I design brands that stand out.
Your logo, colors, and App Store screenshots become one system. The brand and the app feel like the same thing.
Portland, OR
Hello, I'm Lilly. My career has been an adventure throughmobile apps, electrical engineering, andmarketing, with a few summits along the way.
2026Apple Design Award Finalist
- 2016B.S. Electrical Engineering
- 2023Apple Entrepreneur Camp
- 2025Shipaton Peace Prize, 2nd place
- 2026Apple Design Award Finalist
- 2016 B.S. Electrical Engineering
- 2023 Apple Entrepreneur Camp
- 2025 Shipaton Peace Prize, 2nd place
- 2026 Apple Design Award Finalist
Services
Here's what I do
I create app experiences you won't find anywhere else.
I specialize in minimalist, totally unique app experiences your users won't find anywhere else on the App Store. Every screen follows Apple's guidelines and still feels like yours.
I get apps downloaded.
Short-form video, carousels, and influencer campaigns turn views into downloads and trial starts.
Read a case studyI build software end to end.
Native iOS and Android, web, IoT and embedded systems, and AI and ML integrations. From the circuit board to the App Store.
I grow teams that ship.
Technical training programs for new engineers. A hiring process where the whole team scores every candidate together. Habits that keep a team shipping.
Projects
Apps I've shipped
Live captions that help Deaf and hard of hearing people hear.
Helps Deaf and hard of hearing people hear, with on-device live captions on every Apple platform. It's an Apple Design Award Finalist in Inclusivity and has been featured on the App Store 7 times this year.
See your hiking goals as a picture, not a chart.
Turns the hikes you're chasing into a passport. Each goal becomes a mountain, milestone signs line the trail below it, and summiting stamps the peak.
Fun activities for your mental health.
iOS/Android app that has fun mental health activities. The app was accepted into Apple Entrepreneur Camp in 2023 for its simplistic design and creative fullscreen animations.
Build your first app in seven days.
Created 7 day app development courses and resume templates for app developers.
Erupt 2017
iOS/Android social media app with user profiles, social feed, and ability to upload photos/videos and edit them in app.
Guess a Number 2021
A two-player Bluetooth game for iOS and iPad that works fully offline.
App Store
Where I've been featured
The graphics I designed, and the posts I shared the day each one happened
Featured on the App StoreGreat on iPadOS 27
Hearing Buddy · September 2026
Hearing Buddy got featured yesterday for my new iPad Liquid Glass designs! The app now looks great in any window size or orientation.
Editorial featureApps We Love
Hearing Buddy · August 2026
Hearing Buddy is getting featured today for Apps We Love. I'm on a camping trip with no service, and there's no better time to get this news.
Featured on the App StoreCaption sharing launch
Hearing Buddy · August 2026
Two months of hard work to launch our newest feature, caption sharing. Now you can get accurate captions even if you're far away from the speaker.
- Press feature
Two Portland apps recognized by Apple Design Awards 2026
Silicon Florist
Apple Design Awards week
Hearing Buddy · July 2026
Hearing Buddy got featured this week. There were multiple Apple Design Award Finalists from Portland, Oregon this year.
Featured by AppleApple Design Award Finalist
Hearing Buddy · May 2026
This is a dream I've had for the last decade of designing apps. What's most special to me is that Hearing Buddy is a Finalist in Inclusivity.
Featured on the App StoreDeaf Awareness Week
Hearing Buddy · May 2026
It was so much fun to design an ASL-themed hearing buddy that's inclusive to the Deaf community. This was also my first time designing promotional graphics for the App Store.
Editorial featureBest New Apps and Updates
Hearing Buddy · March 2026
Hearing Buddy was included in the Best New Apps and Updates section on the App Store this weekend. Sending a huge thank you to the App Store Editorial team and my partnership manager at Apple.
App Store campaigns
Campaigns I've pitched to Apple
Every campaign is a pitch to Apple's editorial team plus the in-app events, artwork, and copy that ship with it. These are the ones I ran for Hearing Buddy this year.
September 2026
iOS 27 launch
Smarter summaries on Private Cloud Compute, hands-free Siri, and an interface rebuilt for iOS 27, pitched for launch day.
September 2026
iOS 27 launch
Smarter summaries on Private Cloud Compute, hands-free Siri, and an interface rebuilt for iOS 27, pitched for launch day.
