Samson Kirigua

I design the systems behind the screens — payment flows, operational tools, and mobile products that work under real constraints across African markets.

Product design Nairobi, Kenya 13 years in design, 7 in product, across fintech, clean energy, logistics and marketplaces

About

I figure out what's actually broken and help teams fix the right thing.

Over the past seven years I've worked on marketplaces, fintech products, clean energy, logistics platforms and internal tools, mostly in situations where mistakes are expensive and users don't get second chances to trust you.

I've learned that design is usually the straightforward part. The harder work is diagnosing why something isn't working — a drop-off that nobody can explain, a flow that's technically correct but operationally useless, incentives that push users in the wrong direction — and then getting a cross-functional team to agree that's what we should fix first.

I lead design work that spans product strategy, UX, and delivery. Teams tend to bring me in when progress has stalled or when a product needs to go from "it works" to "people actually use it." I care about outcomes that hold up: better conversion, less friction, more trust, fewer support calls.

Most of what I work on now is mobile-first, at scale, in markets where the infrastructure doesn't always cooperate.

Selected work

2026

D2E Growth Companion

Testing an AI growth coach with small business owners, and finding three launch blockers before any customer did.

View case study
2025

Jumba Connect Seller Onboarding

Nine in ten sellers dropped off before listing anything. I rebuilt onboarding around their first sale.

View case study
2024

Inventory Management Redesign

An internal tool had the right data but the wrong structure. I redesigned it around how operations teams actually work.

View case study
2023

Seller Storefront

Designing a self-checkout product sellers would trust enough to collect payments through — then watching it get shelved before launch.

View case study
2022

Pay by Bank Transfer

Introducing bank transfers as a payment method for Nigerian merchants who didn't trust card payments.

View case study
2021

Verification Platform

Replacing four separate onboarding tools with one centralized KYC system across four countries.

View case study

What people say

"I saw him grow from a visual designer to a product designer, then to a senior product designer, and finally to my manager as the Product Design Lead."

Denis Gachoki

Denis Gachoki

Product Designer

"His ability to communicate design decisions clearly and effectively has been crucial in driving project success."

Supreet Kumar

Supreet Kumar

Senior Design Manager, IBM | NID, CUA™, CXA™

Let's connect

Open to collaborations, product design opportunities, and consulting projects.