Achal Varma

Achal Varma

Interaction Designer in London, He/Him

About

Designer & Engineer with a background in Cognitive Science, currently based in London. Started out copying web templates in middle school (sorry!), been hooked ever since. Passionate about designing through exploration and play, and blending physical + digital. Mostly just fascinated by how people feel, think, and do.

Happiest when outdoors with my camera 📸

Work Experience

2023 — Now
London
2020 — 2023
Senior Design Engineer, In-Home Experiences at Spotify
London

Exploring what it means to enjoy audio across devices, moments and contexts in your home. Built ~novel~ concepts across a range of platforms – TVs, consoles, smart displays, speakers, bespoke consumer hardware, and more. If it can play sound or lives in your home, we probably tried to put Spotify on it at some point 🔊

2018 — 2020
UX Prototyper at Spotify
New York

Partnered with teams across Spotify to develop early-stage concepts focused on the mobile experience. Contributed to projects/features like Spotify for iPad, Spotify Lite, Search and Car Mode – and many more which didn't leave the drawing board 🙃

2016 — 2017
UX Engineering Intern at Spotify
New York

Worked on next-gen concepts for ads

2015 — 2015
Interaction Design Intern at frog Design
Shanghai

Did some things, made lots of friends, ate a lot of dumplings and learnt a whole bunch of stuff :)

Education

BS, Cognitive Science at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, IL

Contact

Email