The campaign pitch
iOS 27 was the moment to show what a Hearing Buddy can do beyond captions. Enhanced summaries built on Private Cloud Compute turn a conversation into decisions, action items, and sectioned notes, and they drag straight into Notes and Reminders.
Siri and App Intents make it hands-free: start a listening session by voice and search past conversations without touching the screen. The whole interface was rebuilt for iOS 27 adaptivity and drag and drop, which shines on iPad in landscape during long meetings and lectures. The pitch came from a two-person team that had worked with the Evaluations Framework and the new Siri, and it earned a feature for the iOS 27 launch.
Buddy summarizes your meeting or lecture with key points and action items you can add to your Reminders.
Designed for the iOS 27 launch
September 2026
Deaf Awareness Month
Launched Celeste, the first Deaf buddy, timed to Deaf Awareness Month and the International Day of Sign Languages.
September 2026
Deaf Awareness Month
Launched Celeste, the first Deaf buddy, timed to Deaf Awareness Month and the International Day of Sign Languages.
The campaign pitch
September is Deaf Awareness Month and includes the International Week of Deaf People and the International Day of Sign Languages. The campaign tied Hearing Buddy's newest character launch to those dates so the app had a clear reason to be featured that month.
Celeste is the app's first Deaf buddy, shaped by feedback from Deaf users. Features like sharing captions from the speaker's mic and haptic name and question alerts came from that community. The nomination framed the launch as a community-built update, backed by a demo video and a month-long in-app event.
Celebrating this month with a new Deaf buddy, improved captions, and smarter summaries.
Ran September 2026
August 2026
Back to School
Two new buddies and a caption sharing feature for classrooms, pitched as accessibility for students who can't hear the lesson.
August 2026
Back to School
Two new buddies and a caption sharing feature for classrooms, pitched as accessibility for students who can't hear the lesson.
The campaign pitch
Back to school is when accessibility barriers hit hardest, so the campaign led with the classroom. A teacher captions from their own mic and shares to the whole class, with live translation for multilingual students.
Two in-app events split the story. Learning for All spotlighted caption sharing, and Back to School Buddies introduced Chalkie and Paige. The pitch drew on my own experience of falling behind in school because I couldn't hear, and it earned a feature on the App Store.
Teachers share their captions for everyone to read along. Accessible and private, so no one misses the lesson.
Ran August 2026
Meet Chalkie and Paige, your new buddies for the school year. Two friends here to make every lesson accessible.
Ran Aug 3 to 31, 2026
July 2026
Disability Pride Month
New buddies Lumi and Luna plus VoiceOver and Dynamic Type support, pitched as an accessibility update for Disability Pride Month.
July 2026
Disability Pride Month
New buddies Lumi and Luna plus VoiceOver and Dynamic Type support, pitched as an accessibility update for Disability Pride Month.
The campaign pitch
Disability Pride Month is about being seen as you are, so the update expanded who Hearing Buddy works for. It added VoiceOver and Dynamic Type support for people with low vision or blindness, and Luna, a buddy built for hearing in low-light settings.
The pitch positioned the brand itself as disability pride, an app that teaches allyship as much as it captions, and pointed to the Apple Design Award Finalist recognition as the bar the team wanted to keep raising.
Celebrate Disability Pride Month with our new buddies, Lumi and Luna! Now with Dynamic Type and VoiceOver support.
Ran July 2026
June 2026
Pride Month
Pride buddies for the queer Deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Not featured, but a big part of the Apple Design Award Finalist story.
June 2026
Pride Month
Pride buddies for the queer Deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Not featured, but a big part of the Apple Design Award Finalist story.
The campaign pitch
The campaign connected Pride to the conversations people most want to catch every word of: coming out, sharing new pronouns, a family member finally saying the words out loud. New Pride buddies let users caption with color all June.
Two events ran together, a Premiere for the new characters and a Caption with Pride challenge. The nomination spoke as a queer, hard-of-hearing founder and highlighted that live captions stay free and unlimited.
This one didn't land a feature. It did put Hearing Buddy's inclusivity work in front of Apple weeks before the Apple Design Awards, and in June the app was named a 2026 Finalist in the Inclusivity category.
Find the rainbow in all your conversations with our new Pride Buddies. Caption with color this June.
Ran June 2026
From coming out to sharing new pronouns, caption the Pride conversations you never want to miss a single word of.
