Team Q&A: Sarah Sugarman – Senior Product Designer

Whether secondhand shopping or avoiding single-use items as part of her daily commitment to sustainability, or working to ensure excellence in the user experience for the Virtual Peaker platform, our new Senior Product Designer, Sarah Sugarman, is always eager to learn and grow. Join us in welcoming Sarah to the Virtual Peaker team!

How did your previous life prepare you for Virtual Peaker? 

This question is always difficult to answer, but I believe an accumulation of my professional experiences and life experiences has helped shape who I am today as a design professional. I’ve spent my design career dabbling in many different industries, from e-commerce to real estate to behavioral health, and if there’s anything these jobs have taught me, it’s how to be resilient, adaptive, and quick-thinking. 

My favorite saying comes from my mom, who has always taught me “you don’t know what you don’t know,” and I live by that every day. I always strive to learn new things through experiences and people. I believe you can never stop learning, and that’s especially true in the workplace, regardless of experience. 

Tell us about your role at Virtual Peaker. 

As the Senior Product Designer at Virtual Peaker, it’s my responsibility to ensure the product for our clients is not only visually appealing, but also works great too! I believe the best product stems from cross-team collaboration and am a huge advocate for building rapport with my teammates. Everyone’s input is invaluable in my eyes, so don’t be surprised if you see me reaching out over Slack or inviting you to a meeting for your input! 

How do you personally engage in sustainability efforts? 

In the ever-rising culture of over-consumerism, I avoid single-use items or things that are clearly more of a cash grab than something that is supposed to last me for a long time. I love buying things secondhand off of places like FB marketplace and Depop, and make a conscious effort to donate items I no longer need to organizations that may need them. 

What can you tell us about yourself?

Outside of work, I enjoy my downtime cooking, gaming with friends, partaking in various crafts (my newest one is doing my own gel manicures at home), and checking out new restaurants or cafes in the DMV area! 

About The Author

Bill is a serial entrepreneur with a PhD from UC Berkeley in Controls and Artificial Intelligence and 10 years of experience with high performance residential energy management and connected appliances. He was previously at GE as an Advanced Systems Engineer in the Connected Home Software Group, but left that role in May 2014 to pursue entrepreneurship full time.

Bill grew up in Louisville and returned with his family in 2010 after a long stint in the San Francisco Bay Area. He loves Louisville and is working to make it a better and more attractive city for high tech startups.

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