In fintech, without domain knowledge, designers can't curate the right experience — Sugam Anand

In this episode, I sits down with Sugam Anand (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sugamanand/) , Design Leader at Smallcase, to explore what it really takes to design for high-stakes financial products, where trust is everything and a wrong design decision can cost users real money.Sugam breaks down how Smallcase thinks about the two core jobs of an investment platform: helping users make informed decisions, and giving them the tools to act on those decisions. He shares how his team is structured around domain ownership rather than screen-level handoffs, and why deep financial knowledge is non-negotiable for designers working in fintech.The conversation also gets into Smallcase's newest experience challenge: enabling Indians to invest in US stock markets through Ticker Tape, and the nuanced design problems that come with currency switching, remittance timelines, and building trust before a user even opens the app.They close with a conversation on AI, why Sugam thinks designers should be excited rather than fearful, how Smallcase already uses an AI agent for UX writing, and his vision of a future where designers, engineers, and PMs build from a single shared source of truth.And in the final question, Sugam shares what he's really looking for when he hires: not just skills, but curiosity, care, and the drive to go find a solution rather than wait for one.