Our developers release daily — which means any delays, ambiguity, or rework can quickly multiply. When I joined, design work was siloed in Axure, which didn’t reflect real frontend architecture or support rapid iteration. There wasn't a SSO (single source of truth), documentation was either over or underwritten, and developers needed to move fast.
The result? Devs were frequently blocked, unclear on intent, or making UX decisions on their own. This slowed execution and introduced inconsistent, often confusing experiences for users — leading to high incident volume and growing tech debt.
Over 2.5yrs, I led a series of strategic changes that yielded these great outcomes:
✅ Migrated all designs and teams to Figma, and built shared component libraries
✅ Cleaned up and streamlined Storybook documentation
✅ Created internal dashboards to track incident trends and migration progress
✅ Embedded designers and developers into shared working groups
Here's how it all happened
When I joined, I was one of 26 designers embedded in a fully remote organization serving a critical government platform. The product processes 85% of all U.S. immigration and asylum cases (impacting upwards of 8M people annually). It is complex, high-stakes, and under continuous development.
The problems…
⚠️ Designers worked in silos without shared focus areas or strategy
⚠️ Developers made design decisions without UX input
⚠️ Axure was our primary tool, which didn't map to actual frontend structure
⚠️ Documentation lived in scattered Confluence pages and out-of-date PDFs
⚠️ Teams operated independently with little alignment or shared process
There was also very little trust in design at the time. UX wasn’t seen as a problem-solving function — just a group that made mockups. That perception created a cycle of disengagement: design wasn’t looped in early, and so we couldn’t contribute meaningfully. It became clear that fixing tools and workflows alone wouldn’t be enough — we needed to rebuild relationships and reshape the role of design in the organization.
My Role and Why It Evolved
I originally joined as an individual contributor — a senior designer responsible for UX in one slice of the product. But early on, I noticed deeper systemic problems: communication breakdowns, inconsistent tooling, and a lack of alignment between design, product, and development. These gaps weren’t just process issues — they were showing up in the user experience.
Rather than stay in my lane, I began actively looking for ways to help:
I advocated for and co-created focus areas within our design team to reduce chaos and increase accountability
I took ownership of the Operations & Tooling focus area, where I could bridge my frontend knowledge with our design and engineering workflows
I embedded myself in developer channels, meetings, and planning sessions to understand their blockers and earn their trust
As the work gained traction, I was promoted — first to the Operations focus area lead, and later to lead of the entire UX team. That role expanded my scope from isolated fixes to holistic UX transformation.
Here's where I got to work work
Led a massive tooling migration from Axure to Figma
Revived a stagnant style guide into a scalable, enterprise design system
Created internal tools and dashboards to track design debt, incidents, and UX outcomes
Embedded developers into our design team to improve alignment and delivery speed
All of this required not just leadership, but diplomacy. We had no top-down mandate. To move the work forward, I had to build consensus, get buy-in from technical leadership, and help every stakeholder see the benefit of doing things differently. That trust — built carefully over time — was the foundation of everything that followed.