About me
한글로 읽기Jihoon Suh is a Korean product designer based in New York City: Staff Product Designer and design lead at Coinbase, with 10+ years of designing global consumer products at scale and four US patents.
The journey
Three startups
2012, 2015 – 2016
Which technologies matter?
At three startups in EdTech, wearables, and IoT, I built products end to end, from hardware to web and mobile. I also found out how much emerging technology excited me, VR most of all.
Daydream, AR/VR · 2017
How can immersive computing feel easy?
At this research lab, I designed and prototyped interaction patterns for immersive computing, and mapped how AR/VR could fit into Google's ecosystem at the OS level.
Meta
Facebook Gaming · 2018 – 2020
How do people gather online?
I shifted my focus from immersive experiences to human connection. People formed some of the first large online communities around games, and I wanted to learn how products shape social behavior.
Meta
Messenger · 2020 – 2022
Can we be together while apart?
When the pandemic made video calling essential, I moved from Gaming to Messenger. I led design for the real-time social suite as it reached hundreds of millions of people, and since then I've cared most about technology that helps people connect.
Coinbase
Onchain finance · 2022 – Present
How does value move across the internet?
As the pandemic eased, I turned to blockchain and asked what happens when value moves as freely as information. Since joining, I've worked on wallets, onchain finance, borrowing, lending, and trading. I'm still working on the same problem: making a new technology understandable, useful, and trustworthy for everyday people.
How I lead
Player-coach
I lead small teams and keep designing myself. I mentor the people around me, and outside work I advise teams on design and hiring.
Strategy and new bets
I contribute to product and team strategy and often join the company's riskiest 0-to-1 bets as founding designer, from Stand with Crypto to onchain finance.
Streamlining how the team works
I helped rethink design review and support so designers spend less time on process and more on design.
Rituals and a quality bar
I run the team's rituals, decide what launches with cross-functional partners, and set the quality bar, most of all where no conventions exist yet.
Why design
I'm drawn to the moment a new technology moves from demos into people's everyday lives. People make that move once it feels understandable, useful, and trustworthy.
Design is how you get a technology there, and that's the work I want to do. I came to it through human-computer interaction: I spent years in the HCI research community, published three peer-reviewed papers, and presented my work at CHI.
My earlier design explorations dating back to school days are available on the legacy site.
Recognition
Four US patents
Two utility patents co-invented at Meta, on session captures and game content, and two design patents at Coinbase for consumer finance interfaces.
US11405347B1 · US20230367539A1 · USD1073704S1 · USD1073721S1
Industry advisor, Cornell Tech
I'm an industry advisor at Cornell Tech (2026 cohort). From 2020 to 2023 I reviewed applications for the University of Washington's HCDE master's program, and before industry I taught HCI and physical computing there as a graduate teaching assistant.
Latest writing
Vertically Works
In 2019 I published a design exploration essay called Vertically Works, based on one intriguing idea: if digital interfaces had grown up around Korean, Japanese, and Chinese,…
Aug 3, 2026
Design workflows are personal now
Lately I’ve been noticing the designers around me are all doing their work differently. A few years ago we all used roughly the same tools in roughly the same order. That isn’t…
May 27, 2026
The Floor Keeps Rising
At some point I started feeling like there’s no comfortable middle ground left. But I should clarify what “middle” means first. It’s the people who’ve stopped growing in an…
May 22, 2026
Beyond work
Outside work, I spend time building products, writing, advising founders, investing, and supporting design communities.
