Building Sustainable Design Infrastructure

May 28

Challenge

When I joined Driveway, the site's surface appearance belied deeper inconsistencies. The organization was structured by journey teams—Buy, Sell/Trade-In, Checkout, Learn—each operating somewhat independently. While visual cohesion existed at a glance, beneath the interface was a complex web of redundant components: multiple carousel implementations using different JavaScript libraries, components that appeared identical but had entirely different codebases, and a partially integrated design system that few teams actively used.

This fragmentation created invisible costs: longer development cycles, inconsistent user experiences, and reduced agility when implementing new features. More concerning was the lack of awareness—some engineering teams didn't even know a design system existed, and there were no dedicated engineering resources to maintain it.

Approach

Rather than treating the design system as a separate initiative, I recognized it needed to be woven into the fabric of how we worked. My strategy focused on three interconnected dimensions:

Organizational integration: Securing formal support and resources for the design system
Education and empowerment: Building knowledge and commitment across disciplines
Process embedding: Making the design system an inseparable part of our workflow

I began by negotiating with the director of product to establish a mandate that design system work must be included in feature development—elevating it from an optional consideration to a business requirement. This foundational step created the organizational space needed for sustainable progress.

Process Highlights

Cross-functional awareness building: To bridge the knowledge gap, I instituted a comprehensive training program. We equipped the entire design team with deep knowledge of the Figma design system, trained engineering teams to recognize design system components in specifications, and began regular attendance at Frontend League meetings to create visibility around design system developments.

Process reinforcement: We transformed our design specification process, instituting reviews by the design system lead to ensure accurate component representation. Each specification included dedicated sections highlighting required design system updates, making system contributions visible and traceable.

Strategic advocacy: Recognizing that product teams would often descope design system work under timeline pressure, I worked with stakeholders to create a channeling mechanism—immediately transferring descoped design system work to enhancement teams, and partnering with enhancement product leaders to prioritize this work appropriately.

Outcomes

The impact of these systematic changes became most evident during the My Driveway project, where we designed, developed, and shipped over 300 features in record time. This achievement would have been impossible without the robust UI toolbox we had built, which allowed our design solutions to be both nimble and impactful.

Beyond this visible success, the design system transformation delivered:

Reduced development redundancy through standardized component usage
Improved cross-team knowledge sharing about interface patterns
Enhanced design consistency across the entire platform
A sustainable model for design system maintenance without dedicated resources
Greater engineering investment in system components they now understood and valued

Reflection

This experience taught me that design systems are not merely technical artifacts but social constructs that require careful cultivation. Their success depends less on the quality of the components themselves and more on how deeply they're integrated into an organization's ways of working.

The challenge was never primarily technical—it was about creating shared understanding and value across different disciplines and teams. By focusing on education, advocacy, and integration rather than just implementation, we transformed the design system from a resource used by a few into an ecosystem supported by many.

The true measure of a design system's success isn't how comprehensive it is, but how effectively it fades into the background of daily work—enabling teams to create consistent, high-quality experiences without having to think about it. By this measure, our transformation of Sequoia from an afterthought to an essential infrastructure was perhaps our most foundational achievement.