Lighthouse AI
Turning endless career adviceinto one clear path.
I joined Lighthouse AI as a ProductDesign Intern during my undergrad.
An AI career coach for people who knowwhere they want to go, but not how toget there.
Courses, blogs, videos, advice.Everything is one click away.
And still, most people feel stuck.
Access to information has never been easier.We’re one click away from almost anything.
But without direction,it’s easy to get lost.
There’s no lack of information.There’s a lack of direction.
Putting in hours.Direction? Unclear.
Same roadmapfor everyone.
Generic advice ignored where someone was actually starting from.
Knowledge iseverywhere.
Too many options turned into decision fatigue, not progress.
User research
I talked to people at differentstages of their careers.
Interviews and surveys told me what people wanted. Reddit showed me how they actually talk when they’re stuck.
The career switcherAdam, 26
Business analyst trying to move into product. Learning nights and weekends, never sure which advice applies to him.
The overloaded studentMegana, 21
Final-year CS student at the University of Maryland. Has the knowledge, but can’t tell if she’s industry-ready or how to show it.
The builder without a marketMadison, 25
Freelance designer who builds great things but doesn’t know how to turn them into paid work.
Not another resource.Something that keeps youon the right path.
Lighthouse AI starts with three questions:
- What do you want to become?
- Where do you stand right now?
- How much time do you have?
From those answers, Navi, Lighthouse’s AI guide, builds a personalized playbook: a path from where you are to where you want to be.
An onboarding thatunderstands you.
Navi opens a conversation instead of a form, and handles a vague answer or a frustrated one the way a person would.
A plan that is made for youand grows with you.
A guide that makes sure you’re onthe right path.
Who I built it with
A small team, and thepeople who taught me.
Grace Shieh
Product Designer
I worked under Grace. Most of what I know about taking a half-formed idea and arguing it into a design, I learned watching her do it.
Keyur Shah
Founder & Product Manager
Set the direction and kept the scope honest.
The engineers
Build
Who told me early which parts of a design were going to be hard, which changed what I drew.
Learnings
What designing an AIproduct taught me.
Advice only works whensomeone’s ready for it.
Reddit showed me that good advice failed when it didn’t match how someone felt. People who felt overwhelmed needed reassurance before a plan. That changed how Navi speaks: steady first, specific when you’re ready.
More backgrounds,more perspective.
A career switcher, an overloaded student and a builder without a market all wanted direction, for completely different reasons. Talking to people at different stages kept me from designing for just one of them.
Nobody startswith a map.
At the start of a career, no one knows exactly what to do. People figure it out by walking the path. So Lighthouse doesn’t hand you the whole roadmap upfront. It gives you the next step and adjusts as you go.
FAQ
Questions I getabout this one.
What’s the hardest part of designing for AI?
You’re designing a personality, not just screens. When Navi speaks, how much it says, and how it sounds when someone’s frustrated all matter. The same advice can help one person and overwhelm another, depending on timing and tone.
What did you take from this into your later work?
Designing for emotion first. The same idea shows up in Peak, where people quit apps because they feel stuck, not because a feature is missing. Lighthouse is where I learned it.
Why Reddit for research?
Interviews tell you what people think they want. Reddit shows how they actually talk when they’re stuck, with no designer in the room. It’s where I found the emotional patterns that shaped the whole product.
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