When I joined ComplyAdvantage as Design System Lead, the product surface had grown through years of feature work — different visual languages, inconsistent spacing, and accessibility gaps that slowed both design and engineering.
Uniform started with a practical audit: which patterns appeared in three or more places, which components blocked WCAG compliance, and where engineering was rebuilding the same modal or table filter from scratch. We prioritised tokens and a small set of high-traffic React components before chasing full coverage.
The biggest shift was cultural. Design system work only sticks when product teams see time saved. We paired with squads on real features, documented usage in plain language, and treated accessibility as a default property of every component — not a separate checklist at the end.
Six months in, new screens were shipping faster and support tickets about inconsistent UI dropped noticeably. That is the signal I look for: a system people reach for because it makes their week easier.