DADavid AharoniProduct Designer · Design Engineer
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    David Aharoni

    Selected work · 2024–2026

    David Aharoni · Product Designer & Design Engineer

    Selected product work.

    Case studies across marketplace operations, API integrations, internal tools, and AI-assisted media production—from operating problem to shipped result.

    Shipped product · FurnishedNow
    FurnishedNow search experience with apartment results and map

    Measured after launch

    −24% drop-off

    after simplifying 12 fields to 6

    24%

    lower booking-form abandonment

    200%

    organic traffic growth in 3 months

    6 APIs

    normalized into one inventory model

    1M+

    monthly viewers reached with the media team

    What I contribute

    A builder who makes the team’s thinking visible.

    Strong product work stays close to the people living with the problem. That means clarifying what matters, testing a direction quickly, and building a product the team can continue to evolve.

    Start close to the work

    I work with operators, users, and product partners to understand the real workflow before deciding what to make.

    Make the idea tangible

    I prototype in code so the team can respond to a working flow—not a description of one—and we can examine every state.

    Learn after launch

    Funnels, session review, support signals, and operator feedback shape the next release. Shipping starts the feedback loop.

    Featured case study

    FurnishedNow · Marketplace product

    Live product

    Making a complicated search and booking journey feel straightforward.

    FurnishedNow brings inventory from six partner APIs into one searchable furnished-apartment marketplace. I work with inventory operators and renters across the product—from search and listing detail to booking, follow-up, and the internal tools behind them.

    Role

    Product design, research, and front-end

    Collaboration

    Operators, partners, and renters

    Scope

    Search, booking, admin, analytics

    One decision, end to end

    The form was collecting detail before earning commitment.

    The funnel showed 67% abandonment. Session recordings and operator feedback gave the number context: twelve questions made a first inquiry feel like an application, and several answers were not needed for the first response.

    Evidence

    A sharp funnel drop, repeated hesitation in recordings, and questions operators rarely used.

    Hypothesis

    Ask only for what the team needs to make the next useful move.

    Decision

    Reduce 12 fields to 6, combine dates into move-in month, and clarify what happens after submission.

    Outcome

    Booking-form abandonment fell 24% after launch.

    Before

    12 fields
    Exact move-in date
    Exact move-out date
    Guests
    Length of stay
    Monthly budget
    Neighborhood
    Full name
    Email
    Phone
    Company
    Reason for stay
    How did you hear?

    After

    6 fields
    Move-in month
    Guests
    Full name
    Email
    Phone
    What are you looking for?
    Send request

    −24%

    booking-form abandonment after launch

    Session review notes used to identify and prioritize product friction

    Session evidence is reviewed alongside funnel data and recurring operator feedback.

    From observation to release

    Small moments became shared product decisions.

    The product improved through a series of concrete changes the team could see, discuss, and evaluate—not one sweeping redesign.

    01

    Turned low-result searches into a handoff

    Recordings showed people reaching thin results and leaving. The new state collects the request and routes it to an operator who can match inventory manually.

    20%+ of would-be exits recovered

    02

    Asked for a move-in month, not invented precision

    People repeatedly adjusted exact date fields before they were ready to commit. Asking for the month matches how early-stage renters actually think and gets them into results sooner.

    Less friction before the first useful result

    03

    Protected the flow without burdening renters

    Invisible bot protection and tuned rate limits reduced junk requests and compute cost without adding a visible challenge to the booking path.

    Lower cost, no added user step

    04

    Made missed bookings observable

    Request clicks now capture the listing and path that led there. Quiet breaks become a review queue the team can act on instead of an invisible lost customer.

    Operational issues surfaced automatically

    The shipped system

    Not just the customer-facing screens.

    Search, booking, partner routing, admin tools, and analytics—one connected operating system.

    FurnishedNow user-flow graph connecting search, properties, booking, and supporting product paths

    How I work with teams

    Prototype in code, test with real people, iterate from evidence.

