Notes · Life
(Re)introducing myself: hello, or hello again?
Who I am, why I needed a place to write, and what to expect here.
In this note5
I just got back from Vietnam 🇻🇳. Twelve days of photos are sitting on my drive, unposted. I’m calling it my social debt, and like most debt, it grows while I pretend it isn’t there.
That’s a fair summary of why this page exists. I have a lot to say and no place I liked putting it.
So, hi 👋. I’m Kishore, and I’m (re)introducing myself.
The brackets do the work. First time here? Hello. Met me before? Hello again, and welcome to the sequel. Everyone gets the same intro, so the new people can catch up without a briefing.
The two-minute version
I’m a Senior UX Designer at Salesforce in Bengaluru, with 8+ years across startups, unicorns and global companies. These days I design for the admins and developers building AI apps 🤖. Before design was the job, I built things. I co-founded a startup in engineering college, moved through UI development and landed in product design. Outside work, I lead Friends of Figma Bangalore.
That’s the version that goes on a portfolio. It’s accurate, and it reads like someone who has never slept, eaten or lost an argument 😄.
The fine print
I recently turned 30 🎂, which I’m told is when you stop being “young talent” and become “experienced”. Same person, new adjective.
I’ve also been married for close to three years, to my wife, who is an AI engineer. A designer and an engineer is already a wild combo. Now stack it: I design experiences for AI, using AI, and I married someone who builds AI for a living. We leave for different offices every morning, and the two worlds meet at the dinner table. Most of the talk at home is about AI, and the roles swap at the door. I’m the designer asking how the model actually works. She’s the engineer asking what a good answer to a brand-new query should feel like. I ask why it said that. She asks what it should have said. Same question, from opposite ends. We have never settled it. We just pass it back and forth, like the salt 🧂. Even a quiet Sunday has a context window.
I take photographs, too 📸. I’ve invested a lot in the gear, and the return so far is about one post a quarter. As investments go, it’s a very emotional one.
Which brings me back to Vietnam. A lantern from Hoi An 🏮 has already made it onto this site, as the light switch. The twelve days of photos are still waiting their turn.
Why I needed a place to write
My earlier sites had one job: get me through an interview. A portfolio, a few case studies, a tidy summary of what I’d shipped. They were good at it. They were also extremely well behaved. Nobody writes anything unpolished on a site a recruiter might open.
But I always wanted somewhere to write. Not LinkedIn, not X. Writing there means writing with one eye on the audience and the other on how it will land. I wanted a place that’s mine, where I can think out loud without performing, and anyone who wanders in is a bonus.
A portfolio is the shop window. This is the workshop at the back, with the lights on and the mess visible 🛠️.
What to expect
Mostly, how I think about designing products built on AI: the calls I made and the doubts I had along the way. And now and then, a thought with no business being here. Life, a hobby, a reflection from a trip, something that happened to me and wouldn’t leave.
No sugar-coating, and no polish. I’ll write when the thought arrives and date every note. Some of it will age badly. I’d rather keep the receipts 🧾 and see how I got here.
Whether you’re here for the AI design or the stray thoughts, read along and argue back. kishore21v@gmail.com works ✉️.
So, hi. Again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have twelve days of Vietnam to deal with 🌏.