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Design Manager

Designing at Scale Without Losing the Craft

HEINEKEN•2024-2025
Designing at Scale Without Losing the Craft

Built operational structure to maintain design quality across multiple product teams while scaling a global B2B platform.

Key outcomes

Maintained design consistency across growing platform
Reduced duplicated work between teams
Faster design velocity with improved feedback loops
Healthier design system adoption

Problem

As eazle grew, we added more markets, teams, and complexity. Designers were embedded in product teams, each running on their own timeline:

  • Risk of inconsistent UX and duplicated components
  • Siloed thinking without shared structure
  • Challenge: maintain quality without bureaucracy

Solution

I redesigned our design organization to balance autonomy with alignment:

Key changes:

  • Reorganized into product-aligned teams with embedded researchers
  • Introduced shared rituals: weekly critiques, bi-weekly reviews, monthly showcases
  • Established vertical ownership with horizontal alignment through experience tenets
  • Coached toward better decision-making: Why this? Why now? How does it scale?

Outcome

Created a scalable design organization that maintained quality while moving fast:

  • Designers moved faster with less duplicated work
  • UX felt coherent across the entire product
  • Earlier feedback improved quality
  • Design system became healthier with two-way contribution

What I learned

Scaling design isn't about standardizing everything. It's about creating the right constraints, rhythms, and conversations. When teams align on principles and connect through structure, quality becomes a byproduct.