Scaling and Leading an Effective and Engaged Design Team
Design LeadershipTeam BuildingDesign Ops
TL;DR
Built PlexTrac's design function from scratch — scaling from solo IC to a 7-person team in under 3 years, ahead of Series B funding. Established the team charter, career ladder, design system, peer review program, and org-wide research infrastructure. Achieved a 36% reduction in UX debt in 6 months and championed WCAG AA compliance that expanded market reach into the Government sector.
Stepping into PlexTrac, I inherited designs from an overseas contract development team. There was no internal design voice, no shared system, and no foundation to build on. I became PlexTrac's first in-house design strategist — and within three months, scaled the team from one to seven, a 600% expansion, in preparation for Series B funding.
The Challenge
PlexTrac needed a design function — not just designers.
The platform had no design system, no onboarding process, no team charter, and no career ladder. Scaling headcount without those foundations would have created chaos. The real work was building the infrastructure for a team to thrive before hiring into it.
No design system
Inherited designs built on AntD with no custom library, no shared components, no documentation
No onboarding
New designers had no 30-60-90 plan, no clear ramp-up, and no defined expectations by level
No team identity
No charter, no shared values, no structure to communicate what design does or how decisions get made
What We Built
Six foundations before we scaled
Design System
Leveraged the AntD foundation and acquired a custom Figma library tailored to PlexTrac's brand identity. Established core elements and building blocks so the team could add components systematically — driving documentation, code reusability, and developer efficiency.
Onboarding Checklist & 90-Day Plan
Created a structured 30-60-90 day onboarding plan for every new designer, with clear milestones, expectations, and integration points. New team members knew exactly what success looked like from day one.
Domain Onboarding & Industry Immersion
All new designers joined without cybersecurity experience. I built domain knowledge directly into the onboarding process — pairing structured cybersecurity training modules with hands-on work through the team's own personas, segmentation details, and journey maps. New hires learned the industry by doing the research, not just reading about it.
Design Team Charter
Co-created a living team charter establishing roles, responsibilities, goals, and a shared vision for how design operates at PlexTrac. Reviewed quarterly to stay aligned as the team grew. Used externally to communicate design's value and working model to cross-functional partners.
Career Progression Framework
Built a transparent career ladder outlining expectations at each level. Used in 1:1s to spark candid conversations about performance and growth. Team members cited this framework as one of the most motivating aspects of working on the team.
Celebrating Success / Year in Review
Embedded recognition into the team's operating rhythm — weekly praise, quarterly retros, and a collective year-in-review. At year-end, we carved out dedicated time to reflect on individual and team wins before goal-setting for the year ahead.
Chapter 2
Developing the Culture
Scaling headcount is the easy part. Building a team where designers find their voice, push their thinking, and produce consistently excellent work — that requires intentional culture-building.
Initiative
Peer Reviews
In a fast-paced agile environment, maintaining shared context and consistent quality across handoffs required a structured approach to peer review.
What we implemented
Structured peer review program
Strategically integrated reviewers at key project milestones. Lean UX workshops aligned business and user goals, identified solution risks, and surfaced research needs. Design critiques provided continuous feedback. Handoff documentation ensured seamless knowledge transfer.
Results
A more cohesive, consistent team
Deeper collaboration and knowledge sharing across the team. Higher quality design handoffs with fewer iterations. Greater consistency across deliverables — brand and user experience remained consistent throughout projects.
Initiative
Concept Maturity & Design T-Shirt Sizing
Concept Maturity
Clarity on stage before feedback
Before diving into designs, designers were expected to first ground the room — sharing the business problem being solved, the customer needs driving the work, and the relevant journey context. From there, a visual outlined the design's current stage and the specific areas we wanted input on.
Design T-Shirt Sizing
Realistic scoping across four levels
Implemented a tiered project sizing approach (Small / Medium / Large / Extra Large) mapping design and development time estimates to required sign-offs — fostering transparency and informed decision-making throughout the design process.
Initiative
Design Principles
We ran a collaborative workshop to establish our core design principles — guiding lights that gave the team confidence to articulate decisions clearly and discuss trade-offs without ambiguity.
1
Building trust
Trust isn't just a desirable outcome — it's the cornerstone of our design philosophy. We champion user trust as the overarching theme, cultivating a growing sense of trust and confidence in our product by being transparent, security-forward, and respectful of user data.
2
ADA Compliant · Clear · Consistent
We meet WCAG AA standards, establish clear visual hierarchy, and strive for a consistent design language across all interfaces — ensuring experiences are usable, navigable, and familiar.
3
Ethical · Performant · Secure · Streamlined
We design with integrity, meet user needs for speed and accuracy, give users confidence their data is safe, and strive for fewer clicks whenever possible.
Chapter 3
Embedding Research Org-Wide
I built the infrastructure for research to scale beyond the design team — giving product managers, engineers, and go-to-market teams access to the right tools, methods, and guidance to make research a shared practice, not a gated function.
Initiative
Research Decision Tree
Teams consistently faced the same question: "what kind of research should we run?" I developed a practical guide covering diverse research methods, highlighting their strengths and limitations, and offering a clear decision path based on research type, team needs, and project complexity.
Early research prevents costly missteps and keeps features aligned with real user needs — even under tight timelines.
PlexTrac serves Consultancies, MSSPs, and Enterprise customers. I crafted product-based personas drawing on a rich tapestry of insights from surveys, interviews, and internal expert feedback.
The approach
Trans-segmental personas
We pioneered "trans-segmental" personas — archetypes that capture the essence of our users across all segments. This approach identifies shared aspirations and pain points, but also acknowledges segment-specific nuances — offering a holistic user understanding that streamlines design decisions.
Four primary personas
Steve, Paul, Pete & Manuel
Steve the Security Analyst, Procurement Paul, Pete the Pentester, and Manuel the Manager. Each persona captures wins, hurdles, delighters, and the PlexTrac tools they rely on most — giving the entire product organization a shared vocabulary for who we're designing for.
Outcomes
What three years of leadership built
1→7
Team scaled in under 3 years
36%
Reduction in UX debt in 6 months
600%
Team growth before Series B
Scaled the design team from 1 to 7 (myself, 5 designers, and 1 UX researcher), establishing clear roles, a team charter, a career ladder, and a collaborative onboarding process — all before Series B funding
Launched a UX debt reduction dashboard that achieved a 36% decrease in UX debt within 6 months, directly boosting usability across the platform
Built a structured peer review program that increased design consistency, reduced handoff friction, and created a culture of continuous improvement
Embedded research org-wide through a research decision tree, cross-segment personas, and a user feedback portal — making research a shared practice across product, design, and engineering
Championed accessibility, advancing WCAG AA compliance and expanding PlexTrac's market reach into the Government sector
Reflection
What this work taught me
The biggest insight: culture and craft are not separate workstreams. The peer reviews, the design principles, the team charter — these weren't overhead. They were the reason the work got better. Teams that have a shared language for quality produce higher quality work, full stop.
If I were doing it again, I'd start the research infrastructure even earlier. We built great tooling, but embedding research as a practice org-wide took longer than it should have — because we were reactive at first. Starting with the decision tree and personas in week one, not month twelve, would have accelerated everything downstream.