Who am I
I've spent my career turning complex
products into experiences people can
use with confidence. Whether it's
FinTech, HealthTech, GenAI SaaS, or Web3,
I believe thoughtful product design isn't
about adding more—it's about knowing what to simplify and what to leave out.
What I crafted so far
Projects that deliver results
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Things I can help you with
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{{ sv.note }}Design subscription — 2 slots open
A senior designer, on subscription
Fifteen years of product design work, billed as a flat monthly fee instead of a scoped project. Unlimited requests, one active task at a time, delivered in 48 hours. Pause the month you don't need me; cancel whenever.
Essential
One request at a time, for teams with a steady trickle of design work.
Product
Two active requests, research included — for teams shipping continuously.
Sprint
A fixed two-week engagement for a 0→1 push or a launch.
Prices in USD, billed monthly. Roughly half the cost of a senior in-house hire, with no recruiting and no notice period.
How it works
Subscribe
Pick a plan and book a 30-minute call. I take on three clients at a time, so there is a real queue.
Add requests
Drop work into a shared board — screens, a flow, a deck, a system. Priority is yours to reorder any time.
Get it in 48 hours
One task at a time, delivered as Figma files and, where useful, working front-end. Revise until it is right.
Pause when quiet
Design needs come in bursts. Pause the subscription between them and keep the unused days.
What it replaces
Questions people actually ask
Is “unlimited” really unlimited?
Unlimited describes the queue, not my hours. You can add as many requests as you like; I work through them one (or two) at a time, in the order you set. Most clients see six to twelve substantial pieces of work a month.
What counts as one request?
A screen set, a flow, a landing page, a deck, a component set, a research round. If something is really three jobs wearing a trench coat, I will say so and we will split it.
Who owns the work?
You do, from the moment it is delivered — Figma files, source assets and any code I write. No licensing, no hostage files if you leave.
What do you not do?
Illustration at scale, motion-heavy video editing, and print production. I will happily recommend people who are better at those than I am.
Can I pause?
Any month, with a week of notice. Unused days stay on your account for up to a year, so a quiet quarter does not cost you anything.
How do we start?
A 30-minute call to check the fit, then a shared board and a first request the same week. If the first two weeks do not work for you, I refund them.
About — fifteen years in
I design the parts nobody demos
Vanakkam. I'm Nethra Balasubramaniam, a product designer working out of Chennai with teams across three time zones.
Fifteen years, roughly two hundred projects, ten-odd domains. What that adds up to is a fairly narrow specialism: I'm good at the unglamorous middle of a product — the empty state, the resumable form, the permission model, the review loop — which is where products are actually won or abandoned.
I started on the agency side drawing brand work, moved into enterprise UX at Accenture and Tech Mahindra where I learned to design inside constraints I couldn't negotiate, then spent five years leading product design in studio and client teams. Since 2021 I've worked independently, mostly with GenAI, FinTech and HealthTech teams who need someone senior in the room early.
I also write front-end. Not because designers must code, but because implementing my own interfaces taught me which details survive hand-off and which quietly don't.
Where I've worked
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How I work
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What I bring
Case Studies — 2019 to 2026
Work worth reading about
Six projects, each written up end to end — the constraint I started with, the research that changed my mind, and what shipped. Available for freelance and contract engagements.
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Crafting design experience since 2005
My Playground
A collection of everyday design explorations, experiments, and creative work. From social media and visuals to concepts I create along the way.
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What the platform does
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Outcome