Arwen Varner-Howland

In my 2.5 years at LPL, I flourished in my skills and experience as a UX designer by working closely with a team of talented designers and researchers on more than 20 distinct projects, always balancing multiple engagements at once.

For over 9 months, I was the lead UX designer on a complex, high-profile project to enable advisors to manage custom financial models for their client’s accounts. Currently in Beta, the product has been well received: 28 advisors have allocated 
$39 million across 195 accounts (as of Aug. 2018).

I was the lead UX designer for TradeKing’s next-gen platform, TradeKing LIVE, a responsive online brokerage platform that provided research and trading tools for self- directed investors to buy and sell stocks, options, bonds and mutual funds.

I was initially given the title Senior Quality Assurance Analyst, as I had excelled in such work previously as a consultant for Rubbermaid. Shortly after I was hired, however, the team focus shifted to improving the manufacturing process. My manager knew of my aptitude for UX work, so designing a new manufacturing system from scratch became my primary focus. Working closely with our engineers for several months, we launched the new system during a trip to our facility in Mexico in April 2015.

My primary project while working for Cardinal was for Rubbermaid Healthcare as Software Quality Assurance Lead, where I was praised by R&D management as the “single biggest contributor to the drastic improvement in software quality” for the CareLink product launch. I identified over 100 critical bugs within the first two months, enabling Beta testing to begin with confidence.

My relationship with ACST started with a summer internship, during which I wrote a complete online help manual for their church management software, Membership Plus. After being hired full-time as a technical writer, I demonstrated an aptitude for technical learning, which led management to request I take on a new role as test automation developer. Later on, my leadership was further recognized when I was promoted to the additional role of team Scrum Master.

Diagnosed and repaired student computers, gaining invaluable experience in hardware, software, and customer service skills.