1 product. 2 chapters. 3 years. Lasting impact.
Role | Product Designer, IC |
Focus | Campaign management, Design systems |
Team | 15-person feature crew (1 PM, 1 EM with engineers, 1 UXR, 1 Content) |
Timeline | Jan 2022 – Jan 2025 (represented in two chapters) |
Impact at a glance
The context
Corporate comms teams had no unified tool for planning, publishing, and measuring employee communications across Microsoft 365. Amplify was built to fix that. I joined before a single feature shipped and spent three years designing its core - campaign management and everything in between. It’s a story of chapters. (toggle to read)
Chapter 1 · Building the product from zero
The design systems arc — the thread that runs through both
Chapter 2 · The strategic pivot — Amplify from Anywhere
Reflections
Ownership starts with questioning what you inherit I didn't redesign Campaign Brief because someone asked. I inherited the area, had reservations, and went looking for evidence. Treating "is this working?" as part of the job — not someone else's — is what made the outcome possible.
Know when to assert your voice — and when to completely let it go Chapter 1 required establishing Amplify's identity. Chapter 2 required full deference to SharePoint. Same designer, opposite instincts, both right for their moment.
Systems work is how quality compounds The coherence docs, the Fluent migration, the color tokens — none of it shows in a screenshot. But it's what makes a product feel designed rather than assembled.
Being brought in to execute is not a lesser role The strategy for Chapter 2 was set above me. But a 78% adoption rate doesn't come from strategy — it comes from execution precise enough that the friction disappears entirely.
