# Nuno Coelho

> Nuno Coelho (also published as Nuno Coelho Santos) is an independent product designer and design engineer based in Tokyo, Japan, originally from Porto, Portugal. He has over a decade of experience designing and building products used by billions of people across consumer messaging, healthcare and AI, including WhatsApp, Google Health and Google DeepMind. He designs and codes, shipping native iOS apps in Swift and SwiftUI.

Last updated: 2026-10-13
Website: https://nunocoelho.me/ (also in Portuguese at https://nunocoelho.me/pt/ and Japanese at https://nunocoelho.me/ja/)
Also known as: Nuno Coelho Santos, nunosans. Previous domains nunocoelhosantos.com and nunosans.com now redirect to nunocoelho.me.
Location: Tokyo, Japan. Originally from Porto, Portugal.
Contact: nuno@nunocoelho.me

## Current status

Since leaving WhatsApp in 2024, Nuno works independently from Tokyo. He is studying for an Executive MBA, building and validating his own product ideas and iOS apps, and occasionally works with early-stage teams across design, product, brand and leadership. He is not actively looking for a full-time role, but is open to connecting.

## Experience

### Product Designer & Design Engineer, Independent (2024–present)

Tokyo, Japan.

- Building and validating new product ideas, including the iOS apps Currency 2 and Quick Codes.
- Works with early-stage ventures on product design, brand and process.

### Product Designer, WhatsApp (Meta) (2021–2024)

London, UK and Berlin, Germany. https://www.whatsapp.com/

- Led the design of WhatsApp Business Discovery from early exploration to launch as Business Search (Brazil 2021, expanding across South America in 2022).
- Contributed to WhatsApp Lists, which launched globally in 2024, and redesigned inbox management for business users with labels and filters.
- Contributed to the WhatsApp first-message experience.

### Senior UX Designer & Design Manager, Google Health (2019–2020)

London, UK. https://health.google/

- Managed the London visual design team for Google Health.
- Led UX design of Google Care Studio for mobile, a clinical platform for US clinicians.
- Co-led healthcare-specific patterns for Material Design: icons, illustration, data visualisation and data formatters.
- Part of Alphabet's COVID-19 response, building hospital capacity dashboards with the UK Department of Health. Received the Google Award for Excellence.

### UX Designer, Google DeepMind (2017–2019)

London, UK. https://deepmind.google/

- Part of the initial team building Streams, a CE-marked mobile app giving clinicians patient records and AI-powered deterioration alerts.
- Led the redesign of Streams in Material Design and set design principles for clinically safe interfaces.
- Prototyped OCTane-E, a tool exploring eye-scan (OCT) segmentation from DeepMind research models, tested with clinicians at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

### Product Designer (Contract), IDEO (2016)

Tokyo, Japan. https://www.ideo.com/

- High-fidelity prototyping for Rakuten, Hitachi, Suntory and other IDEO Tokyo clients.

### Product Designer & Front-End Web Developer, Thread (2014–2015)

London, UK. https://www.thread.com/

- Y Combinator-backed personal styling startup.
- Redesigned the registration flow, raising average order value for new users by 49%.
- Rebuilt the website mobile-first for the 67% of users on mobile.

### User Interface Designer, ustwo (2012–2014)

London, UK and New York, USA. https://ustwo.com/

- Client work for American Express (Plenti), Barclays (Pingit), eBay, Hasbro, Sony and Google DoubleClick.

## Apps

- [Currency 2](https://apps.apple.com/app/id1109685198) (2026): A fast, minimal currency converter for iOS with scan-to-convert and draw-to-find. First released as Currency in 2016.
- [Quick Codes](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6744647075) (2025): The easiest way to create, share and collect QR codes on iOS.

## Personal projects

- [Big Sur Icons](https://bigsuricons.nunocoelho.me/) (2021): A collection of redesigned macOS icons.
- [A Year in an Instant](https://ayearinaninstant.com/) (2016): Daily instant photos of his first year living in Japan.
- [15 Days in Japan](https://15daysinjapan.com/) (2013): A photographic diary of his first trip to Japan.

## Talks

- Side-Projects Presentation, Design at Meta London Meetup (2022)
- [Turning the Abstract into Reality](https://www.adobe.com/max/2020/sessions/turning-abstract-into-reality-the-superpower-of-ux-od5168.html), Adobe MAX (2020)
- Zen & the Art of Design Systems, Panel discussion hosted by Adobe (2020)
- [Keynote](https://digicom.ipca.pt/2018/), DIGICOM 2018, Portugal (2018)
- Building Design Systems as a Team, Bristol Product Design Meetup (2018)
- Validating Product Ideas with Design Sprints, UX Talks Tokyo, with Roy Husada (2016)

## Interviews

- [Danielle Newnham Podcast](https://danielle-newnham-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/nuno-coehlo-santos) (2024)
- [Lovers Magazine](https://spaces.is/loversmagazine/interviews/nuno-coelho-santos) (2018)

## Education

- Executive MBA (in progress), Quantic School of Business and Technology (2026–2027)
- BA (Hons) Graphic Design, specialising in Interaction Design, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (2008–2012)
- Professional Diploma in Graphic Design and Visual Communication, Escola Artística de Soares dos Reis (2005–2008)

## Certifications

- d.MBA Certificate, Business for Designers, d.MBA (2026)
- Data Science Short Course, General Assembly (2019)
- MBA Essentials, The London School of Economics and Political Science (2018)
- HMX Fundamentals: Physiology, Immunology, Biochemistry and Genetics, Harvard Medical School (2017)

## Awards

- Google Award for Excellence (2020), for critical contributions to Alphabet's COVID-19 response

## Languages

- English: Native-level
- Portuguese: Native
- Japanese: Intermediate

## Expertise

Product design, Interaction design, Design systems, Design engineering, Prototyping, iOS development (Swift, SwiftUI), Healthcare and clinical software, Artificial intelligence products, Messaging products, Material Design, Apple Human Interface Guidelines, Brand and product strategy for early-stage startups.

## Profiles

- [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/nunosans)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/nunosans)
- [Threads](https://threads.net/nunosans)
- [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/nunosans.bsky.social)
- [Mastodon](https://mastodon.design/@nunosans)
- [X](https://x.com/nunosans)
- [Instagram](https://instagram.com/nunosans)
- [Dribbble](https://dribbble.com/nunosans)
- [Substack](https://substack.com/@nunosans)
- [GoFractional](https://www.gofractional.com/member/nuno-coelho-santos)
- [Links page](https://nunocoelho.me/links/)