Designing the Foundations of a Cross-Border Hiring Platform
Overview
Turning a complex international hiring service into a coherent digital product
Industries
HR Tech
SaaS
Year
2024
Comuna was an early-stage platform designed to make international hiring simpler for US companies, with a particular focus on connecting them with talent across Latin America. Rather than acting only as a hiring marketplace, Comuna brought sourcing, screening, contracts, payroll, payments, benefits, and ongoing support into a single service.
I led the product design from the ground up, working across the experience, interface, and visual identity. At that stage, the challenge was less about optimizing an established product and more about turning a business proposition into something people could actually understand and use.
Turning a service into a product
The business model involved several steps that traditionally happen across different services and providers. A company could submit a role, while Comuna would source and screen candidates, conduct cultural and technical interviews, and present a selection of pre-vetted people. Once someone was hired, the platform supported contracts, compliant employment, local-currency payments, bonuses and expenses, as well as configurable benefits and equipment.
Old architecture and navigation (navigating from RFP's to Tasks). Because the platform treated different Deal states as separate concepts, they were spread across five different areas.
The complexity wasn't only in the number of steps. The product had to make sense to two very different audiences: companies looking to hire internationally and contractors looking for stable work and support. I designed the underlying flows and information structure to make those different needs feel like parts of the same service rather than disconnected experiences.
New information architecture - five different platform areas become one
Designing the experience from the ground up
With no mature product or established design system to build on, I worked across the entire design process, from requirements and user flows through wireframes, high-fidelity prototypes, and UI design.
A major part of the work was creating enough structure for the product to evolve consistently. I established a reusable UI library and style guide while designing the individual experiences, allowing patterns to be defined as the product itself was taking shape rather than added later as a layer of documentation.
This also meant thinking beyond individual screens. The interface needed to communicate a service that extended from the first hiring request all the way through the ongoing relationship between companies, contractors, and Comuna.
The new navigation levels
The complete architecture and wireframes for each persona (admin, lender, and borrower), organized by navigation level
Designing the product and its identity together
Because Comuna was still being defined, the visual language was part of the product work rather than something that already existed around it. Alongside the interface, I developed the logo, visual identity, and supporting visual resources.
This gave me an opportunity to use my background in branding and visual design as part of the product definition itself. The goal was not simply to make the platform look consistent, but to give the experience a recognizable personality while creating a visual system that could support a growing product.
The architecture evolved as Bridge expanded into underwriting, closing, and servicing, while the Deal remained the shared context.
Designing for two sides of the relationship
The company and contractor experiences required different priorities. Companies needed clarity around roles, candidates, hiring decisions, and the operational aspects of working internationally. Contractors needed a straightforward way to understand opportunities, move through the hiring process, and access the support that came with working through Comuna.
Designing these experiences together helped define where the platform needed to be consistent and where it needed to adapt. The shared system created continuity across the product, while the individual flows were shaped around what each side needed to accomplish.