Ran June 2026
May 2026
Deaf Awareness Week, GAAD, and NSLHM
Four new buddies, a Vision Pro app, and Apple Health hearing test support across NSLHM, Deaf Awareness Week, and GAAD.
May 2026
Deaf Awareness Week, GAAD, and NSLHM
Four new buddies, a Vision Pro app, and Apple Health hearing test support across NSLHM, Deaf Awareness Week, and GAAD.
The campaign pitch
May stacks three moments for the hearing loss community: National Speech-Language-Hearing Month, Deaf Awareness Week, and Global Accessibility Awareness Day. The campaign gave each one its own in-app event so the app had fresh content on the App Store all month.
Alongside four new buddy characters, the update launched a Vision Pro app and hearing test support integrated with Apple Health. The pitch leaned on Apple's on-device models as the reason captions can be free and unlimited for everyone.
Celebrating the Deaf community with a new ASL-inspired buddy, Vision Pro live captions & hearing test support.
Ran May 4 to 10, 2026
Celebrate accessibility with live captions from a Hearing Buddy. Never miss a word, question, or your name again.
Ran May 21, 2026
It's National Speech-Language-Hearing Month. Caption your world with Hearing Buddy all May long to catch 3X more words.
Ran May 2026
Not sure how well you hear? This spring, get your hearing baseline in minutes. Take the test & explore results in-app.
Ran Apr 16 to May 16, 2026
March 2026
World Hearing Day
The first featuring pitch: free unlimited captions on device, timed to World Hearing Day. It landed Hearing Buddy in Best New Apps and Updates.
March 2026
World Hearing Day
The first featuring pitch: free unlimited captions on device, timed to World Hearing Day. It landed Hearing Buddy in Best New Apps and Updates.
The campaign pitch
World Hearing Day on March 3 was the hook for Hearing Buddy's first nomination. With 1.5 billion people living with hearing loss, the pitch argued this was the moment to put the right tool in front of them.
It introduced the app's core: free unlimited live captions on Apple's on-device speech recognition, name and question alerts through Live Activities and Apple Watch haptics, and four buddy personalities users can name. The recent RevenueCat Shipaton prize gave it outside validation.
The pitch and the World Hearing Day in-app event landed Hearing Buddy on the App Store's Best New Apps and Updates list, the first feature for the app.
Join millions raising awareness for hearing health. Try Hearing Buddy's real-time captions and never miss a word again.
Ran March 2026
Recent adventures
Where I've been, and when
Co-founder, Designer, and iOS EngineerHearing BuddySelf-employed2026 to Now
I'm the co-founder and designer of the Hearing Buddy app and brand. Hearing Buddy helps Deaf and hard of hearing people hear with on-device live captions. It's an Apple Design Award Finalist in Inclusivity and has been featured on the App Store 7 times this year.
Founder and CEOLilly Seay & CoSelf-employedMay 2019 to Now
I help app startups design, build, and market their apps.
- I design and build native iOS and Android apps for startups. My specialty is IoT apps that talk to hardware and apps with AI features.
- I help apps get featured on the App Store with in-app events, marketing screens, and creative pitches to Apple.
- I run social media marketing for apps: short-form video, influencer campaigns, UGC, and ad creative that converts.
- I have grown my own accounts past 113,000 followers and done more than 30 brand collaborations.
Engineering ManagerHyster-Yale GroupFull-timeJuly 2023 to March 2025
I hired and trained new engineers at Hyster-Yale.
- I hired 20 engineers across several disciplines.
- I designed a six-month technical training program and led every new hire through it. It covered CAN, Embedded C, Simulink, hydraulics, and the electrical systems on a forklift.
- I built a simple, effective hiring process. Ten engineers and five managers met after each interview, scored the candidate together, and made the decision as a group.
Founder and CEODalton TechnologiesSelf-employed2017 to 2023
I created multiple native apps of my own and worked as an independent contractor with startups and software development firms on native app projects. I specialized in native Android and iOS Bluetooth, IoT, and machine learning apps.
Electrical EngineerHoneywell FM&TFull-time2016 to 2017
As an electrical engineer at Honeywell FM&T, I focused on FPGA design, FPGA development, hardware design, Windows application development, and maintaining complex IoT systems.
Senior Design ProjectFederal Aviation AdministrationPart-time2015 to 2016
I did my senior design project with the Federal Aviation Administration in Oklahoma, working alongside full-time engineers and engineering management to create a high-speed RS-232/RS-422 to TCP/IP converter. My team successfully created a prototype that was one fourth the cost of the technologies available at the time.
