Matthew B. Gilbert

§01 Summary

Sr. Manager, UX Research & Design at Dell Technologies. End-to-end design leader from the racks to the cloud — significant influence across Dell's systems software portfolio, with a decade of hardware UX work on PowerEdge underneath it. 13 FTEs and 4 contractors across the US, Egypt, and Taiwan. 12 years at Dell (Contractor → Senior → Principal → Sr. Manager). 33 patents filed. Currently leading UX for agentic AI and systems management across datacenter, edge, and telco.

§02 Experience 2007 — Present

2022 — Present

Sr. Manager, User Research & Design

Remote · Oregon

Dell Technologies · Enterprise Software & Hardware — Datacenter, Edge, Telco

Leader for Enterprise Software and Hardware programs for Datacenter, Edge, and Telco spaces.
Leads various initiatives for AI implementation in proof of concepts and product implementation, including dynamic UI workflows and agentic AI for systems management.
Sets research priorities for team, builds research roadmap, and coordinates with other leaders on xLOB research initiatives.
Tell Dell Rock Star 3 years running. Awarded to less than 5% of leaders at Dell who exhibit exceptional leadership qualities.
Manages 13 FTEs and 4 Contractors across the US, Egypt, and Taiwan. FTEs are multi-discipline (UXR, IxD, Visual Design). Contractors are Developers and IT Consultants. Responsible for career development, setting tone/expectations, and ultimately helping my people grow into the best professional version of themselves.
Maintained 100% staff retention and coached 11 of 13 direct reports to promotion during my time as a leader.
Collaborates xLOB with key stakeholders/leaders/executives in PdM, Engineering, Quality, and Services to champion user experience and align on common strategy across organizations.
Responsible for building a pipeline of talent through networking, capstone projects, external engagements, and mentorships.
Lead/Creator for Dell Research Library — a website dedicated to hosting Dell's vast research collection and making research more findable and consumable across the company.
Lead for 'Enterprise Horizons' team, which developed an interactive, dynamic framework for evaluating and predicting impactful experiences, disruptors, and themes for the next 3, 5, and 10 years.

2014 — 2022

Principal User Experience Engineer (Senior 2014–2018, Principal 2018–2022)

Austin, TX

Dell Technologies

Lead Usability Engineer for 14G – 17G Rack, Modular, Telco and Edge Servers. Worked closely with cross-functional, global teams to champion UX across a broad range of behavioral and experiential/interface design requirements.
Involved xLOB in early concept meetings as a trusted user experience architect to help drive and define future generational experiences for the entire PowerEdge portfolio. Well-known as an internal stakeholder that can balance business needs with user experience to deliver maximum value to customers.
Mentored and developed many incoming junior staff, many of whom became my direct reports.
Architected an experience and led a team that created the "Dell Research Library"; a custom-built, cloud-based software app made to archive Dell's vast cache of research, track new research, store videos, auto-transcribe content, and auto-generate research roadmaps. Led the team from alpha all the way to the current v1.5 live release.
Completed 35 in-depth research projects by developing screeners, writing protocols, moderating sessions, talking to customers, creating insights — culminating in final research artifacts that championed our customers and drove change xLOB. Many different Qual and Quant methods were used.
Key contributor cross-industry OCP efforts with Intel, HPE, Lenovo and others on commoditized datacenter components, including PSU, NIC, and Motherboards. Worked on cutting edge, innovative, proof of concept ideas as the user experience expert — including sustainability initiatives, HaaS, Cloud, 5G, and more. Sat alongside Executives, Fellows, and Distinguished Engineers, as a member of a 'Steering Committee' for an Innovation Vector.
Served on 2 patent committees — the Enterprise HW and APEX Cloud committees — acting as User Experience SME along a select few to choose what intellectual property Dell invests in.
Generated 45 total patent disclosures during my time on the committees; of those, 33 were filed with the USPTO (23 Granted, 10 Pending).

2013 — 2014

IT / UXR Contractor

Austin, TX

Dell Technologies

Lab Manager for 2 PoC data centers to educate staff on software and competitive environments.
Research assistant for numerous studies, acting as pilot participant, note-taker, and ultimately assisted with protocol and screener development.
On-site SME for datacenter software, hardware, and cloud offerings to better educate the organization.
Usability lab expert & consultant. Designed blueprint and defined deployment of multiple UX Labs, including Austin, Hopkinton, Seattle, and Colorado. Managed multiple IT Contractors, VAR, and Facilities relationships to accomplish this.

2007 — 2013

IT Consultant & Owner

Houston & Austin, TX

MBG-IT · with a technical specialist tenure at ITMed (2010–2012, healthcare-focused)

Small business owner consulting for various businesses in Houston, TX and Austin, TX. Clients spanned Engineering, Technology, Medical, Accounting, and Arts/Culture sectors.
Projects ranged from greenfield deployment, tier 2/3 IT consultation, virtualization, process installment, MSP/SaaS implementation, and Windows Server deployments.
During this period also worked as Technical Specialist at ITMed, an IT consultancy similar to MBG-IT but focused on healthcare clients. Level I/II technical support, project management, small business greenfield deployments.

§03 Patents 33 filed · 23 granted · 10 pending

11,614,848 "GUI Context Building": Graphical user interface overlays for contextual hardware component information Granted

11,602,086 Cooling computing modules of a rack-mountable tray Granted

10,796,121 Decoding Parts with Encoded Geometry for Retrieving Passively Represented Information Granted

10,863,647 Assist Mechanism for Information Handling System Granted

9,559,908 Lockout Prevention System Granted

US20210329755A1 Navigational Dynamic Lighting Pending

+ 27 more (some not yet publicly published). Full list available on request.

§04 Certifications

Nielsen Norman Group — UX Certificate (UXC) NN/g

Jan 2023

NN/g — UX Specialty Certificate, Management Nielsen Norman Group

Jan 2023

§05 Education

Business Administration, Psychology Studies Sam Houston State University · Huntsville, TX

2006 — 2008

Associate of Arts Lone Star Community College · Houston, TX

2003 — 2005

§06 Skills leadership · technical · design · research · ops

LEADERSHIPStrategy · Design Thinking · Advanced Design · Innovation / TECHNICALSystems Thinking · AI/ML · Agentic Systems · Distributed Systems · Cloud · Edge / Rack-Scale Infrastructure / DESIGNInteraction Design · Workflows · Information Architecture · Design Systems · Prototyping / RESEARCHInterviews · Ethnography · Focus Groups · Surveys · Competitive Analysis · Journey Maps / OPSResearchOps · DesignOps · Project Management