NICO VAN ZYL

Product Design & Engineering

Altostrat2025

Altostrat is building the tools and infrastructure to help NetOps teams become AI-native. As founding designer I lead product design and development alongside brand and everything in between.

Studio desktop workspace and Remote showing the same network investigation
Role
Head of Product Design
Period
2025 — Present
Focus
Product, engineering & brand

Highlights

  • Shipped Studio in three months with one other engineer.
  • Introduced the Save for Later pattern for agent responses.
  • Defined the brand for Altostrat.
  • Quickly iterating and prototyping new ways NetOps teams can work with AI.

Delivered

Save for Later · An interaction from Studio: save a response, find it in Saved, and return to the conversation. Silent screen recording.

Simvida2022

Simvida helps people find and collaborate with the best financial advisors, from asset management, to a single document repo as well as pre and post-retirement planning. At Simvida I refined the visual language, created and maintained the design system as well as designed UI and built the advisor, admin and client apps.

Simvida adviser and client workspace with financial summaries on desktop and mobile
Role
Front End Architect
Period
2022 — 2025
Focus
UI design, design systems & development

Highlights

  • Helped bring the platform to launch with a reusable foundation for the interface.
  • Helped define the team culture and hired team members.

Delivered

Freelance

2019

Wixel

2014