Approach

1. Building a scalable component Library

When I joined the Spark Product Team, there was no design system or component library in place—resulting in inconsistencies, inefficiencies, and delays. I took the initiative to build a scalable component library from the ground up in Figma, introducing reusable components and documentation. This enabled consistency across product areas while streamlining design and development. It also reduced design debt, and helped onboard new designers and engineers more efficiently.

2. Solving File & Collaboration Challenges

Another bottleneck I identified early on was the difficulty navigating the Figma files. There was no consistent structure, no clear naming conventions, and no shared system to track design changes. As a result, stakeholders outside the design team struggled to follow our work.

This lack of structure brought me back to something the Product Owner had shared during my interview a few weeks earlier. When I asked—somewhat playfully—what challenges he faced working with designers, he said: ‘the design process lacks structure’. I’d prefaced the question with a bit of humor to ease any tension, since both he and the Head of Design were present. Now, standing in front of the disorganized Figma files (example here), I immediately understood what he meant.

To bring greater clarity and accountability to our Figma files, I introduced a system of dedicated components tagged with JIRA IDs, designer ownership, and work status. This made it easy for anyone—inside or outside the team—to understand what work was being done, by whom, and where it stood. I also redesigned our handoff approach by embedding clear annotations directly into screens, using labeled legends with visual anchors. This noticeably reduced back-and-forth with developers, and improved the accuracy of implementation.

3. Streamlining UX Research & Data-Driven Decisions

To gain buy-in and navigate executive pushback, I leaned on user research. When our design was challenged by the CTO during a product call, we quickly ran internal user testing sessions to validate our approach. Within a day, feedback from seven colleagues—who were representative of our user base and not involved in the project (to avoid bias)—overwhelmingly supported our design. Presenting this data not only resolved the disagreement but also helped earn the CTO’s trust in our process.

With customer access strictly gatekept by the Sales team, we had to find creative alternatives for gathering feedback.
I interviewed new joiners to gather fresh perspectives and used their input to redesign a core journey in the platform.

In this redesign, we applied principles of progressive disclosure to de-emphasize secondary elements and spotlight timely, task-relevant information. The result was a significantly clearer and more focused experience — feedback from customers highlighted the new flow as more intuitive, comprehensive, and aligned with their real-world needs.

To expand our reach, my team and I used UserTesting.com—targeting participants with relevant domain expertise in Insurance and Finance. This gave us access to high-quality feedback through moderated and unmoderated testing, and we used video highlights to share findings with cross-functional stakeholders.

To ensure insights were tracked and acted upon, I created a research database in Airtable and collaborated with a UX researcher and a data scientist to combine qualitative insights with product analytics from Pendo. We implemented new tracking events (sometimes requiring dev support), and where needed, we built custom analytics dashboards in PowerBI. These tools helped us identify underused features, guide roadmap decisions, and redirect resources toward areas with greater user impact.

4. Driving Cross-Functional Collaboration

At Coherent, working across time zones and cultures was the norm. As Product Design Lead, I played a central role in aligning cross-functional efforts with teams distributed around the globe.

I had daily syncs with engineers/designers in India and the Philippines to ensure design intent was understood and implemented accurately. Regular collaboration with PMs in Europe helped us keep strategy aligned, while frequent calls with our colleagues in the USA enabled effective knowledge sharing across disciplines. I also supported occasional projects with teammates in Australia and New Zealand.

These global touchpoints strengthened cohesion across functions and allowed us to deliver consistently, despite geographic distance.