The platform couldn't grow because its foundation was never built to, thus a rehaul is what opens new opportunities for larger markets.

As the lead designer on the Admin team, I led the redesign of Admin User Management, architecting a new foundation for core platform enabling compliance-focused Admins to flexibly control role-based permissions with safety, speed, and scale. This 6-month expansion project touched every user and fulfilled at 6-figure sales contract with a strategic client while delivering needs expressed by 12 other clients.

Challenges: Cross-team alignment, navigating tech debt constraints, short timeline, resources as I was primary on another team at first before advocating full-time focus.

Key decisions: I de-risked bets by advocating for collaborative user research, offered speed and scale through self-service and transparency, and directed multi-phased designs by aligning 5 cross-team roadmaps and marking metrics when monitoring in beta.

I led co-creation user research (problem discovery and solution validation), using insights to architect solutions that offered (1) controlled scale: allowing 3 roles per account involving 1000s of permissions, (2) adaptive security: views and access varied by user profile, (3) cohesion: mirrored designs between Employee and Admin views for trusting relations (4) phased transitions from old to new architecture with a future in audit trails.

Reflection: To build strong foundations, we must show leadership, humility, and empathy to align on strong ideals. When we can debate the merit of ideas, we have a chance to build great products. Lastly, co-creation with users is a powerful research method if you're short on time yet aiming to make long-lasting architecture.