Ben Rush, Product Design Leader

Crafting delightful product experiences live from Brooklyn

I'm a hands-on design leader who builds and grows high velocity product and design teams. Rooted in craft and cross-discipline collaboration, my work spans enterprise and consumer products — from social networking, skill-gaming, and sports data to BI, collaboration tools, search, and natural language interfaces.

Previously at

Experience

15+
2022 — 2026

Underdog

Senior Director, Head of Product Design

Director, Head of Product Design

Underdog, the fastest-growing private sports company in the U.S., was founded in 2020 with the simple objective of making sports more fun. The company's core operating principle: there's so much more to be built for sports fans in America.

  • Built the team from 1 to 15 across Product, Brand Experience, Content, and Systems Design, with dedicated career ladders for both IC and management growth.
  • Directly managed a Director, Senior Manager, and 3 Staff Designers.
  • Decentralized Product Design ownership, making it a core part of Underdog's SDLC and strengthening relationships across the company.
  • Drove design strategy through data analysis, customer and competitor research, and stakeholder facilitation. Specifically, UD Sportsbook, UD Single App, UD Predict.
  • Directed holistic featureset across Fantasy, Sports Betting, and Prediction Markets.
2020 — 2022

BigBrain Games

Director, Head of Product Design

BigBrain Games offers live, multiplayer free and real-money tournaments through casual skill-based games, giving users a social and competitive space to test their ability.

  • Directly managed 1 Product Manager & 1 Product Designer.
  • Developed and managed product roadmap, prioritization, and team coordination.
  • Drove design strategy and execution of the full customer journey and 2 bespoke skill games, including interaction and sound design.
2019 — 2020

Stuzo (acquired by PAR Retail)

Director, Product

Stuzo helps everyday-spend retailers know and activate more of their customers and data in real time — driving more visits, more gallons, and bigger baskets.

  • Owned the strategy, direction, and execution of Stuzo's Open Commerce Transact & Experience software products and managed services experiences.
  • Built and managed Product (2 PMs, 2 TPMs) and Design (4 Product Designers) disciplines — creating career ladders and optimizing planning, prioritization, design, and delivery.
  • Delivered personalization and loyalty-based product offerings for Sunoco, Chevron, Dave & Buster's, and more.
2017 — 2019

Reddit

Senior Manager II, Product Design

Senior Manager, Product Design

Reddit is the heart of the internet, where millions gather for conversation and community.

  • Led the modernization of Reddit through a large-scale web and mobile redesign, serving 500M+ Redditors and 100k+ communities — grounded in data analysis, hundreds of hours of customer and competitor research, and stakeholder alignment.
  • Managed Product Design across Growth, Creators, Consumers, Community, Ads, and Trust & Safety product delivery teams.
  • Hired and developed a team of 10+ product designers.
  • Partnered with Product and Engineering leadership to establish and iterate on the company's SDLC.
  • Designed v2 of the Reddit Ads Platform and v1 of the Trust & Safety internal tools suite, improving operational efficiency and speed to ad creation.
2015 — 2017

Microsoft — Power BI

Senior Manager (64), Product Design

Senior Manager (63), Product Design

Power BI is Microsoft's unified platform for self-service and business intelligence, helping people visualize data inside the apps they use every day.

  • Led product design strategy and execution across four main surfaces: PBI Cloud, PBI Desktop, PBI Mobile, and PBI SSRS.
  • Hired, managed, and developed 6 product designers.
  • Led execution of the company's conceptual model, combining 10 key customer and client pain points into a redesigned core UX for the product suite.
  • Led discovery, delivery, and execution of the PBI Mobile redesign.
2013 — 2015

OneTwoSee (acquired by Comcast)

Lead Product Designer

OneTwoSee provides licensed, white-labeled products that help some of the biggest names in sports engage and monetize their audiences through any screen.

  • Design lead for all OneTwoSee products across mobile, web, smart TV, and in-arena implementations.
  • Delivered bespoke and white-label solutions for AOL, Comcast, Fox Sports, LG, NASCAR, NBC Sports, Rogers, Samsung, YES Network, and more.
2011 — 2013

Stuzo

Lead Product Designer