Rebuilding the EU Design Function

Salsify — B2B SaaS E-commerce

Joined as the first EU Design Manager two months before the entire EU design team departed.
Mandate: rebuild the function while maintaining product delivery and cross-country alignment.

  • 4 designers

    Hired & onboarded in 12 months.

  • −30%

    Ramp-up time vs US benchmark.

  • −40%

    Duplicate research.

Role
EU Design Manager
Team
0 → 4 designers (1 Lead, 2 Juniors, 1 Senior)

Key decisions

  • Hiring juniors + 1 lead to build sustainable team autonomy in France
  • DesignOps foundations built in parallel with hiring
  • Weekly cross-country design review (FR/PT/US)
↓ THE FULL STORY

Context

Salsify operates two SaaS products at different maturity levels: one scaling internationally, one in maintenance mode.

I joined as the first EU Design Manager two months before the entire EU design team departed.

  • Product delivery at risk in france due to lack of designers
  • Fragmented collaboration with the US team
  • No shared methodology or DesignOps infrastructure

Mandate: rebuild the EU design function while maintaining delivery velocity.

Problem Framing

The surface problem was headcount.
The structural issue was the absence of operational foundations.

  • No Design onboarding framework
  • No shared research repository
  • No shared design pattern
  • No established rituals with Product and Engineering

The objective was to rebuild a self-sustaining and autonomous design function, not only replace roles.

Key Decisions

Hiring Strategy

Recruited one Lead Designer and two junior designers.
Objective: create internal standards and long-term autonomy rather than short-term senior output.

Image showing the EU design team structure
EU design team structure

DesignOps Foundations

Built onboarding framework, UI library, and research repository during the hiring phase.
Research artifacts were embedded in Jira using Atomic Research structure,
aligning with existing Product & Engineering workflows.

Image showing a sample of the onboarding framework
Sample from the onboarding framework

Image showing the button component in the UI library
Button component in the UI library

Image showing the research repository structure in Jira
Research repository structure in Jira: atomic research model connecting observations, insights, and recommendations to product roadmap

Cross-Country Design Review

Introduced a weekly structured design review across France, Portugal, and US teams.
Created visibility, reduced duplication, and improved documentation standards.

Outcomes

  • 4

    Designers onboarded in 12 months

  • −30%

    Ramp-up time vs benchmark

  • −40%

    Research duplication

The rebuilt design function operated with shared standards,
integrated research workflows, and cross-country visibility.
Infrastructure built early accelerated onboarding and reduced coordination overhead.