The Challenge
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, VA’s Lighthouse Developer Experience program received urgent funding and a mandate to scale fast. As the program tripled in size, we had to grow our design team from 2 to 14 to support 18 development teams—without sacrificing quality or burning out. The challenge wasn’t just hiring—it was building a resilient design practice that could scale rapidly, stay focused on high-impact work, and keep top talent through a time of uncertainty.
My Role & Approach
As Design Lead & Manager, I was responsible for architecting the design organization from the ground up. I approached it as a design problem, with two clear goals: maximize our strategic impact and retain great people.
Product Management initially proposed fully embedding designers across teams—but I knew this would lead to burnout and fragmentation. Instead, I built a case for a data-informed matrixed team model and secured buy-in to pilot it.
I focused on lightweight, durable systems that scaled with us:
- Prioritization Matrix to align designers to the highest-value work.
- Centralized Kanban for visibility and cross-team collaboration.
- Standardized onboarding and rituals to build culture, clarity, and momentum.
Results & Impact
The DesignOps model enabled the team to scale quickly and sustainably—and it held up long after I left.
- 90–100% year-over-year retention during hypergrowth.
- Career development paths that supported multiple promotions into lead and management roles.
- Improved velocity and impact, with increased trust from product and engineering.
- A thriving, values-aligned design culture that delivered consistently high-quality work.
"Carey built a strong, collaborative UX team and left a lasting impact... She builds trusted relationships with key stakeholders and the operational systems she created continued to guide the team long after her departure. Reflecting on her impact, the primary VA client said 'She made me better.' I can’t think of a higher compliment, and it couldn’t be more true."
— Former Direct Report, promoted to Design Lead & Manager after Carey