AdHawk

NRD Tech’s business is domains — buying URLs, holding them, and selling them. AdHawk is the platform designed to run that portfolio, and over twenty-seven weeks in 2025 I led the team that built it: a mid-level designer working under my direction, two developers implementing as we designed, and a stakeholder group I kept aligned from kickoff to delivery.

This engagement is covered by an NDA. The linked Figma file contains only the work NRD Tech has cleared for public view; the complete product can be walked through in a live, non-recorded call.

The problem

A domain portfolio is a strange asset class: thousands of URLs, each with its own value, history, and moment to sell. Running that business demands tooling built for it, and building that tooling demands sustained coordination — this was not a sprint but a twenty-seven-week product effort where design, development, and business stakeholders all had to stay in step.

The leadership challenge sat alongside the design one. A mid-level designer needed direction that made them better, not just busier. Two developers needed designs that arrived decision-complete, on time, in dependency order. And stakeholders needed to see progress and shape priorities without derailing the roadmap — for over six months straight.

What I did

I ran AdHawk as both lead designer and design manager. Design direction and the hardest product problems stayed on my desk; scoped, well-briefed workstreams went to the mid-level designer with review cycles that doubled as mentoring. The developers never waited on design — we sequenced the work so that what they needed next was always specified before they needed it.

Stakeholder communication ran the full length of the project as a discipline of its own: regular reviews, decisions documented as they were made, and priorities renegotiated in the open when the business shifted. Twenty-seven weeks is long enough for a project to drift; this one didn’t, because alignment was treated as a deliverable.

What changed

AdHawk delivered NRD Tech a platform purpose-built for the way they buy, hold, and sell domains — designed, iterated, and implemented by a team of four across twenty-seven weeks. Under the NDA, the outcomes and interface stay off the public portfolio; the cleared portion lives in the linked Figma file, and the rest is a conversation — a full product walkthrough is available in a live, non-recorded call.

This work will be fully available for review after the public launch in November, 2027. Visit the NDA Work tab of my portfolio to request your private review PIN number.