Product + Design by Justin Barr Young

Resume →

Hey, I’m Justin ✌

I’m a design-driven product manager for web applications.
Say “hey” back at justin@jbarr.co

I specialize in turning complex domains (like cybersecurity, developer tools, and web hosting) into user-friendly, strategically-impactful, and scalable experiences for startups and enterprise companies alike.

Currently, I’m a Product Manager at GitHub, where I lead UI platform initiatives (like design systems and performance) and improve agentic developer workflows in the core product for 150 million users.

Before that, I was an early product and design leader at Signal Sciences, a cybersecurity startup acquired by Fastly in 2020 for $825 million. I led development of the UI dashboard, designed identity and access management features, guided privacy and data governance initiatives, and created a new self-service tier and sales motion as we scaled our enterprise customer base from dozens to hundreds.

I’ve worked across product, design, and engineering at a variety of companies such as GoDaddy and Carbon Five. I’ve also written, mentored, and presented on product design, rapid prototyping, and growing careers in tech.

Connect on LinkedIn

Redesigned Platform Navigation for 150M Developers

GitHub

GitHub's navigation couldn't scale: users got lost in the hierarchy, core features were buried in menus, and the UI wasn't accessible, responsive, or consistent from page-to-page. I led a cross-functional team to redesign the navigation from the ground up, introducing a two-level system that reflects GitHub's information architecture and meets platform goals.

  • Achieved >95% user satisfaction across 150M+ users
  • Exposed information architecture to enable vertical and horizontal navigation
  • Enabled integration of Copilot AI features across the platform
  • Accessible and optimized for scale and maintenance
Redesigned Platform Navigation for 150M Developers – 1
Redesigned Platform Navigation for 150M Developers – 2

63% Growth in Signups, 142→16 Second Completion Time

GitHub

GitHub's signup process took 142 seconds and was filled with friction. With Copilot's Free tier launching and competitive pressure mounting, I led the New User Experience team through systematic optimization: redesigned the UI, added globally-compliant onboarding email opt-in, integrated Google/Apple social login, and reduced friction to near-zero clicks for new users originating from VS Code.

  • Increased daily signups by 63%
  • Reduced signup time by 89% for social signups
  • Achieved 40% email opt-in rate despite complex global compliance
  • Drove 14% higher engagement among new users that received onboarding emails
  • Coordinated authentication, legal, marketing, and platform health teams
  • 60%+ of signups now use social login vs. traditional form
63% Growth in Signups, 142→16 Second Completion Time

Reduced 70% Churn Among New Developers

GitHub

70% of new users churned within two weeks because they were new to git and programming. The old onboarding dashboard was overwhelming: users didn't know where to start. After extensive user research, I led a redesign with a focused, educational-first experience: YouTube video series, engagement checklist, and beginner docs.

  • Reduced cognitive load for new users with clear, progressive path forward
  • Increased engagement and boosted Monthly Engaged Users (MEU) among new signups
  • Drove increase in new user engagement with strategic features like Copilot and VS Code downloads
Reduced 70% Churn Among New Developers

Scaled Design System Adoption from 9% to 90%

GitHub

Primer, GitHub's design system, was struggling: only 9% adoption among pages, unclear roadmap, and teams were building duplicate components (like 3 different date pickers 😰). I reset the product strategy by prioritizing high-impact React components, created a "shared component library" as a middle layer between Primer and custom code, and authored the org-wide strategy guide that became the source of truth for all front-end engineers.

  • Grew Primer adoption from 9% to 90% across GitHub's core UI
  • Scaled shared React component library by 7x through inner-sourcing model
  • Authored canonical shared component strategy guide
  • Consolidated implementations, including foundational patterns like lists and filters
  • Conducted listening tour with 7 product teams to identify adoption blockers
Scaled Design System Adoption from 9% to 90% – 1
Scaled Design System Adoption from 9% to 90% – 2

Improving GitHub's Homepage for 2M Daily Users

GitHub

GitHub's home dashboard had a reputation problem. Despite 2M daily visitors, users loudly complained it lacked utility and GitHub was stuck with no meaningful improvements for years. I led over 20 cross-functional contributors to reimagine and execute an ambitious redesign in a matter of weeks.

  • Fixed long-standing perception problem: "Damn. Nice."
  • Added 10k+ users daily during public preview with over >90% positive feedback
  • Integrated Copilot agent orchestration for AI-assisted task management
  • Surfaced core workflows for pull requests and issue navigation
Improving GitHub's Homepage for 2M Daily Users

Scaled Security Platform for Enterprise Growth

Signal Sciences (acquired by Fastly)

As Signal Sciences scaled to hundreds of enterprise customers ahead of its $825M acquisition, I owned the platform's core functionality and evolved it to meet enterprise needs.

  • Prepared platform for 40,000 apps monitoring 2 trillion requests/month
  • Redesigned dashboard and navigation for large, complex enterprise instances
  • Added roles, permissions, authentication methods, and IDP integrations
  • Reduced support tickets by 12% and improved sales conversion
Scaled Security Platform for Enterprise Growth

Real-World Product Validation Experiment

Carbon Five (client: Nissan Future Lab)

Nissan hired Carbon Five to research and test how families could co-own vehicles as a new tech-powered business model. Working with a small team of engineers and researchers, we designed and ran a month-long experiment with 50 families, built a custom GPS data dashboard, and prototyped an iOS app to manage car sharing.

  • Validated car sharing hypothesis with real-world data
  • Built custom analytics dashboard tracking utilization, heatmaps, and trip routes
  • Designed and coded interactive iOS prototype in Framer JS
  • Delivered tested artifacts to Nissan that secured executive investment for future development
Real-World Product Validation Experiment – 1
Real-World Product Validation Experiment – 2

Made in sunny Los Angeles, where I work remotely 🌴

Email meConnect on LinkedIn