As I grew from individual contributor to Research Lead at Ecosia and then People Lead, my team scaled from just a couple of designers to nearly a dozen. With embedded designers in product teams and horizontal designers working across the org, I saw the need for stronger consistency in how we worked and shared responsibilities. Driving Design Ops became a top priority, helping us streamline processes, clarify ownership, and scale collaboration as the team expanded. Throughout the process I embedded design off-sites and fun activities to grow our culture and team belonging.

Hiring and onboarding for success

I run a focused hiring process with the support of HR, with just the steps needed to make the right decision: recruiter screening, portfolio review, a whiteboarding exercise, and a cultural interview. This ensures both the candidate and team have enough time to assess fit. Once hired, I invest in a structured monthly onboarding plan that introduces new team members to Ecosia’s vision, strategy, and ways of working. By week two, they’re already contributing to their product team. This approach has consistently led to faster ramp-up, strong retention, and new hires feeling set up for long-term success.

Design rituals for transperancy and alignment

I revamped the team's design rituals to make them more lightweight, which made collaboration smoother and more consistent. Weekly stand-ups captures bottlenecks and collaboration opportunities for embedded designers, while Content and User Research could see what is coming up, helping them prioritize their tasks. Show and Tells created a space for open feedback ,and async review in Slack ensured quick input without blocking progress. A monthly Retro helped us to celebrate successes, capture missed opportunites and create actions to make our work more visible and processes better understood. These rituals gave the team predictable touchpoints, reduced misalignment, and helped us build a stronger culture of feedback and shared ownership.

Design playbook so others know how we work

I developed a Product Design Playbook not only as guidance for new joiners on how we work, but also as a way to help other teams understand our processes. It outlined the key stages of our process — from research and ideation to prototyping and delivery — and clarified where product managers, engineers, and stakeholders could best contribute. By making our approach transparent, the playbook reduced confusion, helped with onboarding, and created smoother collaboration across disciplines, while also setting clearer expectations for outcomes and timelines.

Design vision and strategy to focus designers

I crafted a design vision and strategy to reflect our company vision and product strategy, making sure design was not only aligned, but also acted as a catalyst for focus. By translating high-level business goals into a clear design vision, I gave the team a shared sense of direction — a framework that connected everyday design decisions to the bigger picture. This vision helped us prioritize how designers work and what they advocate for, as well as ensure that our work consistently reinforces the company’s mission while delivering real value to users.

Ina Arnaoudova
Design Leader | Team Builder | UX Researcher
LinkedIn
ina.arnaoudova@gmail.com