In a cycle obsessed with AI features and speed-to-ship, Caleb Uzuegbunam is a useful counterweight: an engineer-turned–design leader who treats culture as a first-class product constraint. Trained in mechanical engineering, he moved into digital product design and has since led initiatives across startups and growth-stage teams. He also founded Àṣà Design, a pan-African collective that’s grown into a community of thousands focused on culturally grounded, ethically aware practice—less mood board, more operating system.
In this conversation we get specific: the hard edges of switching disciplines, where storytelling actually earns its keep, and the underrated skill that separates tasteful UI from durable product leadership. Along the way, Caleb taps lessons from stages like DevFest, GitHub, and GrowthSchool—and from building for markets where cultural context isn’t a flourish, it’s the spec.
Question 1: When you first began exploring design, what were the biggest challenges you faced in shifting your mindset from engineering to creativity-driven problem solving?
I was trained to chase certainty – free-body diagrams, closed-form answers, and black-and-white solutions. However, design, in particular, taught me to become comfortable with ambiguity and people.
I have achieved this comfort, since I needed to reframe “requirements” as hypotheses, seek truth through research, and accept that the best solution might be the one users can actually adopt today. That meant prototyping fast, testing earlier than felt safe, and letting evidence (not ego) drive decisions. My engineering rigour became an asset once I coupled it with user insight: at Kit (ConvertKit), I mapped journeys, measured outcomes, and iterated for growth. The shift was less “from logic to art” and more “from certainty to learning cycles”, which implied using analysis to reduce risk and storytelling to align teams around evidence.
Q2: How do you define “good design” in the context of fast-changing technology and diverse user needs?
I believe that good design is evidence-led impact: it helps real people achieve outcomes measurably better than before, and it scales reliably. In practice, this translates to three key elements: clarity, inclusivity, and durability.
Clarity means that interfaces and flows reduce cognitive load and minimise errors. Inclusivity implies that solutions are tested with the edges of your audience, not just the median case. Finally, durability ensures that systems (tokens, patterns, governance) continue to support teams in shipping consistently as complexity grows.
I have applied that lens across various roles: at Kit, redesigning onboarding/offboarding processes resulted in a 16% lift in upgrades and a 7.4% reduction in churn. At Propel, a new system and UX processes helped us increase from 0 to 40–50k MAUs within months of the MVP launch. As I join Gopuff in July 2023, I am focused on internal tools where small UX wins compound at an operational scale. For me, “good” is when we can point to the metric, the human story behind it, and the system that keeps it true.
Q3: What role does storytelling play in how you present or advocate for design within teams?
Storytelling is how design earns trust. Data tells you what changed, while stories explain why it matters and for whom. I start every critique, document, or demo with a protagonist, a job-to-be-done, and a before/after framework. This approach has helped me move stakeholders from abstract debate to shared conviction.
At DevFest Lagos 2019, in my final year of university, I delivered a speech about empathy as a superpower – a conversation centred on real user moments rather than heuristics alone. The same approach underpinned my investor demos and due diligence walkthroughs at Propel, where we linked flows to user and business outcomes. Now, at Gopuff, I use narrative prototypes and internal release stories to align ops, PM, and engineering around the problem, not just the UI. Compelling stories reduce rework, accelerate decisions, and make the right trade-offs legible.
Q4: What motivated you to build communities for African designers, and what impact have you seen so far from that work?
I started Àṣà in 2020, alongside peers, to address a problem I faced as a student designer: talented people lacked structured spaces to learn, receive feedback, and see culturally resonant role models. We began as a small chat group and grew into a platform for training, research, and sharing opportunities. Based on insights from our 2021 State of Design study (with 546 respondents), we developed programs and partnerships to increase impact. Later, with Cowrywise’s DesignFund4Women, we trained 75 women and reached over 1,000 more with resources. By 2022, the community had grown to 7,000 members across Africa and the diaspora.
Most importantly, members now work at companies such as Paystack, Flutterwave, Bloomberg, and Meta, which demonstrates that networked learning and culturally aware mentorship can significantly advance careers. I am motivated by that compounding effect: design as a lever for mobility, not just aesthetics.
Q5: In your opinion, what is the most overlooked skill that helps designers succeed beyond the craft itself?
In my opinion, this skill is problem framing. Tools and taste matter, but the multiplier is the ability to define the right question, connect it to business value, and align people around the path to impact. Framing blends research, analytics, and facilitation: at Kit, it meant mapping journey fixes to retention and ARR. At Propel, it involved translating community insights into a product/system roadmap that stakeholders could rally around. Finally, at Semicolon, the skill was applied for shaping a design culture that could teach, build, and ship.
Moreover, problem framing can be supported by two additional skills: quantitative literacy (so your assumptions can be challenged with evidence) and storytelling (so your evidence convinces people). Designers who consistently demonstrate these three qualities gain scope influence, not just tasks.
