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About me

Hey, I’m Jorell — a designer who genuinely loves what he does.

Born and raised in Texas, I’ve spent the last few years at the intersection of design and technology — building things that actually matter to people. Right now I’m at American Express, where I work on enterprise products that help thousands of colleagues manage risk smarter. Previously I was a two-time PwC intern, a co-founder, and a VP of Marketing for a CS club that needed a serious glow-up.

When I’m not at a screen: cooking something ambitious, going down a rabbit hole at 2am with friends, logging miles on road trips, or replaying Mother 3 for the nth time. Minecraft music is always on.

Jorell Padilla
Right now

Working at

American Express — building GenAI & IRM products

Based in

Houston, TX

Open to

New product design roles & collaborations

01 Where it started

My design journey started in a high school digital media class when I picked up Photoshop for the first time. I had no idea what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop. Something about being able to make something out of nothing on a screen just clicked for me.

I went on to study Computer Science at the University of Houston, graduating in December 2024. The technical foundation helped, but what I kept coming back to was the design side — how you make something not just functional, but intuitive, and maybe even delightful.

02 The CougarCS era

Early in college I became VP of Marketing at CougarCS, the largest CS organization at the University of Houston. The brand was outdated, engagement was declining, and the club didn’t look like the professional community it was trying to be.

I did a full rebrand — logos, color system, website, social assets, motion graphics, merch. The new identity helped attract sponsors like Google, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and more. It was also just genuinely fun. Sometimes the best design work is the kind where someone immediately gets it.

03 Learning at PwC

Over two summers, I interned at PwC in back-to-back roles that couldn’t have been more different. In 2023, I joined as a Product Development Intern, redesigning a non-profit platform to help underserved students access career resources. I learned what it means to design for real impact.

In 2024, I came back as a Product Design Intern working on AI-powered automation for tax professionals — helping senior staff spend less time on busywork and more on the work that actually requires their expertise. That summer taught me how to hold my own in a room full of stakeholders, and that showing imperfect work early is almost always the right call.

04 Building Resumes.fyi

In my last semester of college, I teamed up with five friends to build something I genuinely needed myself. We were all job hunting and frustrated by the same thing: nobody really knows what a resume that gets you past the screen actually looks like. So we built Resumes.fyi — a crowdsourced platform where people who got callbacks at top tech companies could share the resumes that landed them there.

I was the only designer. I built the brand from scratch, designed every screen, ran the user research, and iterated constantly — all while finishing my degree. Six months after launch, the platform was acquired by Exponent. That project changed how I think about shipping: get something into people’s hands fast, then listen hard.

05 Now at Amex

Since February 2025, I’ve been at American Express as a Product Manager, leading the design and development of GenAI products within the risk organization. The work involves a lot of complexity — multiple user types, enterprise-grade tooling, strict governance requirements — and I love it.

Most recently, I designed the landing page for Amex’s transition to ServiceNow IRM — building an entry point that feels familiar and purposeful for colleagues across the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd lines of defense. The challenge is always the same: make something complicated feel simple.

🍳

Amateur home cook. I’ll spend three hours on a meal that takes ten minutes to eat, and I’ll do it again the next weekend.

🎮

RPG obsessive. Pokémon, Undertale, Mother 3 — give me a good story and a turn-based battle system and I’m gone for the weekend.

🚗

Road trip person. There’s something about being on a highway at sunset with no particular agenda that resets my brain completely.

🎶

Minecraft music always on. C418’s soundtrack somehow makes everything — deep work, late nights, even client calls — feel more peaceful.