Image courtesy of Maryna Karpenko

SAN FRANCISCO, May 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Maryna Karpenko, a product designer at Meta, helps shape the future of global communication, earning her top industry recognition, including the MUSE Creative Award, Vega Digital Award, and Davey Award.

Her journey started far from Silicon Valley. Growing up in Ukraine, Karpenko split her time between competitive gymnastics and exploring the early internet. She taught herself Photoshop through YouTube tutorials and developed a fascination with digital design long before she knew it could be a career.

The turning point came when a classmate brought a first-generation iPod to school. “It felt so intuitive—like it was designed with me in mind,” she says. “That’s when I realized that great products don’t just solve problems—they create a sense of wonder.”

Karpenko’s curiosity led her to psychology. “I wanted to understand how people think, not just how systems work,” she says. By the time she discovered product design as a formal discipline, the field was finally gaining visibility, led by figures like Julie Zhuo and Luke Wroblewski. Karpenko knew she’d found the path that merged her technical, creative, and human-centered instincts. “Design brought it all together,” she says.

At Mattermost, the open-source collaboration platform backed by Y Combinator’s largest-ever Series B, Karpenko led the mobile messaging experience, helping teams in high-security sectors like government and finance work more efficiently.

Before that, she helped define the user experience at Hily, a fast-growing dating app. She launched live-streaming features that gave users new ways to connect authentically, well ahead of the industry-wide shift toward video. She also led product design at Wavechat, where she built the mobile app from scratch. Under her leadership, the app won Product Hunt’s Maker Festival (Snapchat Edition) and was featured on the Apple App Store.

Now at Meta, Karpenko continues to blend design, psychology, and technology.“Psychology helps me get into users’ minds, math helps me work seamlessly with engineers, and design is where it all clicks into place.”

As a jury panelist for the Communicator Awards and a member of the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA), Karpenko mentors and helps surface the next generation of design talent. “I’ve been incredibly lucky to have people take a chance on me,” she says. “Now, I want to help others get their start.”

Contact info: San Francisco, CA
Contact Name: Maryna Karpenko
Email address: rinak.notes@gmail.com
Website: https://www.marinakarpenko.com/

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a9965271-2216-4eb3-aefc-b0fc01b20a6f