Making a product out of a technology that reads screenplays
I’m a business guy who quit his job to make better software for people.
Work
Turning a long article into a page that helps shoppers decide
Putting Search by Ingredient where people were already looking
Building a training coach that plans next week from this week’s workouts
Approach
I’m as comfortable in Excel as I am in Figma, and these days I build my own products too.
I started my career in accounting, where the job was to work out from the numbers how a business was doing. Before I design anything I still want to know what the product is for, what the business needs from it and what the evidence says. At Food Network that meant noticing where people already started their searches, and moving a little-used feature there took it from 1 in 260 customers to 2 in 5. I stay with a product until what gets built is what was designed, and lately that means building it myself: with AI, I’ve taken three of my own products from idea to working software. I left a good career in business because I loved doing this more, and I think well-made software is something everyone deserves.
Background
My first website was a fan site for the New Jersey Nets, built when I was ten. I studied finance, earned an MBA and worked six busy seasons as an auditor at two international accounting firms before moving into design in 2016. Since then I’ve led design on platforms that were new at the time, Apple TV, Fire TV, Alexa, CarPlay and the Echo Show, and on the Food Network Kitchen apps and the Food Network and HGTV websites. For the last three years I’ve been co-founding a company building software for screenwriters and making products of my own. Nine years into design, I work end to end: what the product should be, how it behaves, and seeing it built.
Khaos
Co-founder
I lead product, design and research at a company building screenplay analysis software for writers, moving the product from a script parser to an AI table read to full analysis of character, scene and plot, and building its brand and design system.
Simple Quality
Founder
My own company, for client work and for products I design and build myself, including Push, an AI training coach, and Gears, a framework of eleven automated workflows for running product, research and design work.
Warner Bros. Discovery
Senior Product Designer
I led design across Food Network Kitchen, foodnetwork.com, HGTV.com and Food.com, building Food Network’s cross-platform design system, taking Search by Ingredient from 1 in 260 customers to 2 in 5, and redesigning the Food Network and HGTV buying guides as the only designer.
DesignLab
Product Design Mentor
I mentored four people entering design through DesignLab’s online bootcamp, with weekly one-on-ones and daily feedback on their projects. All four landed design roles, and three are now senior designers.
SiriusXM
Senior Product Designer
I joined on a 90-day contract and became design lead on five product lines: connected TV, Alexa, CarPlay and Android Auto, the Sonos app and Music for Business. I redesigned the TV apps, rebuilt CarPlay and brought 7,000 on-demand episodes to Alexa with Amazon.
General Assembly
User Experience Immersive
A full-time bootcamp in user experience design, and where I moved from accounting into design.
BDO
Assurance Senior Associate
As the senior in charge of four real estate and hospitality clients, a fee base over $550,000, I supervised up to three audit teams at once, reviewed their work, ran internal training, recruited staff and worked on a client’s IPO.
Grant Thornton
Assurance Associate
I worked on audits of public and private companies across financial services, media and entertainment, retail, healthcare and not-for-profits, moving between teams and industries, and assisted on a company’s S-1 filing ahead of its Nasdaq listing.
References
“As for the work itself, he always produces well thought out designs and analyses that explore all the angles and use cases.”
Staff Product Designer · Author, The Art and Science of UX Design
Former colleague at Food Network
“His feedback for my work was given in an extremely timely manner, incredibly constructive, and really allowed me to grow as a designer.”
DesignLab mentee, August 2022
“Andrew shows true care for the questions that I had and offered advice/insights based on his real-life experiences - he teaches how to think critically not only at a granular scale but also at the high-level in order to effectively convey the story of case studies. I'm more than pleased with my experience, and I'll definitely be returning for his mentorship. Thanks, Andrew!”
DesignLab mentee
About
Recognition
- Creative Dreamers Award, Warner Bros. Discovery, June 2022, for my work on the Food.com recipe page
- Doers Award, Discovery, November 2021, for building Food Network’s cross-platform design system
- First place, Discovery Impact Day hackathon, 2021
- Webby Awards, 2020, People’s Voice winner in two categories, as part of the Food Network Kitchen team
Colophon
Design and code by Andrew Gatto. Set in Geist.
Contact
What are you working on?
I’m always interested in hearing what people are working on. Opportunities do not always fit neatly into a single title or discipline, so I’m happy to start with a conversation. Tell me what you’re working on, what you need, and where you think I might help.