My initial role was to integrate Spoke into Okta’s existing architecture, collaborating closely with the Okta design team to unify both platforms into a seamless experience.

However, after an early conversation with the Chief Design Officer, he suggested I might be a strong fit for the Design Systems team. My blend of design and technical expertise, along with my ability to bridge cross-functional communication, positioned me well to help evolve the nascent Odyssey Design System into Okta’s system-of-record for admin experiences.

During my tenure on Odyssey, I proposed foundational architectural changes and played a key role in transforming it from an under-leveraged concept of a system into a cornerstone of Okta’s design and front-end toolchain.

This wasn’t just about designing in Figma and shipping production-ready code — it also required rethinking processes to enhance collaboration, streamline development, encourage contributions, and drive adoption.

The challenge

When I joined, Odyssey was still in its infancy, with low adoption and several fundamental hurdles:

These factors combined to make Odyssey feel like a treadmill — constantly moving but never truly progressing.

The solution required more than just new components; it necessitated a fundamental shift in how Odyssey was built, positioned, and maintained.

Pivoting to MUI

One of my most impactful contributions at Okta was advocating for a fundamental architectural shift in Odyssey. I proposed moving away from a fully custom-built approach in favor of leveraging an open-source framework as its foundation.

This shift offered several key advantages:

After thorough research, I recommended rebuilding Odyssey on MUI. I formalized my proposal and secured buy-in from design, engineering, and product leadership.

This pivot significantly accelerated development velocity and reshaped how teams perceived Odyssey—not as a blocker, but as an enabler. The adoption curve shifted from reluctance to enthusiasm, with teams actively seeking out Odyssey components for their projects.

Design, code, and process

As the team expanded in both size and effectiveness, I transitioned into a senior IC role, advancing from Staff Product Designer to Principal Product Designer.

I remained deeply engaged in execution, ensuring production-ready components were built with scalability and longevity in mind:

However, technical improvements alone weren’t enough — culture and process were just as crucial. I drove several initiatives to improve documentation, workflows, and rituals that reinforced adoption:

These efforts transformed Odyssey into something teams wanted to use, rather than something they had to use. Feature teams began proactively engaging, providing feedback, and making meaningful contributions.

Beyond Odyssey

Beyond my work on Odyssey, I also:

Additionally, I participated in multiple hackathons, contributing in a front-end engineering capacity.

Building systems that last

Odyssey’s success wasn’t just about technology — it was the result of technical execution, strategic thinking, and cultural change. Scaling design effectively in any organization requires aligning with real designer and developer needs, creating systems that evolve over time, and making adoption seamless.

The key lesson? A design system isn’t just a collection of components — it’s an ecosystem that must be nurtured, evolved, and deeply integrated into an organization’s workflows. By blending deep technical expertise with a strong sense of empathy, I helped transform Odyssey from a little-used experiment into a fundamental part of Okta’s design and front-end engineering ecosystem.