    The 12-to-6-field change is typical of the process: analytics located the friction, recordings and operator context explained it, a working flow made the tradeoffs tangible, and the post-launch result decided what came next.

    01

    Observe together

    Pair product analytics with session review and the patterns operators and users describe firsthand.

    02

    Frame the decision

    Separate the underlying problem from the first requested feature, then agree on what a useful change should accomplish.

    03

    Prototype the complete path

    Work in code across responsive layouts, hierarchy, loading, validation, empty states, and recovery—not just the happy path.

    04

    Ship, review, improve

    Instrument the decision, review what changed with the team, and carry that evidence into the next release.

    Growth systems

    Long-form film · short-form media

    Different formats. The same learning loop.

    Film production and social distribution both improve when creative judgment becomes a repeatable team process. Each attempt produces evidence; each review sharpens the next decision.

    01

    Create

    02

    Score

    03

    Review

    04

    Ship

    05

    Observe

    06

    Improve

    Selected cinematic frames from The End of Days

    Long-form production

    Every attempt improves the next creative decision.

    Generation, scoring, continuity review, and rejection reasons live in one production layer so the team does not rediscover the same lesson on every shot.

    38:50 finished film · 1,200+ generations · 2,382 frames reviewed

    57K → 106K

    Instagram followers

    Live

    5.1M

    views · last 30 days

    Apr ’25Oct ’25Jan ’26Apr ’26Current
    FollowersMonthly views

    Short-form distribution

    Every publish improves the next selection.

    The media team selects, shapes, quality-checks, publishes, and reviews performance as one loop. The signal goes back into the next batch instead of ending in a report.

    About 20K → 1M+ monthly viewers · 5.1M views in 30 days · 50+ shorts over 100K

    Applied product studies

    Built from operating experience

    Power users reveal what demos and feature lists cannot.

    These are not critiques from the sidelines. They translate repeated production friction into product opportunities, grounded in finished work and measurable operating volume.

    01Runway

    Designing for long-form AI production

    A finished 38:50 film exposed the gaps between generating a striking clip and managing a coherent production: project memory, continuity, comparison, cost, and editor handoff.

    Production evidence

    1,200+ generation attempts · 2,382 frames reviewed · 1,000+ hours of source audio made transcript-searchable

    Scoring as a repeated feature

    Scoring repeats at every round. Each SeedDance 2.0 attempt is reviewed against the shot mission—continuity, motion, composition, and edit usability—so the next attempt starts with what the team already learned.

    Visual reference and continuity contact sheet from the AI film production
    02OpusClip

    Designing for short-form production at scale

    Daily use with a media team shows where throughput is really won: selecting the right moment, shaping the hook, keeping caption and reframe edits stable, and getting a publishable export out reliably.

    Production evidence

    5.1M views in the last 30 days · 50+ shorts over 100K · monthly viewers grown from about 20K to 1M+

    Scoring as a repeated feature

    Scoring should update after every meaningful edit—hook, trim, caption, or reframe—and explain what moved. That makes it a practical editing aid the team can use repeatedly, not a one-time verdict.

    Additional range

    Open-source product

    trainETA

    A public NYC subway tracker with a GTFS-RT pipeline handling 500+ updates a minute, a public API, and 50+ unit and end-to-end tests.

    Real-time data · resilient states · public API

    Live product

    Tools built around the work

    Practical internal tooling

    Transcript search, frame extraction, contact sheets, subtitle and audio cleanup, review notes, final stills, trailers, and handoff assets—shaped with the people doing active production.

    Product judgment · code · operational context

    What I’m looking for

    A team tackling meaningful problems where design can shape the product—not just its surface.

    I’m interested in product design roles across AI products, creator tools, marketplaces, and workflow-heavy software—especially where working closely with users and operators can create lasting leverage.

    David Aharoni · Product Designer · Design Engineer

    New York City · 2026