About
I build the thing that makes the thing, which means design systems that hold across brands and platforms, for teams that have to ship faster than they can agree.
Eighteen years across mobile products and the systems underneath them. Most recently five at Expedia Group on the design system serving more than a hundred brands, and before that seven at Hotels.com designing the app itself, the home screen, the search results, and the flows people actually book through. I have been on both sides of a design system, the team that maintains one and the team that has to ship against one on a deadline.
The two disciplines are the same problem at different altitudes. A product screen fails when it cannot answer a question about what a customer needs. A design system fails when it cannot answer a question about what a component is. Both get fixed the same way, by stopping shipping arrangements and starting to ship something structured enough that a person, a team or a machine can build from it without having to ask. That is the argument both case studies here make, seven years apart.
I am in London, looking for a lead role where the system and the product are one conversation rather than two teams negotiating.