Yext · 2025 · Lead Product Designer
I led design across three scrum teams on Yext Relate. Design had become a black box: planning guessed at readiness, engineers saw files too late to flag feasibility, and PMs had no view into what was in flight. I rebuilt how design showed up in agile, from kickoff to ship.
Overview
In 2025, I led design on Yext Relate as Lead Product Designer, working across three scrum teams, three PMs, and their engineering leads. The product was moving fast, but the design process wasn't keeping up with the coordination that speed required.
My role wasn't to ship one feature. It was to change how design showed up, so that trade-offs surfaced in sketches instead of pull requests, and so that PMs and engineers had real visibility into where design was and why.
The challenge
Design wasn't intentionally siloed. But without shared rituals or visibility, it read like it from the outside. As the teams scaled, the cracks showed up in the same places every sprint.
Discovery
I started with what the teams could tell me. A cross-team survey to size the gaps. An empathy-mapping session with engineering to pressure-test them. A one-page alignment doc to turn both into rules the PD side could hold itself to.
Six responses across design, PM, and engineering, covering workflow, impact, feedback, documentation, and sharing. The numbers told me where to spend.
Open responses named the same gaps the numbers hinted at: ambiguity at the start of design work, feedback that came late or in batches, and engineers wanting more context before files were final. One respondent put it plainly: "We often don't know what 'ready' means before design starts."
Collaboration didn't need fixing. Clarity and handoff did.
A working session mapping goals, thinks and feels, pain, and gains from the engineering side. The sticky notes got specific fast:
Three things got obvious. Meetings were a tax, not a tool. Kick-offs were being used for the wrong kind of work. And engineering wanted decisiveness from PD, not more options.
I turned the map into a one-page doc the PD side could hold itself to. Organized by stakeholder group. Blunt by design. A few of the rules:
Not aspirations. Rules you could call a meeting against.
Decisiveness from PD lets him know it's a thing to take seriously. Empathy-mapping session, Relate Eng
The approach
Engineering in the loop earlier. Work visible before it hardened. Design synced to the sprint. Evidence in every decision.
Engineering as partner
Before, engineers saw Figma files at ticket time. By then, the only useful feedback was "this isn't feasible," which was too late to shift direction without pain. I moved feasibility up the timeline.
Trade-offs got made on paper instead of in pull requests. Engineering had room to push back before code existed.
His designs often have the pragmatic/expedient option, but he also shares a broader vision engineering can work toward. 2025 peer review
Rod consistently seeks early feedback on designs and workflow mockups, fostering productive discussions between design and engineering. 2025 peer review
Working in public
The instinct when you lead design is to protect the craft, to share finished work and keep messy work private. I pushed the other way. The earlier the work was visible, the faster it got better.
PMs and engineers weren't reacting to finished work, they were shaping it. By the time I got to high fidelity, most of the hard questions were already resolved.
Opening up your work in progress for more frequent feedback from a broader range of stakeholders has actually made you stronger. 2025 peer review
Embedded in agile
Design falls out of sync with agile if it runs on its own clock. I joined the rituals instead of orbiting them.
By the time a ticket was ready, engineering had already seen the work, asked their questions, and signed off on the direction. No large handoffs, no surprise scope.
Rod's decision to regularly join standups when he had updates improved transparency and kept engineering teams aligned with design work. 2025 peer review
He played a key role in strengthening the collaboration between design and engineering this year. 2025 peer review
Evidence over intuition
With the baseline in hand, I built rituals that kept the "why" in front of the team sprint to sprint. No decision should rest on "what Rod thinks" when the team already had the data.
Two practices carried most of the weight:
Design decisions stopped being "what Rod thinks" and started being "what users said last week." Engineers started asking to see the evidence before they saw the designs.
Outcome
Design readiness moved up one to two sprints. Fewer late-stage feasibility surprises. Planning got shorter, because by the time we sat down to plan, everyone already knew where design was.
The bigger shift was cultural. Three scrum teams with a shared vocabulary for design. Engineers asking for rough drafts instead of waiting for final comps. PMs pulling me into strategy, not just execution.
You have high standards for yourself… you're learning how to get your team on that same wavelength, without creating friction or "stoppers" for advancement, but moving alongside them and leading them into doing better things. Diego A. Cabrera, Product Design Manager, Yext
