Born and raised in Cambridge, England, Luca developed a taste for quality and classic design that withstands the tests of time. Luca is a creative human both in soul and spirit since first picking up a crayon, Luca developed a passion for art and design and chose to follow that path through to university.

After completing a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts at the University of Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey in 2009, Luca joined Apple at one of the first 300 stores ever opened, in a brand new role that only a handful of folks had done before. Having to think and learn fast and evangelise new processes and efficiencies, Luca and the rest of their Genius team propelled the store into the top performing 5% of stores worldwide.

Luca learned a lot from their time at Apple, ranging from what industry-defining product design looked like, dedication to consistency and quality and how to build strong interpersonal relationships with peers to delivering world-class customer service. The skills learned in this initial role were pivotal to Luca’s career moving forward and helped shaped their professional profile into what it is today.

Over the next several years, Luca began a journey into the world of remote work and worked at Linaro, which was the sixth largest contributor to the Linux Kernel in the world. At Linaro they were introduced to open source development. In 2017, Having developed a passion for open source, Luca reached out to a connection on LinkedIn for a virtual coffee to learn more about this unique open source company they worked at: GitLab. Luca quickly fell in love with the culture and outlook of the company and happily joined as part of the original team in January 2018 as one of the first ~300 employees.

Fast forward to 2021, GitLab, now 1300+ strong and the largest remote company in the world during a global pandemic, files for IPO. Having been a part of GitLab’s incredible growth, working there changed Luca’s DNA and taught Luca to challenge the status quo, to stand up for their values and morals as a member of a dedicated community, to work collaboratively and inclusively with people from all around the world, to iterate and have a low level of shame when it comes to sharing work, to be authentic and transparent, and above all, to embody the message of “anyone can contribute”.

After GitLab, Luca joined Remote Technologies as their Head of Product and had to wear many hats as employee number 27. One of these hats happened to be user experience design (something Luca had always deeply cared about) and Luca felt like they had finally found their niche. In 2021, Luca decided to launch their own Product and UX consulting business: Pudding Studios LLC. They now focus on freelance product design and UX research, helping small business to begin their journey into product development and UX with a clear vision, strategy and development process that will set them up for success for years to come. In addition to their freelance business, Luca has been working in the unique role of a Growth Designer at Customer.io.

As a member of the LGBTQ community, Luca also chose to become a mentor and supporter for folks in other minority groups, helping them break into the world of tech and product and land their first job or to help them grow where they are.