I founded Splunk.com’s web design system as a tool for the whole department, trained the designers who ran it, and executive leadership adopted its decision model.

2x Increase

in department output capacity

2x Increase

in department output capacity

2 Juniors + 1 Senior Designer

formally mentored and informally managed

2 Juniors + 1 Senior Designer

formally mentored and informally managed

Governance That Scales Up

executive leadership used my strategy after I rolled off

Governance That Scales Up

executive leadership used my strategy after I rolled off

Splunk.com’s digital marketing department needed the consistency of a design system, but the real problem was how it made project decisions. PMs had a fragmented picture of how design worked, stakeholders asked us to rebuild with outdated elements, and although the team was growing fast, no formal process existed at any level. I was chosen to found the system as one of my first major Splunk projects.

I started with user interviews across disciplines, which found that systems succeed through cross-disciplinary ownership. So I built it for the whole department, not just designers, and the job became three things: getting teams to decide together, training the people who would run it, and giving leadership a way to make decisions the same way.

Scaling impact by empowering others

Built for the whole department

I interviewed across roles: design, engineering, content, and PM, then built the system as a shared tool.

PM and management used it to create the first intake and prioritization process, so teams could scope work and say no.

→

↓

Gave resisters a voice

The visual design team worried a system would limit their creative freedom, so I brought them into collaborative sessions to set the roadmap.

Once they could help decide the outcome, they stopped treating the system as a threat.

→

↓

Mentored juniors to lead

I directed an intern on the research, then trained them and a second junior to run the system, staying until they could run it without me.

After I rolled off, the juniors steered it largely on their own.

→

↓

Used collaboration to create new opportunities

I worked with UI engineering and content writing to define the specs, and ensured that they’d actually find them useful.

This grew into contributing to the content team’s written style guide, with guidelines for copy, microcopy, and structuring web storytelling.

Success came from two things working together. The intake and prioritization process let the department decide what to take on and what to decline, and the system’s atomic design stopped teams from rebuilding the same parts for every project. As the first design hire, I also used this project to build the team's culture and point of view through mentorship.

My work was later recognized by my product team peers as a model for delivering durable UX by navigating organizational complexity and alignment.

Ownership, not persuasion, is what drives adoption. And governance that depends on one person isn’t governance.

Ownership, not persuasion, is what drives adoption. And governance that depends on one person isn’t governance.

The throughline

I came to see design systems as decision structures first and component libraries second. The scope scaled to match: from atomic elements, to a department’s process, to the designers who ran it, to the executives who adopted it. Each step was the same job at a different altitude. My strategy for quality and impact is ownership: I give people a real stake in decisions that reach the team and beyond.