In September 2025, at the University of Washington's MS in Technology Innovation (MSTI) orientation for Cohort 9, Qiuyi (Maggie) Yang returned to campus as an alumni panelist. With around 80 new students in attendance, Yang, a member of MSTI's Class of 2022 and now a Product Designer at Meta, shared insights from her journey to help kickstart the next generation's grad school experience. MSTI is a 21-month interdisciplinary graduate program emphasizing practical, challenge-based learning across engineering, business, and design. Founded via a partnership between UW and Tsinghua University in China and backed by industry leaders like Microsoft (a founding partner), the program integrates hardware and software development with user experience and entrepreneurship into a unified curriculum. Students work in state-of-the-art prototyping labs and tackle real-world capstone projects sponsored by companies such as T-Mobile, Microsoft, and Meta, reflecting MSTI's strong focus on interdisciplinary innovation and industry engagement. This close industry connection extends to mentorship: through the GIX Mentor Program, current MSTI students are paired with seasoned professionals and alumni mentors, fostering meaningful exchanges of advice, experience, and even referrals that can shape students' career paths.
Yang has been one of the program's most enthusiastic alumni mentors, frequently bridging her professional expertise and her GIX roots for the benefit of students. At the Cohort 9 orientation panel, she drew on her own experience to discuss the value of networking. Networking, she noted, is "something other than professional skills" – essentially an "extra career skill" that involves treating yourself like a brand or product in the job market. Yang urged the incoming cohort to be similarly proactive and prepared: do your research on people you meet, follow up consistently, and never hesitate or get discouraged in making connections. These personal connections, she suggested, can often open doors that polished resumes alone cannot. She also advised students to leverage the program's projects to identify their own strengths and interests – "find what your strengths are through your GIX projects and find a good fit for you," as her guidance put it, so that they can navigate their early careers with a clear sense of direction.
Earlier in the year, in May 2025, Yang had shared more of her perspective at a career panel for MSTI Cohorts 7 and 8. In that forum, she provided a candid comparison of working in a startup versus in big tech, a topic she was uniquely qualified to address. Yang's background spans both extremes: she began her career as the only product designer at a startup, and she later transitioned to a role as a designer in one of the world's largest tech companies (Meta). Drawing on these experiences, she highlighted the differences in work culture and scope. At a startup, she explained, you often wear many hats and learn rapidly by necessity; in contrast, a corporation like Meta offers structured mentorship, vast resources, and the opportunity to specialize in a particular domain. Yang also spoke about emerging trends influencing the design field, notably the growing role of AI in design. Additionally, Yang shared insights into designing for B2B (business-to-business) user experiences, one of her focus areas at Meta. She noted that enterprise design projects often involve complex workflows and data-driven design; while less "glamorous" than consumer apps, they require a deep understanding of user needs and can have massive impact on how businesses operate. Throughout the panel, Yang returned to the theme of self-directed career growth. She offered practical advice on navigating the evolving tech job market, from staying adaptable with new technologies to seeking out mentors and continuous learning opportunities, and even addressed questions about maintaining work-life balance as a young professional. Her answers gave soon-to-be graduates a realistic, yet optimistic roadmap for life after MSTI.
Beyond these events, Qiuyi Yang's involvement with MSTI is an ongoing commitment. As a GIX mentor, she works closely with current students through one-on-one guidance, portfolio reviews, and strategic career conversations. In these mentoring sessions, she not only provides feedback and industry know-how, but also builds genuine connections with her mentees. Being an alumna herself, Yang shares a relatable perspective with MSTI students – she was in their shoes just a few years ago, so she understands their challenges and aspirations firsthand. This empathy fuels her mentoring style. She stays involved, she says, because she gains energy and inspiration from the students' passion and fresh ideas, which in turn helps her grow as a designer. This reciprocal learning is core to her design philosophy: human-centered design is built on listening and learning, and mentorship is an extension of that principle. By advising students, Yang reinforces her own values of collaboration and lifelong learning, while giving back to the community that helped launch her career. Through Yang's eyes, staying connected with MSTI is about cultivating the next generation of innovators and, in the process, continually reinventing herself as a design leader.
Yang's hands-on work in product innovation is equally gaining renown. Her project ServeUp – an AI-powered, gamified restaurant training platform achieved a major honor in the 2025 MUSE Design Awards. ServeUp was named a Gold Winner in the UX/UI/Interaction Design category, a distinction earned in a competition season that drew over 13,000 submissions globally. The platform impressed jurors with its inventive use of technology to solve a practical workforce challenge: using a conversational AI coach and game-like simulations to make restaurant staff onboarding more engaging and effective. The recognition comes on the heels of ServeUp already winning a Silver award at the French Design Awards earlier in the year, signaling the concept's international appeal.
This isn't Yang's first time in the winner's circle, either. Her prior concept Lullaland – a multisensory VR experience to ease anxiety in hospital waiting rooms – was honored as a Silver Winner in MUSE's conceptual design category in spring 2025. (Lullaland also clinched a second Silver at the New York Product Design Awards, underscoring its broad appeal.) With ServeUp now taking Gold in a UX-focused category, Yang has demonstrated a versatile design prowess, from healthcare well-being to hospitality training. "Winning one award was exciting enough, but seeing both projects recognized across different competitions felt unreal," Yang said of her award-season sweep. "These projects were very personal explorations, so it's encouraging that the ideas spoke to others as well".
Yang's impact this year has not been confined to awards ceremonies. In September, she brought ServeUp to an international audience at the AI for Humanity Spotlight exhibition, part of the GOSIM Hangzhou 2025 summit. (GOSIM – the Global Open-Source Innovation Meetup – is one of China's premier conferences on open-source innovation and socially driven AI.) The AI for Humanity Spotlight is an exhibition that showcases projects exploring how generative AI can foster empathy, creativity, and ethical tech use. ServeUp was selected as one of the featured projects, placing Yang's work alongside emerging AI-for-good concepts from around the world.
For Yang, who earned her undergraduate design degree in Hangzhou, presenting at this event was a meaningful full-circle moment – and evidence of the cross-cultural interest her work is attracting. She co-produced and submitted ServeUp to the global showcase, where its inclusion highlighted the platform's relevance in the dialogue on AI ethics and education. By gamifying employee training with an AI coach, ServeUp touches on themes of AI in workforce development and human-centered learning, aligning well with the Spotlight's emphasis on practical, humane applications of technology. Over two days (Sept. 13–14, 2025), conference-goers in Hangzhou experienced how Yang's design turns a routine job-training scenario into an interactive, personalized learning experience. The project's reception in this context affirmed that the questions Yang's work raises – about making technology helpful, accessible, and even playful for people – are universal.
Taken together, Qiuyi Yang's accomplishments in 2025 paint the picture of a designer balancing professional excellence and community impact. In design industry terms, she embodies a modern creative who can win Gold on the world stage one week and mentor students the next. As the year comes to a close, Yang stands out in the creative community as a talent to watch, leveraging her platform to elevate others and to ask, in every project, how design can make life a little better for someone.
This article was written in cooperation with Jane Meyer