Design Leadership at a Scaling Automotive Platform
Context
Industry
Retail
Niche
Car Sales
Company Size
300+
HQ
Athens, Greece
Provided help:
A rapidly expanding automotive retail platform operating across multiple European markets. The company facilitates online car purchases with end-to-end services including inspection, financing, delivery, and subscription models, requiring seamless digital experiences for diverse customer segments.
Problem
The company was scaling aggressively across European markets, but the design team wasn't able to support the expansion. A lack of a design system, clear processes, and a design career framework meant people were working in silos, reinventing solutions, and burning out.
Inconsistent experiences
Due to the small team size and differences in expertise
Feature delivery stalling
Due to lack of clarity and direction
Unclear roles
Creating bottlenecks with unclear ownership
Talent retention risk
Due to a lack of career planning and designer guidance
Role, team, and constraints
- Role
- Product designer
- Team
- [TODO: add design-team and cross-functional context]
- Constraints
- Ownership
- Design systems, team operations, strategy, and product launch
- Contribution
- Design system foundations, team structure, planning, research, and subscription experience
Research and key insights
[TODO: Add only the research, existing team knowledge, stakeholder input, or operational evidence that actually shaped this project. Summarize the key insights and what changed because of them.]
Approach and decision points
[TODO: Describe the sequence of work and the decisions that shaped the direction. Include organisational constraints, trade-offs, and recommendations that were accepted or rejected.]
Solution
Developed Design System foundations
Built a production-ready component library with clear guidelines while the company was going through a full rebrand. Orchestrated and led rebrand implementation over on the new design system. Created a hierarchy that eliminated visual inconsistencies. Documented patterns for every common scenario.
Team Structure & Operations
Defined roles, built a career ladder with clear promotion criteria, and defined resource allocation systems. Hired 2 additional designers in 2 months. Introduced a Confluence-like documentation system. Piloted full transparency in team operations to ensure clarity and trust is being built.
Subscription model launch
Helped design and launch a new car subscription service as an alternative to traditional ownership. Helped create an end-to-end experience that simplified complex flows and supported conversion improvements.
Research & Validation
Shadowed usability testing, defined funnel drop-off survey for Hotjar. Prioritized initiatives by strategic impact, not stakeholder volume. Organized design and product management workshops to align on vision and strategy.
Artifacts
Team planning and structure
Team growth and capacity planning based on product verticals and support need.
Prioritization and Research
Impact/effort matrix for data-driven decisions
Structured approach to user research
Product design samples
UI elements part of the design system
Usability and illustrations
Design system map
Design system components overview
Impact
[TODO: Label each outcome as measured, observed, reported, launched after your involvement, or not measured.]
Headcount
Increase by 2 designers
Helped onboard, hire and integrate 2 new members inside the design team.
Clarity
In delivery
Improved turnaround times by making sure teammates were not over-allocated.
63%
Gross profitability increase
Contributed to 63% increase in gross profitability since feature launch until now.
New service
Car as a service
Launched subscription model as alternative to traditional car ownership which helped company achieve a 63% increase in profitability to date
Project retrospective
[TODO: Optional. Describe what the project revealed, what remained unresolved, and what happened after your involvement. Do not turn organisational constraints or rejected recommendations into a personal failure narrative.]