Divya Seshadri

Design × Engineering × Leadership
iF Design Gold Award 2024 — Lucid In-Vehicle Experience ↗

A technical leader who speaks both design and engineering fluently — bridging creative vision and production reality. From prototyping to production for ADAS and HMI at Lucid Motors, to ride simulations at Walt Disney Imagineering, to OEM strategy at DENSO — equally at home in a design review and an engineering standup.

15+
Years across industries
Industries
Automotive Immersive & XR Game Dev Enterprise

Cross-Industry Skillset

Skills applied across different industries, products, and domains.

Design

End-to-end UX and product design — from early-stage wireframes and interaction flows to high-fidelity multi-modal prototypes. Experienced designing complex systems across in-vehicle HMI, immersive environments, and digital products. Deep expertise in motion design, visual design, and multi-screen experience architecture.

FigmaProtoPieAdobe XDPhotoshop IllustratorAfter EffectsInVisionFramer UXPinMiroMarvelSketchUp

Development

Full-spectrum technical development spanning software engineering, real-time 3D, embedded hardware, database systems, and simulation pipelines. Comfortable writing production code, architecting systems, and building from prototype to deployment — across automotive, entertainment, games, and enterprise.

C++C#PythonJavaScript CoffeeScriptJavaRubyOpenGL Objective-CHTML / CSSArduino Unreal EngineUnity 3DUE Blueprints MotionBuilderMaya3ds Max ZBrushSpeedTree CAN / QNXSocket.IOECU Integration SQL ServerSQLiteOracle DBASSIS Git / GitHubPerforceSVN

Management

Hands-on people manager and strategic leader. Built and mentored cross-functional UX and engineering teams, authored 5-year product roadmaps adopted by executive leadership, led OEM and vendor engagement, and delivered high-stakes demos directly influencing production sign-offs. Equally comfortable in technical discussions and boardroom presentations.

Team Hiring & Mentoring5-Year Roadmapping OEM / Vendor EngagementExecutive Demos BudgetingAgile / Scrum Press & Media CoordinationCross-Functional Alignment JIRATrelloSharePoint

Research

Rigorous, data-driven UX research from simulator labs to real-world vehicle testing. Experienced running multi-modal interaction studies, heuristic evaluations, and competitive benchmarking — synthesizing findings into actionable design recommendations that ship into production systems.

Usability TestingHeuristic Evaluations Simulator StudiesBuck Integration Driver MonitoringMulti-Modal Interaction Competitive BenchmarkingData Analysis ARXML / JSONTask Completion Analysis

Work Experience

15+ years across different industries — each role deepening both technical depth and strategic range.

Aug 2022 – Present
Technical Specialist (Manager - IC Track)
Lucid Motors — Newark, CA
Led HMI prototype delivery across Air, Gravity, and Midsize programs — supporting 20+ CEO/SVP reviews that directly influenced production sign-offs. The technical bridge between UX and engineering: ADAS visualization, driver monitoring, buck program ownership, and press demo delivery.
May 2020 – Aug 2022
Manager, UI / UX
DENSO International America — Long Beach, CA
Built and led a cross-functional UX team, authoring a 5-year roadmap adopted by executive leadership for 2025/2030 OEM programs. Spearheaded North America digitization — later scaled globally — and represented UX in vendor and budget discussions to win new business.
Sep 2020 – Jun 2021
Head of Product Architecture & Design
Stealth Startup
Led product architecture and design strategy for an early-stage technology venture, building foundational HMI and software frameworks from scratch across design and engineering.
Sep 2019 – May 2020
Lead Engineer, UI / UX
DENSO TEN International — Torrance, CA
Led the UX team delivering HMI/GUI concepts for a 2023-gen OEM vehicle, authoring guidelines and a UX rulebook for prototype-to-production continuity. Directed highway assist UX research with design recommendations adopted into the final production system.
May 2017 – Sep 2019
Senior Software Engineer, UI / UX
DENSO TEN International — Torrance, CA
Created a multi-display prototyping script reducing dev effort by ~30%, published at ACM and recognized by OEMs. Rescued a failing prototype, led voice-agent technical discussions, and designed and coded haptic feedback patterns for the Lexus RTI touchpad.
Jan 2017 – Apr 2017
Software Engineer (Unity Generalist)
DENSO TEN International — Torrance, CA
Built Unity-based HMI prototypes for two OEM vehicle trims. Developed a custom SQLite database to power real-time HMI demos and surface edge cases.
Jun 2016 – Dec 2016
Software Engineer
TekAllianz — Los Angeles, CA
Designed and built an internal training and support application to streamline onboarding workflows and accelerate ramp-up for new hires.
Aug 2015 – Jun 2016
Creative Technologist (VR & Immersive)
Walt Disney Imagineering — Glendale, CA
Lead presenter at the DISH — the VR showroom used for all global executive sign-offs across Disney's theme park portfolio. Delivered production-adopted 3D work for Slinky Dog Dash (Disney's Hollywood Studios) and Frozen (Disneyland Paris), with the Slinky Dog finale scene personally approved by John Lasseter.
Jan 2014 – May 2015
Teaching Assistant / Grader
USC GamePipe Lab — Los Angeles, CA
Mentored student game development teams from concept through App Store publication. Taught lectures and labs, and evaluated final projects alongside faculty.
Jan 2010 – Aug 2012
Software Developer / Business Analyst
Larsen & Toubro InfoTech — Chennai, India
Led migration of 46 claims applications from VB to VB.Net, reducing resource needs by 40% through reusable SSIS/SQL packages. Drove Agile pilot projects and QA audits that contributed to securing new business lines.
Spot Excellence Award 2011

