Recrubo
Helping a recruitment tech-startup scale and professionalize their product
Context
Recrubo is a conversational AI recruitment platform. Its chatbots make applying for a job simpler for candidates, and give recruiters the tools to build those conversations and manage the people who come through them. I joined on a retainer after they had raised funding and were scaling fast, at around 15 people. An agency had run early design sprints on the product to lay the foundation for a redesigned interface, but new features kept arriving faster than the system could handle.
Problem
The design system wasn't keeping up with the product. New feature requests came in faster than the existing patterns could absorb them. The default fix by developers was always to add: another page, another button, another setting. Each addition solved one request, but over time that approach makes a product harder to use and harder to build on.
Process
For every feature request, I worked through the logic before touching any screens. I sparred with the development and product leads, then proposed structural solutions instead of additive ones: shifting what already existed so the product still made sense as a whole. I treated each request as a systems puzzle, weighing UX patterns and usability principles against what the product already was. Alongside the product work I designed pitch and funding decks, keeping the visual language consistent between the product and everything investors saw.
Proposal
An expanded design system covering the full recruitment flow, from the chatbot conversation builder to candidate management. Three parts show the thinking best. The flow analytics view tracks drop-off and completion per step, so the team can see exactly where a conversation loses candidates. The candidate CRM lets recruiters filter, label and segment a growing candidate base. And the flow and action builder handles multi-step conversation logic, exit steps and reply types: the puzzle-piece thinking made visible.
Result
Design decisions became more and more grounded in the analytics themselves. Drop-off data showed where flows needed to be redesigned, not just extended. Developers could build from finalised, systemised designs instead of half-specced fixes. The product stayed consistent while both the complexity of the flows and the candidate base kept growing.
Lara designed the core UX/UI and design systems behind our conversational AI hiring platform. Her thoughtful, user-centered approach was critical in creating a seamless experience that resonated with our users and helped us reach product-market fit. She played a key role in taking our product from 0 to 1, both in vision and execution.
Niels Tukker
Founder Recrubo
