Posts Series

Lessons from Spotify

I spent nine years at Spotify leading design systems and accessibility. During that time, I learned as much from what failed as from what succeeded. I'm sharing these insights not to critique decisions made at the time, but because I believe they're valuable and can help others navigate similar challenges.

Parts: 5
Minutes to read: 64

Part 1

8 December 202515 min read

Why Federated Design Systems Keep Failing

Why do federated design systems keep failing? I watched it happen twice at Spotify. Here's what actually happened, where they broke down, and why centralised models usually work better.

The rest of the series

Part 2
16 February 202616 min read
When the Decision Is Made, and You Can't Change It
Sometimes decisions are made for you. They're clearly wrong, and you can't change them. This is about how you lead anyway.
Part 3
23 February 20266 min read
Design systems are platform problems, not feature problems
Where you put your design system team within your organisation determines how they think, what they build, and whether the system stays a platform or the teams become a UI feature factory.
Part 4
12 October 202612 min read
Building a system of systems: What we didn’t know in 2019
Six years after introducing the system of systems model, what it became in practice, where the original vision held, and where it gave way.
Part 5
2 November 202615 min read
Building a system of systems: What we didn’t see coming
The costs we never planned for: the hidden load on the core team, local systems that stalled, a programme that came apart, and success the model had nowhere to put.