I worked there, FoodX and Spud were two separate companies with the same CEO, both publicly traded as Freshlocal Solutions. I recruited all of the senior-level roles for SPUD and FoodX. 

SPUD is a sustainable, organic grocery delivery service with premium products that delivers to customers in BC and Alberta. SPUD is a certified B Corporation that is fighting food waste and reducing emissions by partnering with over 800 local vendors and 60+ local farmers in Western Canada to ensure the freshest and highest quality products for their customers.

This was my first full-time permanent internal recruitment role and my references will attest that I went above and beyond the expectations for the role. I left to take on a role with more responsibilities.

MatchBox Consulting Group

Headquartered in downtown Vancouver and serving clients nationally, MatchBox is a strategic recruitment and professional services firm that specializes in attracting top talent and delivering comprehensive recruitment solutions in the fields of Information Technology, Engineering, and Finance.

- Canada's Top Growing Companies list by Globe and Mail for 2021
- The America's Fastest Growing Companies list by Financial Times and Statista for 2021
- The America's Fastest Growing Companies list by Financial Times and Statista for 2020
- Canada's Top Growing Companies list by Globe and Mail for 2020
- Canada’s Top New Growth Companies list by Canadian Business for 2020
- Canada's Top Growing Companies list by Globe and Mail for 2019
- One of the top Information & Communication Technology (ICT) companies in Canada by the annual Branham300 list in 2019
- Canada’s 50 Top New Growth Companies list by Canadian Business and McLean's for 2018

I worked for Matchbox twice in my career, having left the first time due to my 3-year post-graduate work permit ending and the 2nd time due to covid layoffs in April 2020. 

In between working for Matchbox both times, while I was traveling in Southeast Asia, and while waiting for my Canadian permanent residency, I did some contract work with 2 internal recruitment companies (Recruiting from Scratch and IT Consultis). Those experiences lead me to seek out similar internal recruitment careers during the summer of 2020.

Senior Technical Recruiter - Agency

Recruiting from Scratch

Recruiting From Scratch is USA based recruitment agency and recruitment process outsourcing firm (RPO).

This was my first fully remote role, my first part-time contract role, my first recruitment process outsourcing, and my first startup company. The team used cutting-edge tools and showed me new ways to go about recruiting vs the more traditional agencies I had worked at before.

Contract Technical Recruiter - Agency / Recruitment Process Outsourcing

Robert Half

Robert Half has more than 330 offices worldwide and specializes in all aspects of staffing and recruitment.

I worked on a team of 16 recruiters in the Manchester NH office.  

Having recently returned from 7 years abroad, I spent some time living closer to my family while my Canadian permanent residency was being processed.

Sabbatical

When my post-graduate work visa ended in 2018, I left Canada to travel in Southeast Asia for 8 months. I then returned to New Hampshire at the beginning of 2019 and spent a few months with my family before returning to Vancouver as a Canadian permanent resident in the fall of 2019.

Travels included: 

Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, Mui Ne
Thailand - Bangkok, Koa Tao, Ko Pha Ngan, Chiang Mai, Phuket
China - Hong Kong
Philippines - Cebu, Panglao, Siquijor, Dumaguete, Puerto Princesa, Port Barton, El Nido, Coron, Manila
Bali - Kuta, Seminyak, Canggu, Ubud, Blue Lagoon, Gili Trawangan

While in Vietnam, I did some local contract internal recruiting for a company called IT Consultis.

International Traveling

MatchBox is a recruitment and consulting firm focused on IT job opportunities in Vancouver BC.

This was where I started the foundation of my recruitment career, working on a team of 8+ technical recruiters supporting external clients. I left this role when my 3-year post-graduate work permit ended. I left Canada for a year while waiting for my permanent residency application to be approved.

Technical Recruiter - Agency

If you're in the funeral industry please send me a connection request! 👋🏼

A bit about me:

I’ve been lucky to have spent the last 7+ years of my career focused on talent acquisition and recruitment, the first half being at agencies and the second half working in internal positions. My career has allowed me to recruit for diverse skillsets across many disciplines. 

2011 to 2015 👨‍🎓
After graduating high school in New Hampshire, I moved to Vancouver BC to attend the University of British Columbia where I achieved a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Political Science and a minor in Economics. 

2015 - 2019✈️ 
After graduating, I stayed in Vancouver on a 3-year work permit and started my career in recruitment. When my post-graduate work visa ended, I left Canada to travel in Southeast Asia for 8 months. I returned to New Hampshire at the beginning of 2019 to work near my family before returning to Vancouver as a Canadian permanent resident in the fall of 2019.

2019 - Present
I’ve been living and working in Vancouver since late 2019 and I received Canadian citizenship in the summer of 2023. I love it here and have a great spot by the beach with my fiance and dog!


Some of my career accomplishments:


2017-2018 & 2019-2020
- In my 1 year and 10 months total at Matchbox I helped place 32 IT professionals in Vancouver BC.

2021
- At Freshlocal Solutions (FoodX and Spud), I helped fill over 90 new positions across both organizations in 1 year. This included sourcing and recuring high-level tech leaders, building out an impressive automation QA/SDET team, building a devops/SRE team, a security team, a helpdesk team and more. we were building a tech company from the ground up to revamp Spud's 20 year old business model of online grocery delivery. 

2022
- Hired 2 contractors and 5 permanent employees in 4 months at Quartech, and filled all roles assigned to me faster than KPIs expected.
- Helped grow RVezy from 70 to 150 people in 11 months. This included accounting, backend developers, data analysts and more. I was the first full-time recruiter for the company working closely with their head of HR and the business partners. 

2023 - Present
- In my current role I am a senior recruiter supporting 250+ managers/locations across the country. In my first 1 year and 6 months, I helped hire over 500 people (25% of the roughly 2,000 employees in Canada). The company has seen reduced turnover during my tenure and we have been exceeding all of our hiring goals for Canada!

If you would like to connect, feel free to send me an email - cascadden.ian@gmail.com

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Darren DeCoursey

Ian Cascadden

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