Featured Projects

Work spanning automotive, entertainment, research, and game development. Click any project for full details and process images.

Production Code

DreamDrive 2 Pro — ADAS Visualization

Real-time 3D ADAS pipeline in Unreal Engine, shipped into production Lucid Gravity.

Embedded Hardware Prototype

Halo LED in Autonomous Mode

Arduino LED system for the Lucid × Uber × Nuro robotaxi, debuted at CES 2026.

Production Hardware Code

RTI with Haptic Feedback — Lexus

Full-stack haptic system for the Lexus Remote Touch Interface, shipped to production.

VR Visualization & Simulation

Slinky Dog Dash — Walt Disney Imagineering

Complete 3D ride simulation for Toy Story Land, in production at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

UX Research

Highway Teammate — Lexus Highway Assist

Simulator studies for Toyota/Lexus ADAS; recommendations adopted into the production system.

Prototype Vehicle, Bucks & Simulator Development

Prototypes & Buck — Lucid UX Studio

Full-scale HMI simulation buck supporting Air, Gravity, and Midsize programs.

Production Prototype

Seats App — Lucid Gravity

First 3D seat control prototype in a production Lucid vehicle, with bidirectional CAN sync.

3D Environment Artist & Level Designer

Apophis — USC GamePipe Lab

Cave Level designed and built from scratch in Unreal Engine — environment, mechanics, NPCs.

3D Generalist Artist

Fat Loot — USC GamePipe Lab

Full 3D prop pipeline for a stealth multiplayer game in Unreal Development Kit.


Academic Background

Formal training at the intersection of computer science, creativity, and technology.

M.S., Computer Science
University of Southern California — Los Angeles, CA
2015
Specialization in Multimedia & Creative Technologies — combining software engineering with interactive media, simulation, game development, and immersive experience design.
B.E., Computer Engineering
University of Rajasthan — Jaipur, India
2009
Foundation in computer engineering, software systems, data structures, and algorithms. Groundwork for a career spanning design engineering, embedded systems, and product development.

Awards & Certifications

Industry recognition and professional certifications spanning design, engineering, and technology.

iF Design Gold Award
Lucid Motors — Team Recognition · 2024
Awarded for the Lucid In-Vehicle Experience — one of the most prestigious design awards globally, recognizing excellence in product and UX design.
Spot Excellence Award
Larsen & Toubro InfoTech · 2011
Recognized for outstanding contributions to data migration and process optimization, reducing resource needs by 40%.
Art of the Month
Arena Animation Academy · 2013
Recognized for outstanding artistic work in 3D modeling, texturing, and visual design during professional certification training.
Autodesk Maya Certification
Autodesk · 2013
Professional certification in Autodesk Maya covering 3D modeling, rigging, animation, and rendering for production pipelines.
Oracle 9i DBA Certification
Oracle · 2008
Certified Oracle Database Administrator covering database architecture, administration, performance tuning, and backup/recovery.
Java Certification
Aptech · 2007
Certified in core Java programming — object-oriented design, data structures, algorithms, and software engineering fundamentals.

Let's build it. Let's innovate.

Open to roles at the intersection of human experience, emerging technology, and engineering — UX, product, and technical domains.

Available on request
Full case studies — videos, process, and outcomes.
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