TLDR; I mean overview..

For 3 years I contributed to the overall growth, failure, and success of maintaining the Pharos design system (DS). This DS was maintained by ITHAKA staff engineers and products designers with the primary goal or serving JSTOR.org. Over the course of a few years, I was able to contribute, maintain, and scale the system while assisting with governing the federated modal. This was hard, I would not recommend growing a system in this way. It’s okay to maintain but very difficult to scale and apply additional effort. It is great to have team members passionate working across software and design silos though ;)

Problem & Goals

• What challenges did the absence of a dedicated team create?

• What did you aim to solve or maintain (e.g., consistency, scalability, adoption)?

• Any relevant KPIs or success indicators (if available).

Approach & Strategy

• How you embedded system work into existing team sprints.

• Methods used to prioritize design system tasks.

• How you balanced cross-functional needs (e.g., design, engineering, product).

• Communication and alignment strategies across teams.

Collaboration and Execution

• Key tasks you completed: component maintenance, documentation, tokens, versioning, etc.

• Examples of improvements, additions, or refactors.

• Integration with dev workflows or design libraries (e.g., Storybook, Figma).

• Screenshots, diagrams, or before/after comparisons.

Outcomes & Impact

• Measurable improvements (e.g., component usage, reduced inconsistencies).

• Adoption or contribution rates.

• Time saved for teams, improved handoff quality, or other wins.

Challenges & Learnings

• What was hard about doing this solo or ad hoc?

• How did you handle prioritization without a clear backlog?

• What would you do differently next time?

TLDR

• Recap the value of this work.

• Call out how it influenced broader design culture or product velocity.

• Optional: what’s next for the system?