Scaling Design Quality and Collaboration
During my time at Sift, I led a connected set of initiatives aimed at improving both our product experience and the way our design team worked. This included co-developing the company-wide design system, leading the redesign of our core Console, and migrating the team from Sketch/Abstract to Figma. The migration was not just a tooling change — it directly improved the flexibility, organization, and capabilities of our design system.
During my time at Sift, I led a connected set of initiatives aimed at improving both our product experience and the way our design team worked. This included co-developing the company-wide design system, leading the redesign of our core Console, and migrating the team from Sketch/Abstract to Figma. The migration was not just a tooling change — it directly improved the flexibility, organization, and capabilities of our design system.
During my time at Sift, I led a connected set of initiatives aimed at improving both our product experience and the way our design team worked. This included co-developing the company-wide design system, leading the redesign of our core Console, and migrating the team from Sketch/Abstract to Figma. The migration was not just a tooling change — it directly improved the flexibility, organization, and capabilities of our design system.
The unified design system reduced inconsistencies and sped up onboarding for new designers. Console 2.0 delivered a cleaner, more intuitive interface and streamlined user workflows. Migrating to Figma enabled the team to collaborate more effectively with PMs and developers, improve delivery speed, and evolve the design system with greater flexibility and better organization.
Reduction in design tooling costs
Faster cross-functional collaboration
Full adoption of Figma by the team
Unified design language applied across all Sift products
Problem
We faced three interlinked challenges. Our design language was inconsistent across products, with duplicated and outdated UI patterns. The Console, our primary interface for customers, no longer matched updated standards and lacked UX clarity. At the same time, our existing tools slowed collaboration, made file management difficult, and limited how we could maintain and evolve the design system.
Goal
Create a unified design foundation, modernize our core Console experience, and equip the design team with the tools and processes needed to work faster, collaborate more effectively, and keep the system evolving with product growth.
Approach
I approached these challenges as parts of one transformation. First, we audited existing UIs across the company and defined core design principles. Working with another designer, we consolidated patterns into a unified library of components, tokens, responsive grids, and SaaS-specific templates. Integration with developers was supported through Sketchbook to ensure visual and functional consistency in code.
With this foundation, I led the redesign of Console 2.0, overhauling navigation, restructuring the information hierarchy, and aligning every feature with the new system. This made the interface more intuitive for users and simpler to maintain.
Finally, I initiated and executed the migration to Figma. This process involved rebuilding and cleaning legacy files, onboarding the team, and creating shared libraries. Figma’s collaborative features, component flexibility, and better organization tools allowed us to enhance the design system itself — making it easier to extend, more consistent, and more capable of supporting new features.
Solution
The design system became the backbone of the Console redesign, while the migration to Figma ensured it could evolve faster and remain consistent across all product surfaces. The combined effect was a more coherent product experience for users and a more efficient workflow for the design and development teams.
The unified design system reduced inconsistencies and sped up onboarding for new designers. Console 2.0 delivered a cleaner, more intuitive interface and streamlined user workflows. Migrating to Figma enabled the team to collaborate more effectively with PMs and developers, improve delivery speed, and evolve the design system with greater flexibility and better organization.
Reduction in design tooling costs
Faster cross-functional collaboration
Full adoption of Figma by the team
Unified design language applied across all Sift products
