What the team was up against.
[Placeholder] The existing component library had grown organically over 4 years, resulting in 300+ components with inconsistent APIs, duplicated functionality, and poor accessibility.
[Placeholder] Teams were spending 30% of their sprint time working around the design system rather than building features. Something had to change.
How I thought about it.
[Placeholder] Conducted a full audit of existing components, usage patterns, and pain points across all 12 product teams.
[Placeholder] Established a core set of 48 essential components with consistent APIs, proper TypeScript types, and WCAG AA accessibility compliance.
"A design system is only as good as its adoption. We optimized for developer experience above all else."
What shipped.
[Placeholder] Built the new system from scratch using Radix primitives, Tailwind for styling, and comprehensive Storybook documentation.
[Placeholder] Created migration guides and codemods to help teams upgrade incrementally without blocking their roadmaps.
Built with.
// Consistent API across all components<Buttonvariant="primary"size="md"leftIcon={<PlusIcon />}loading={isSubmitting}disabled={!isValid}>Create Project</Button>
What it produced.
[Placeholder] All 12 teams migrated within 3 months. The consistent component APIs reduced onboarding time for new engineers from 2 weeks to 3 days.
What I'd do differently.
[Placeholder] The migration codemods were absolutely worth the investment — they reduced upgrade friction dramatically.
[Placeholder] I'd push harder for dedicated design system office hours. Ad-hoc support wasn't scalable as adoption grew.