Andrei Cucoanes: Senior Product & UX Designer, Bucharest. I am Andrei and…

Andrei Cucoaneș portrait Andrei Cucoaneș portrait
…I navigated a game menu before I ever navigated a website. Got my first computer at 6, started writing Basic at 7, and the rest of childhood was a long argument with my parents about how much of it could be spent gaming. Turns out a lot of it. I was paying attention to the systems underneath the games without knowing I was doing it. That part never went away.

I spent the first 11 years of my career in advertising as an art director and creative director, the last seven on the product side. The handoff between the two wasn't a pivot. Around 2016 I realized I'd been doing UX all along (researching audiences, designing for someone other than myself, prototyping in Flash, sweating the details) without the label for it. The first time I built something meant to live longer than a monthly campaign was SETHER in 2018. That's when it became official.

Since then I've led design for fintech (LegalDocs / FinancialDocs), blockchain (SETHER, ETHAX), legal tech, retail, energy. My method is research-first and on a deadline: I'd rather sacrifice an evening to pull five user interviews out of friends-of-friends or competitor review sections than ship a flow built on what I assumed. Research first, but always pointed at a number: what gets people to finish? I once buried a survey question inside a chocolate shop redesign just to test a hunch about gift-wrapping. It shipped as the feature the client said they wished they'd thought of years earlier.

The 11 advertising years are the part I think most product designers I've met haven't done. They show up in the work as branding instinct (every system gets treated like there's a brand book sitting behind it), filter-feedback reflexes from a thousand focus groups, and the habit of opening a stakeholder presentation with the emotional read before the spreadsheet.

I can lead and I can do the work. As Creative Director at V8 Interactive I grew the creative department from two people to ten (and helped the agency reach 30) and ran a weekly ritual called Thursday Play that turned juniors into the senior creatives now leading work at Publicis. I still mentor, but I'd rather be hands-on than be the face of the department.

I publish #TipTrickTool on LinkedIn (pay-it-forward notes for designers at the start of their career or in the middle of the current AI-makes-everything-feel-uncertain moment).

I'm based in Bucharest, work remote or hybrid, and I'm looking for the kind of team where humor lands, communication actually happens, and the work matters enough to argue about. Creative tools and developer tools have my heart, but the bar isn't the industry. It's the team.

"Andrei is a fantastic creative. He's super positive, humble, and works exceptionally well as a team leader."

Ionuț Andrei, CEO, V8 Interactive

Let's work together

These days I run this as an independent practice, taking on product and UX work for teams that need someone who can own a problem end to end.

Day to day, that means working with you as a contractor: scoped, focused, gone when the problem's solved (or sticking around longer if you want me to).

If the right in-house seat comes along, Senior or Lead, remote or hybrid in Bucharest, I won't say no to that either.

But if you're building something complicated under the hood that has to feel simple on top, let's talk.

Start with "Hello there!".

Work with me

How we'd work together

1

Say "Hello there!"

A short call, fifteen to twenty minutes. You tell me what's broken (or what you're building), I ask the annoying questions I always ask, and we figure out together if it's a fit.

2

I send you a plan.

Scope, timeline, price, written down before we start, so you know exactly what you're paying for.

3

We start.

Kickoff, and you already know what "done" looks like, because we agreed on it in step 2.

Questions worth answering upfront

What do you do?

Senior product and UX design. I find where a product loses people, then redesign the flow, backed by research, to fix it.

Who do you work with?

Founders and product teams, usually complex products (fintech, legal tech, blockchain so far) that need to feel simple to the person using them.

How does an engagement start?

A short call, then a written plan with scope and timeline before anything else happens. Details above, in "How we'd work together."

Are you available for contract or full-time?

Mostly contract, through Geekvader SRL. I wouldn't rule out the right in-house role either.

What's your rate range?

Depends on the scope, honestly. A quick audit and a full product-plus-brand build aren't the same conversation. I'll give you a real number once I know what you're solving, not before.