Student of Electrical EngineeringUniversity of Central OklahomaFull-time Student2012 to 2016
I earned my bachelor's in electrical engineering with a 3.67 GPA in May 2016. I was president of the IEEE club during my senior year, organizing a staff of officers, coordinating meetings, presenting budgets to the local chapter, and raising funding. As the printed circuit board machine technician, I created PCBs for other engineering students and maintained the machine, using NI Multisim, Ultiboard, and BoardMaster to simulate circuits. I was also a STEM peer mentor and engineering tutor, and a research assistant who designed a data acquisition system on an Arduino, converting analog sensor signals into usable data and milling my own circuit boards.
Speaking
Talks I've given on stage
Accessibility, Swift on hardware, and what it takes to ship an app as a small team
June 2026Hearing Buddy pitch
WWDC26 Apple Design Award Finalist showcase · The Observatory, Apple ParkDemoed and pitched Hearing Buddy to Apple and fellow finalists as part of the Apple Design Awards week.
February 2025Why Swift is the Next Big Thing for IoT
FOSDEM 2025, Swift devroom · Brussels, BelgiumA talk on bringing Swift to embedded devices, Bluetooth, and wearables, drawing on my background bridging hardware and software.
March 2024A Force Together: Women in App Development
Apple's International Women's Day event · Big Sur theater, Apple Developer Center, CupertinoSpoke alongside founders Aurelia Edwards and Bria Sullivan about technology, entrepreneurship, and community in app development.
Community involvement
- WWDC
WWDC attendee
Apple Park in 2024, 2025, and 2026, the last one as an Apple Design Award Finalist.
2024 to 2026 - SWE
Society of Women Engineers
Member. I volunteer at SWE resume workshops, reviewing resumes for college students heading into engineering.
Member - UP
University of Portland
Board of advisors for the Computer Science department.
Advisor - IEEE
IEEE student chapter president
Led the chapter at the University of Central Oklahoma my senior year: officers, meetings, budgets, and fundraising.
2015 to 2016
About
How I got here, and why I stayed
Hi, I'm Lilly. The adventure isn't just the career. I've travelled all over looking for the most beautiful places outside, and when I got to the Pacific Northwest in 2020 I knew right away I was home.
I've spent ten years building native apps and the hardware they talk to. Then I built the one I needed. I'm hard of hearing, and Hearing Buddy ended up a 2026 Apple Design Award Finalist.
Now I help startups design, build, and market their apps. The rest of the time I'm on a paddleboard or a trail with my two black labs, Jet and Nova.
Writing
From the blog
September 7, 2026 · 6 min readApple Design Award Finalist: my WWDC26
Hearing Buddy was a 2026 Apple Design Award Finalist for Inclusivity. The story of that week in Cupertino, from the announcement to demoing in the Observatory at Apple Park.
- September 7, 2026 · 10 min read
How being a technical founder saved my company $2,000,000
My talk from Apple's International Women's Day event in Cupertino: building Erupt and Tappily with zero funding, Apple Entrepreneur Camp, contract work, and the numbers behind seven years of doing it myself.
September 7, 2026 · 5 min readWhy Swift is the next big thing for IoT
My FOSDEM 2025 talk, word for word, with the demo video and the code: a motion-activated smart light built with Embedded Swift, an ESP32-C6, and Matter.
September 4, 2026 · 9 min readMy 10 most popular LinkedIn posts, and what they say about how I work
A deep dive on the posts that reached the most people: Apple Design Awards, WWDC, App Store features, embedded Swift, and the decision to go all in on my own app.
Social media
Accounts I've grown
I help startups market their apps on social media. I've grown my own accounts to more than 113,000 followers across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and I use the same playbook for clients: carousels, short-form video, influencer campaigns, and a creative pipeline for UGC and ads.
37,172followers
Lilly Seay
My personal account. Building in public as a founder, engineer, and dog mom in the Pacific Northwest.
74,353followers
Jet & Nova
The black lab adventure duo. A pet and outdoors channel I grew from zero with short-form video.
2,304followers
Hearing Buddy
Accessibility content and launch marketing for the app, including the campaigns behind its App Store features.
2,900followers
Tappily
Mental health content and carousels for the app.
1,500followers
JavaSwift Academy
Beginner app development tips and course launches.
Read a case study