Leadership began
before the title.
Senior Product Designer
I joined Tilt as its Founding Designer. A second designer joined six months later.
Beyond my own projects
Mentoring, shared practices, earlier Design involvement, and closer customer and cross-functional relationships.
Product Design Manager
Formal leadership in 2025, followed by a third designer joining in 2026. Shared practices supported our growing team.
The challenge
Our small-team model
wasn’t going to scale.
I joined Tilt in 2021 as its Founding Designer. A second designer joined six months later, and a third joined in 2026—growing the team from just me to three designers. Our ways of working suited a small team, but as the company and product organization grew, product knowledge became concentrated with individual designers. Work was difficult to hand over, and we didn’t always have visibility into each other’s projects.
The gap extended beyond Design. Stakeholders had limited visibility into our capacity, and Design wasn’t consistently involved when customer problems, business needs, and product direction were first being shaped. We could arrive after important assumptions had already been made.
We needed to scale shared knowledge, visibility, and influence—and make it easier for Design to contribute earlier.
My role
Take responsibility
before it becomes your title.
As a Senior Product Designer, I began coaching my design partner, distributing work more intentionally, and creating shared visibility beyond our individual projects. I was thinking about how Design operated as a function, alongside my own product work.
I built relationships across Product, Engineering, Sales, and other stakeholder groups. I advocated with Product leadership for earlier Design involvement and joined Sales and customer conversations to hear problems directly and represent Product Design and the user.
My promotion to Product Design Manager in 2025 formalized that growing responsibility. It allowed me to grow the team and turn informal practices into a more scalable operating model.
The approach
Get closer to where
decisions are being shaped.
A stronger seat at the table meant contributing while problems and opportunities were still being defined. I raised the gap with Product leadership and built cross-functional credibility through relationships and direct customer exposure.
Design joined downstream.
Important assumptions could already be established before Design became involved.
Design contributed alongside partners.
Closer collaboration brought user advocacy, problem framing, discovery, UX expertise, product thinking, and execution into the conversation earlier.
Product Design contributed perspective and expertise alongside other functions; product and business decisions remained shared cross-functional work.
Build practices around the problems they solve.
As the team grew, I made our ways of working more explicit. Each practice addressed a specific scaling problem.
Shared knowledgeReduce dependency on individual designers.
Intentional work allocation and lightweight weekly Design stand-ups gave designers visibility beyond their own projects and distributed product knowledge.
Quality + critiqueMake peer review an expectation.
UX Reviews and Design PR Reviews created more consistent critique and shared learning. Work shouldn’t be considered final without another designer reviewing it.
Access to DesignKeep smaller needs moving.
Design Office Hours gave Product and Engineering a lightweight way to discuss incoming work, UX questions, and smaller decisions without a full project process.
Visibility + resource planningMake capacity and priorities visible.
Shared allocation documentation showed who was working on what, current capacity, Design status, upcoming initiatives, and potential resource gaps.
Continuous learningTurn individual discoveries into team knowledge.
Informal Sip ’n Learns gave designers space to share tools, AI discoveries, workflows, techniques, and industry learning.
The outcome
A shared way of working.
Less reliance on individual heroics.
Designers gained visibility into work beyond their own projects, product knowledge became less dependent on individuals, and allocation became more intentional. Peer review was more consistent, while learning was more deliberately shared.
Squads gained a lightweight route to Design for smaller needs. Stakeholders could better understand our capacity and active work. Stronger relationships across Product, Engineering, Sales, and other groups brought Design into more conversations where product direction was taking shape.
I joined Tilt focused primarily on product experiences. Over time, that responsibility expanded to developing designers, creating visibility, distributing knowledge, and building the environment in which good design happens. The 2025 promotion formalized a leadership role I had already begun growing into.
My impact evolved from designing the product to designing the conditions that allow a Design team to do great work.