Hi, I'm Amitai.
UX Researcher and Designer. Engineer. I build with AI.
Horaxtra
Co-founder · 2025–now · Educators and coaches who run kids' activities lose hours to admin. I interviewed 20+ of them. What I learned changed what we build and how we sell it. I build and run it myself, with Claude Code.
Voice-only Catalan tutor
AI experiment · Adults learning Catalan need speaking practice. Volunteers have an hour a week, teachers are expensive, and classes give little speaking time. I'm building a voice tutor to make you a fluent, confident speaker: practice that sounds natural, feels fun and becomes a habit.
Catfish Catcher for LinkedIn
Browser extension · 2026 · Fake profiles and copied posts can scam you. I built a free extension that shows the warning signs, scored in the browser with no servers. Built with Claude Code, live on Firefox.
MoonPay
Senior UX Researcher · 2022–23 · I used Amplitude and HubSpot to see where people dropped out of sign-up and KYC, then interviews to learn why. The changes raised sign-up conversion and cut churn. I also set up the customer feedback library in Condens.
Whiteboard in VR
Meta · 2018–20 · Can you whiteboard in VR without a stylus? Most people assumed not. Asking a different question changed the MVP.
- Six weeks before a decision on investing in a stylus, the team asked if they could ship a VR whiteboard without one.
- The team's question assumed the answer was in the hardware. A literature review showed people care whether the room understood the idea, not how good the diagram looks. So I tested which of 5 input methods helps most, with 17 people. No one at Facebook had moderated VR tests remotely, so I built the setup from scratch.
- A flipped controller at a virtual desk scored highest on comfort and fidelity. Sitting also made people feel safer: "I know I'm in my safe space."
- Seated mode went into the MVP. The stylus stayed out, kept as a future north star in a business case I helped build. I created a remote VR research playbook and shared it across the VR organisation.
Prison adjudications
Ministry of Justice · 2020–22 · 275,000 prison adjudications a year, all on paper. The team assumed software was the fix. The research found a deeper problem.
- Should a paper process costing £13M a year be replaced with software? It wasn't changing prisoner behaviour.
- I learned a new domain fast, then brought the voice of 40+ governors, officers and policy leads into one picture of the process, and spoke with prisoners in person. That shared evidence is what senior stakeholders needed to back the next phase.
- Staff weren't failing; the system was. Cases collapsed on technicalities, prisoners didn't understand what was happening, and staff were losing confidence in the process.
- The question moved from digitising paper to building a fairer, more trusted service. I helped the team pass the GDS Discovery Assessment, securing £100K for Alpha.
Before UX Research & Design
- Check Point, 2006–08: Lead escalation support engineer for enterprise customers. Debugged complex customer issues (networking, firewall setup) and worked with R&D on fixes.
- Israeli Military Intelligence (Unit 8200), 2002–05: Technical network administrator and manager.
Where I've worked
- Horaxtra, 2025–
- AI cybersecurity startup (stealth), 2024–25
- AnalogFolk, 2023
- MoonPay, 2022–23
- Ministry of Justice, 2020–22
- Meta, 2018–20
- Just Eat, 2017–18
- Designit, 2017
- 4finance, 2016
- Tesco, 2016
- Bunnyfoot, 2013–16
- Check Point, 2006–08
- Israeli Military Intelligence (Unit 8200), 2002–05
Say hello
Let's talk.
- hello@amitaioliver.com · LinkedIn · GitHub · CV