The talent system

I scaled a design organisation to almost 70 people across three geographies, and rebuilt the people systems underneath it as it grew: the org shape, the seniority levels, the hiring rulebook, and the growth framework managers run consistently, with room for individual circumstances. Hiring criteria derive from the levels, capacity is measured against demand so restructures follow evidence, and the organisation now promotes from within and runs these systems day to day without me in the room.

What I noticed as the team scaled.

When scaling a design team I noticed that levels that are written for a smaller team need adjustment to more accurately describe the work people actually do. I also noticed that designers need to know “what’s next” for them, even when they are recently promoted to senior levels. It is also evident that managers’ preferences tend to vary when it comes to ways of measuring and supporting growth in their teams.

It is then imperative that in an org of almost 70 designers across 3 geographies, a consistent way of restructuring is applied, starting with the proper foundations. This is what this case study is about: the restructure, the levels, the hiring rulebook, and the growth framework that managers run the same way everywhere.

A design team shaped by org demand and scale.

I restructured the team around demand and scale, and consequently there have been a couple of restructures. Since I joined, the organisation has been reshaped several times: teams split as product lines grew, merged when demand consolidated, or new ones were spun up if needed, such as the design system team. Dedicated managers were given when one person was carrying too many designers or areas. Each change followed the same logic: the shape of the design organisation follows the shape of the demand and the structure of the company, and it changes accordingly.

What stays stable across the changes is written down. The cross-product functions like research, content, or DesignOps each carry a written remit describing what they own, so teams can be resized and re-drawn around them without the ownership going blurry.

Committed demand is estimated, converted into designer-weeks, and set against the capacity the team really has. When demand runs ahead of capacity, that becomes a headcount conversation with evidence behind it. When it doesn’t, it becomes a planning conversation. The restructures come out of that evidence.

Seniority that means the same thing everywhere.

With the restructure, the seniority levels had to change too. I rewrote the levels and their descriptions across all five disciplines, on both career tracks, so that a senior title describes the same expectations in London, Vancouver, and New York, in close partnership with HR. Promotion cases now argue against written criteria and up-front expectations. That has taken a lot of heat out of the process: people can see what the next level asks of them, and managers can point to it.

Hiring that can tell similar candidates apart.

The levels feed straight into hiring. I rewrote the hiring rulebook so that interview criteria derive from the level descriptions, and added a set of calibration questions designed for the hardest case: two candidates who look equally skilled on paper. The questions give interviewers a consistent way to separate them, and asking the same questions across every panel makes the results comparable. It also closes a loop: the people we hire are assessed against the same levels they will grow through.

Goals every manager runs the same way.

I built a goals and objectives framework that every manager across the organisation uses the same way: shared structure, shared cadence, discipline-specific content. A designer in Vancouver and a designer in London now go through the same quality of conversation about where they are heading. That said, each designer will follow a growth plan according to their individual circumstances, and the framework is flexible enough to adapt.

The managers themselves are part of the system. I upskilled the management layer, promoted managers into senior manager roles as their scope grew, and several designers I hired now lead teams of their own.

Measured like everything else design runs.

The system carries its own measures: the seniority mix against the growth plan, regretted attrition tracked separately from the moves people should make for their careers, and capacity against demand on a regular cadence, so sustainability is visible to the business in a quantifiable way.

The organisation grows its own leaders.

The clearest result is where the leadership comes from. Managers have been promoted to senior managers, designers hired into the team now lead teams of their own, and promotion cases across three sites are based on the same written criteria. Through the scale-up years the organisation held onto its people, and the machinery in this case study is why that was repeatable.

The system belongs to the organisation now: managers run the levels, the hiring rulebook, and the goals framework day to day without me in the room.