Clara Fairbanks · Lead Product Designer, Circle
I design and validate products by
building them.
Ten years designing fintech, developer tools, and startups. The last year at Circle changed how I work: I go straight from problem to working prototype, test on real interaction, and push the front end into the codebase myself.
01
Circle & Arc
The developer- and agent-facing layer of Circle's Arc platform: an AI dev environment, a consumer onchain account, wallets for agents, and the developer tooling that ties them together.
Jul 2025 — now
Arc Studio
An AI development environment that turns a prompt into a deployed onchain app.
Arc Portal
An Arc-native financial account: fund, earn, swap, send, and give an agent a wallet.
Agent Stack
Wallets, a marketplace, and a CLI that let an AI agent hold and spend USDC — plus recipes so the first run is never a blank page.
Developer Tooling
The surfaces a developer touches to build on Circle and Arc — docs, App Kits, the console — and the connective tissue between them and Arc Studio.
02
Experian
Led design for Partner Solutions: a self-serve platform for banks and fintechs, and the consumer credit experience they white-label.
2022 — 2025
03
Startup consulting
Fractional design leadership for early-stage teams — separate from, and orthogonal to, my employed work.
Alongside full-time work
AbodeMine
Platform, AI product, and web design for a real-estate data company in stealth — leading a designer and shipping with the founding team.
LayerV
Go-to-market and product-market fit for qURL: private, expiring access links to hidden infrastructure — for people and AI agents.
04
Earlier
2015 — 2022
- Yesware WorkflowsRebuilt sales campaigns as multi-touch workflows with CRM-linked contacts and per-stage performance.2021
- MyPlace iOSA mobile app for friends to privately share their homes — onboarding, feed, posts, maps, groups, messaging.2019
- 2015 – 2020 · Product design consultant for early-stage startups; web designer, developer, and startup founder before that.
Say hello
Building something? Let's talk.
I like comparing notes on prototyping, design engineering, and developer products.