Rebuilding a design team at a scale-up

Team leadership
Hiring & onboarding
Mentorship
design ops
Userlane logo
problem
When in 2023 two designers left within a month of each other, I transitioned from IC to management, with my first task being to rebuild the product design team. At that point, the company had not hired a new designer in 2 years, and roles and processes needed definition or updating.
what i achieved
Team building process: recruitment, onboarding, establishing team ops.
Effective hiring
  • Drawing on 10 years’ experience in hiring designers, I rebuilt a 3 person design team with short, effective, and inclusive recruitment cycles.
  • Every hire brought previously missing skills or new level of expertise to the team, raising the overall performance bar.
  • I was described as providing a respectful, pleasant experience in the interview process even by rejected candidates.
Successful onboarding
  • I structured the onboarding process and created relevant materials for a thorough and welcoming introduction.
  • I guided designers through their onboarding milestones to ensure successful integration, providing mentorship and 360° feedback as needed.
Smooth team operations
  • I defined ownership of squad and design topics
  • I supported prioritising work between the design team and the squads, liaised with other teams.
  • Ran effective meetings and workshops.
  • Ran 1:1s to provide continuous feedback and guidance.
Design Principles
After the team has settled in, through a series of stakeholder interviews and team workshops, we established Design Principles to define shared understanding of what "good design" means at Userlane.
  • Design Principles were intended to facilitate taking particularly gnarly design decisions.
  • Building a B2B SaaS product, we emphasised focus on helping customers achieve their goals, and an approach to design that prioritized resilience over trendiness.