Hey there, I’m Jerad

I make complex systems worth switching to.

I’m a senior product designer with 20 years in enterprise platforms, legacy modernization, and AI-assisted workflows. At Kroger, I’ve spent four years replacing the legacy systems behind merchandising, from maxed-out spreadsheets to green-screen databases, with platforms people actually use. The one we’re retiring now takes $1.6M a year in licensing fees with it.

Bentonville, Arkansas · Remote since 2018

Teams and clients I’ve designed for

  • Kroger
  • Covenant Eyes
  • Procter & Gamble
  • Ford
  • Johnson & Johnson
  • Janssen
  • Toshiba
  • Whirlpool
  • Givaudan

Work

Selected work

Most of my work lives where data is dense and mistakes are expensive: systems that thousands of people depend on to do their jobs.

Kroger merchandising platforms

Kroger Technology & Digital · 2022–now

  1. What is this item? IME Led
  2. Where is it sold online? Archon Led
  3. Which stores can carry it? SATH Co-designed

Kroger · Principal designer · 2024–now

Item Management Experience (IME)

Retiring legacy item systems without breaking a 2.2M-⁠item operation

IME is replacing four legacy tools with one platform for everything about an item. I'm the primary designer of the GTIN record, its core editing experience. In 2026 I'm leading the migration that retires PIM, one user group at a time, with onboarding and an AI assistant I built to carry each group across.

  • $1.6M/yr in PIM licensing fees, gone when it retires at the end of fiscal 2026
  • 400+ read-only users, many of them new to item data
Retiring PIM, one user group at a time 2 of 8 groups moved to IME · 1 in November · 3 in December · the last 2 in January

As of Oct 2026

Archon’s assortment grid in Live Edit Mode, with edited cells highlighted, on a pattern of grocery icons

Kroger · Lead designer & researcher · 2022–24

Archon

Taking e-commerce assortment off spreadsheets

Kroger tracked which grocery items each fulfillment center sells online in ten hand-kept Excel files that had hit their limit. Archon replaced them and is now the source of truth for e-commerce assortment.

  • 250 hrs saved per assortment manager, per year
  • 5 hrs → 10 min for one team's weekly process

Also at Kroger · Co-designer · 2026

Store Authorization (SATH)

Joined a behind-schedule modernization with one other senior designer. We redesigned it top to bottom in two weeks, hardened it with users over five more, and it shipped to all 23 divisions in October 2026.

  • 2 weeks to a full redesign
  • 23 divisions live, Oct 2026

Covenant Eyes

Lead product designer · 2018–22

The redesigned Covenant Eyes account-creation screen

Sign-up redesign

One product, one price, and a sign-up people could finish

  • 15% → ~30% conversion
  • 40%+ faster sign-up
The Victory app on a phone

The Victory app

Real-time accountability and support, from concept to launch

  • 4.7★ on the App Store & Google Play
  • ~70% of allies needed only the new summary

Earlier work

Kaleidoscope Innovation · 2011–18

An exploded view of EnVision 360: a 2D room plan on a grid, with wall tools open, lifted into a 3D render of a CT scanner room

Toshiba Medical (now Canon Medical) · 2015

Toshiba EnVision 360

Planning a hospital imaging room meant hand-measured notes passed to CAD teams. It took weeks, and one wrong number could leave million-dollar equipment that didn't fit. I led UX for EnVision 360, an iPad and desktop app that lets sales staff build the room on the spot with the hospital and walk through it in 3D.

Weeks → hours to plan a room

Hands holding an iPad showing a step timer with a Start button, in front of a blurred operating room

Med X · Kaleidoscope · 2016

NoteTaker

Field staff on a new eye-surgery trial logged each procedure on paper forms that often came back incomplete, and had asked for something better. I led UX and UI for an iPad app that works like a stopwatch for each surgical step and uploads to a review site. I also made most of the instructional materials surgeons used to learn the procedure.

~70% lower projected cost per case

Side quests

Outside the day job

Leadership

Beyond my own projects

  • members

    White Rabbit Society

    Co-founded and co-lead Kroger's employee-led AI community (2023). As early Claude Code users, we helped onboard designers and PMs through the company-wide rollout, and I led creation of The AI Starter Kit.

  • designers

    Design Cohort

    Co-founded a weekly critique forum for seven designers, built on full commitment and developmental feedback. Within weeks, our director adopted the operating principles I wrote for a design review program across his group.

  • design interns

    Management & Mentorship

    Managed three design interns across four rotations at Kroger, including one who co-built IME’s AI onboarding assistant with me. Before that, I managed a team of designers at Covenant Eyes, handling their training, delegation, and oversight.

He can grasp difficult concepts and quickly provide design artifacts for end user review. I appreciate Jerad's ability to ask thoughtful questions and follow-up with concise summaries.
Susan Toompas, Senior Product Manager, Kroger Technology & Digital
I have seen Jerad take on large, complex projects and craft clear novel solutions. He asks tough questions that challenge perspectives and practices in a kind and inviting way.
Amber Swartz, Product Designer, Covenant Eyes
Jerad is the real deal. He’s as smart as anyone I’ve ever encountered and a student of creativity and design.
Jason Walker, Creative Director, Covenant Eyes
Jerad's attention to detail, deep reflection, and strategic thinking make him a powerful designer. As his manager, I've been sharpened by his expertise and experience.
Jon Daiello, UX Manager, Covenant Eyes
Jerad Raines, smiling, in black and white

About

Still here? Good. I’m a big fan of curiosity.

I grew up in a small country town full of fireflies, whippoorwills, and not much else, except a family of born storytellers. Add a steady diet of ’80s and ’90s pop culture and you get a kid who wanted to make things.

Design still feels like storytelling to me. Every tangle of rules, data, and edge cases has a through line, and my job is to find it and make it easy to follow. It’s also what the people I’ve worked with bring up most: taking something complicated and making it clear, and asking the hard questions kindly along the way. I care about the small parts as much as the big ones: the words in an error message, the order of fields in a form, the one interaction people will repeat all day.

I’m also a type nerd. One week it’s a strict monochrome palette and a neo-grotesque; the next it’s neon and Cooper Black. Knowing which job calls for which is half the fun.

Off the clock

  • National parks

    My wife and I collect them like trading cards. Twenty and counting, each with a trail story.

  • Landscape photography

    Most of those parks end up in my portfolio and print shop.

  • Dungeon master

    I run D&D campaigns for friends across time zones. Dragons, intrigue, and a lot of improvised voices.

  • Films

    I watch a lot of movies, so I built Afterimage, a recommendation engine of hand-picked films.

  • About fifty plants

    Including a few bonsai on the windowsill. They all call me dad.

  • A small zoo

    Two cats, two dogs, four amphibians, fifteen fish, and about thirty invertebrates.

Want to talk kerning, obscure movie references, or the best pizza in town? Say hello.