A Chinese smartphone company is making big moves, and Samsung and Apple need to watch out

Chinese tech company, Huawei, hired former Apple creative director Abigail Brody last Wednesday as Huawei's chief user experience designer for the company's device and consumer division, according to CNBC.

Brody was at Apple from 2002 to 2011, where she worked on applications for the original iPhone, as well as iCloud, Apple's cloud platform where you can backup your iPhone data and store photos, according to her LinkedIn profile. After that, she worked at eBay.

She may be brought on to work on applications and user experience for Huawei's consumer devices, like smartphones.

Huawei is clearly aiming to become more globally relevant than it already is by breaking in to the US market.

During the second quarter this year, its smartphones passed Samsung and Apple in China in market share, beating even Xiaomi with its cult-like following, according to the research firm Canalys.

It could be on its way to push aside the dominance that Apple, Samsung, and LG have established in the US.

Huawei recently released its first smartphone in the US, the mid-range P8 Light, and the company now has three smartphones available in the US. It's also released the Huawei Watch smartwatch, which was fairly well received in the US.

More importantly, Huawei was commissioned by Google to design and build the Nexus 6P. The Nexus line of smartphone is a representation of Google's vision for mobile design and interaction, so it's a pretty big deal that Huawei was chosen as a partner for the Nexus 6P.

A partnership with Google puts Huawei in the spotlight, and it means that more American customers could become aware of Huawei's US presence.