MY ROLE
Principal Designer (Architecture) & Design Manager (Governance & Strategy)
SCOPE
A 6-month initial architectural build & buy-in with ongoing enterprise scaling and governance
OUTCOMES
+28% speed-to-market
-70% design inconsistencies
-40% design review effort
TL;DR
The Challenge
The company had a fragmented brand, high engineering debt, and a 20% resource cut. Four previous attempts to build a design system had failed.
The Solution
I successfully pitched, architected, and successfully launched an enterprise design system. I now manage its ongoing governance, coordinating engineering deployment while overseeing consumption across internal teams, contractors, and external agencies.
High Debt with Few Resources
Custom, one-off designs had severely weakened our digital brand and created massive engineering debt. Following a 20% reduction in project resources, the mandate was clear: we had to increase revenue and efficiency simultaneously. After four previous attempts by in-house designers and outside consultants failed due to a lack of organizational alignment, I took ownership to build a viable, scalable system from the ground up.
Architecture, Governance, and Deployment
Stepping into a dual role as both Principal Architect and Design Manager, I approached the problem through systems thinking for scalability and design thinking for consumption. My first priority was successfully pitching the business case to the C-Suite to secure dedicated resources, aligning the system's value directly with the company's long-term revenue and brand initiatives.
After partnering with the Directors of Product, Product Management, and Engineering to establish a unified vision, I built a protective "moat" around the system during its initial 6-month development. I learned from past organizational failures that exposing an immature system too early leads to chaos. I strictly managed governance, ensuring the foundation was mature and stable before opening it up for consumption.