Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Parra.
Hi Mike, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Mike Parra and I am a multi-passionate creative: a seasoned Digital Product Designer, musician, and hobbyist baker. I grew up in Houston, TX where I found my talents in the arts very early on as a kid. I found myself naturally gravitating toward drawing, painting, sculpting, anything I could get my hands on to create something new. I loved creating something of my own, something new and unique.
As I grew up and evolved my skills through middle school and high school, I developed an interest in learning how to make websites which led me to learn digital art and graphic design. I would make personal websites, websites for friends, and eventually websites for local bands and musicians. Little did I know at the the time that this little hobby of mine would eventually grow into my career as an adult. Around the same time, as a freshman in high school, I was learning how to play the guitar and how to write music. Music became a fast passion and something I often immersed myself into.
Eventually, I attended UT Dallas as an Arts and Technology major where I further developed my skills in technology and design. Some time after graduating, I found my first User Experience Design job where my creativity and technical skills would come together to design digital experiences for a major international airline. Since then, I’ve designed customer-facing digital experiences for a variety of major companies around the DFW area. Today, I work for a national bank designing an internal digital platform that helps our teammates work better together.
Musically, I’ve continued developing my skills in songwriting and performance. I played in a local groove metal band for about a decade, performing shows around the DFW area as well as recording a few albums with that group. In 2019, my wife and I moved to Nashville for her to pursue her MBA, and during that time I started developing my own musical sound and style as a solo artist. I self-released an album in 2022 and continue to compose and further my education in music today.
I absolutely love solving hard problems, pulling people together to achieve a goal, and finding unique ways to create. I love helping others find their creative voice, whether its a teammate or a friend, out of my belief that everyone is creative in different ways.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It hasn’t always been smooth, however I’ve been extremely fortunate in my journey. I feel very lucky that I found my interest in design early on, and that early discovery has helped direct my education and career. However, as any creative can attest to, there are always challenges along the way.
As a young designer early in my career, I often struggled to speak the language of my non-designer teammates which limited my ability to influence in the ways I would have liked. I made the mistake a lot of new designers make, which is focusing so much on technical skill that you forget you’re a part of a larger ecosystem with technical constraints, business constraints, and stakeholders with their own goals.
It wasn’t until I started learning how to navigate these conditions that I started seeing the results that my younger self wanted to see. It made me a better teammate, a better designer, and a better leader.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’ve been a user experience designer and product designer for 14 years. I’ve worked across a variety of industries in my career, from airline, e-commerce, finance, and insurance, designing software experiences for all kinds of people. I tend to specialize in large scale platforms with thousands of users, so I often have to think about flexibility, accessibility, and scalability.
I’m most proud of a project I worked on at a major insurance company where my team and I led a series of strategic workshops and a research effort to help the business define their long-term strategy in the smart home tech space. It was through this period of my career where I found the importance of group facilitation, which unlocked my ability to bring others along with the design process while making it fun and engaging.
These days, I’m known for organizing effective group workshops that bring transparency and collaboration into the design process, helping my teammates and stakeholders bring their ideas to the table in a safe space. While I do have a lot more to learn in this area, I do feel my abilities to run these sessions is something that has started to set me apart in my field.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I define success fairly simply: do I feel good about what I’m doing? I can apply this to many aspects of my life, from a new digital product design, a new piece of music, a new experimental cupcake recipe. It can also apply to life. Do I actually feel good about the choices I’m making, how I spend my time, how I make others feel, how I engage with my friendships, how I’m engaging in my marriage, etc. I try to remember to listen to my gut instinct, and if something feels off or wrong then I need to listen to it and figure out why. If I’m building relationships, helping others, and putting out good work, then I feel successful.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mikeparra.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-parra-63b26733
- Other: mike.parra.design@gmail.com
