Open to opportunities

Nate Ernst

@nateernst

I design enterprise experiences, design systems, and digital products that balance customer, business, and technical needs.

United States

Message

I'm currently a Principal Experience Designer at Bank of America, where I build on more than 20 years across product strategy, leadership, and user experience design.

I've led UX and product work at Bank of America, TIAA, Wells Fargo, TELUS Agriculture, and Ally Financial, balancing business and technology requirements with customer needs to create consistent, intuitive enterprise applications.

Through Varloo Design, I work with clients on web and print design, brand strategy, project management, and workflows using Adobe tools, WordPress, and hand-coded HTML, CSS, and PHP.

I'm also learning AI through NC History Highway and a live App Store app. My background spans front-end development, design systems, usability testing, marketing, content, and business.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

AI wrangler

Current

NC History Highway

Nov 2025 - Present (9 months)

Learning AI with an actual app that is live on the App Store. Ask me anything about it and I’ll ask Claude

Current

SVP, Principal Experience Designer

Current

Bank of America

Oct 2021 - Present (4 years 10 months)

Worked as SVP, Principal Experience Designer at Bank of America.

Current

Owner/Designer

Current

Varloo Design

Jul 2006 - Present (20 years 1 month)

Working with clients to develop web and print designs that incorporate their tastes with good design practices using the Adobe suite, WordPress, and hand coding HTML, CSS and PHP.

Design and brand strategy, project management, workflow, and billing.

UX Manager

TELUS Agriculture

May 2021 - Oct 2021 (5 months)

Worked as UX Manager at TELUS Agriculture.

VP, Sr. UX Lead

Bank of America

Oct 2018 - May 2021 (2 years 7 months)

Worked as VP, Sr. UX Lead at Bank of America.

Owner

Downtown Donuts

Feb 2017 - Oct 2019 (2 years 8 months)

Worked as Owner at Downtown Donuts.

Product Manager

Wells Fargo

Jan 2018 - Jul 2018 (6 months)

Worked as Product Manager at Wells Fargo.

Product Manager

TIAA

Nov 2016 - Oct 2017 (11 months)

Worked as Product Manager at TIAA.

Product Design Manager

TIAA

May 2015 - Nov 2016 (1 year 6 months)

Worked as Product Design Manager at TIAA.

UX Lead

TIAA

Apr 2012 - May 2015 (3 years 1 month)

Worked as UX Lead at TIAA.

Web Designer at Auxiliary Services

UNC Charlotte

Jan 2009 - Apr 2014 (5 years 3 months)

As the solo designer/developer, I designed and coded a new site from scratch for Auxiliary Services at UNC Charlotte [aux.uncc.edu]. Honorable Mention on theCSSawards.com.

Code: Standards compliant XHTML, CSS (built on the Blueprint CSS framework), JQuery, and PHP. Incorporated RSS feeds, Twitter feeds, Facebook, successful SEO techniques, and Google analytics.

Information Architecture/Project M

Sr. UX/Web Designer

Ally Financial Inc.

Oct 2010 - Apr 2012 (1 year 6 months)

Design primarily transactional user interface design for various enterprise-level web applications.

• Balance business and technology requirements with needs of the customer to devise creative, consistent and intuitive visual design solutions to complex business and user interface problems
• Understand and design for the array of technical constraints, user goals and business requirements that sh

Senior Web Designer

Enventys

Apr 2010 - Sep 2010 (5 months)

Designing, coding, and updating numerous client websites built in HTML, PHP, ASP, WordPress and Ruby on Rails. [enventys.com]

Web Producer/Designer

Asheville Citizen-Times

Feb 2007 - Aug 2007 (6 months)

Designed and developed new website features, graphics, promo websites and department Microsoft SharePoint site using Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, and hand coding XHTML, CSS and AJAX.

Scheduled and tracked flash and static online advertising using 3rd party ad delivery solutions (24/7 Real Media’s Open AdStream). Monitored website analytics using Omniture.
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Designed and re