For operational software companies with design output but no design function. We build the function with your team and hand it off when the model holds.
You have design output. You do not have design as a function.
Maybe one designer covers everything, stretched thin. Maybe the engineering team picks up the design slack and resents it. Maybe a series of contractors and agencies have done good work in their lanes that doesn't add up to coherent surfaces. The product ships. Brand and product no longer agree on what the company is. Every release reopens settled questions because nothing compounds.
Hiring another designer makes the problem bigger. Outsourcing to two specialist agencies leaves you with two competent partial solutions. The third move is to bring in a senior operator who builds the function with your engineering team and then steps back.
That's what this engagement is.
What it looks like
An embedded design engagement runs six to eighteen months and has four phases.
Set the operating model. Decide how design lives in the team structure, who owns the canonical components, how brand and product stay in conversation, how decisions get recorded so they compound. This is the durable asset of the engagement. Everything downstream depends on the model being right.
Make the first hires. Two senior designers is usually the floor. They get embedded directly in engineering teams, working at the surface where the product is built, instead of in a design tower handing comps over a wall. You're on every hiring decision.
Stand up the working library. A canonical component system that is the product's actual UI, not a parallel artifact. Documentation captures decisions and rationale so the function survives any one person leaving.
Hand off. The point of building the function is that it works without us. When the model holds and the team is running it, we exit. Light advisory follows if useful. The operator role transitions to your internal lead.
Who this is for
Operational software companies, typically at one of these moments.
- Post-Series B, design hasn't kept up with growth
- New CPO or CTO who needs to professionalize the design function
- Acquisition or PE carve-out has surfaced brand-product drift
- Senior leadership turnover in the design org, and the team needs a stabilizing operating model before a permanent head joins
At its best, this engagement builds the function and hands it off to an internal lead. That's the preference, and it's where the durable value sits. In practice, not every company is structured to absorb a handoff today. When that's the case, we will still take the work and run the function directly, with the goal of leaving the door open to build the internal function later if conditions allow.
What you get
- A documented operating model the team uses after we leave
- Two or more senior design hires made, with you on every decision
- A canonical component library shipped to production
- A handoff plan that names the internal lead and the criteria for our exit
Investment and timeline
Engagements are scoped per company. Typical range: $100K to $200K total over six to eighteen months, depending on the size of the engineering team and the state of the existing brand. Monthly retainer arrangements are available for companies that prefer to phase the investment.
We run one or two embedded engagements at a time. Calendar runs at least a quarter ahead.
Proof
We have built the function from the inside, as employees, at multiple operational software companies. We have done it from the client side, through to a durable handoff, once. The Procore case study covers that engagement.
Start a conversation
If your situation matches what's above, get in touch. If you'd rather start smaller, a UI Coherence Diagnostic ($2,500, one week) is the on-ramp.