Design Systems
Building scalable design system platforms — tokens, component libraries, documentation, governance — that improve consistency and delivery speed across teams.
What This Covers
- Tokens-first architecture: Figma Variables → JSON → multi-platform outputs (CSS, TypeScript, iOS, Android)
- Component API design: headless core primitives with product-specific composition layers
- Documentation systems: MDX cookbooks, component selection guidance, usage analytics
- Governance: SemVer releases, Changesets, RFC/ADR decision records, deprecation policies
- Quality gates: visual regression, interaction tests, accessibility checks as CI release blockers
- AI agentic workflows: automated component building, Chromatic visual testing, unit test generation, component validation, and product UI generation from DS primitives
- Adoption strategy: dev portals, starter kits, training programs, measurable adoption metrics
Why It Matters
Without shared foundations, teams rebuild the same UI patterns independently — leading to visual inconsistency, duplicated maintenance work, and accessibility gaps that multiply across products.
A well-built design system compresses this complexity: shared tokens make theming predictable, component primitives eliminate duplicated work, and quality gates catch regressions before they reach users.
Approach
I treat design systems as products, not libraries. This means measuring adoption, investing in documentation and onboarding, and building governance that balances consistency with product team autonomy.
The architecture follows a layered model: a headless core of interaction primitives, shared through stable APIs, with product-specific composition layers that preserve each product's identity.
I integrate modern AI agentic workflows into the design system lifecycle — using AI to build and update components, run Chromatic visual regression tests, generate unit tests, validate component contracts, and generate product UI directly from DS primitives. This accelerates the entire cycle from component creation to production delivery.