I Wear a Lot of Hats

Duties, Responsibilities, and Tasks of a UX Engineering & Design System Manager

As far as I know, I am the only person with the work title UX Engineering & Design System Manager. I work at a mid-sized bank leading a design system team of five. The team consists of one designer, one content strategist that splits their time with another UX squad, and three front-end developers. Because we are a small team with few resources, I not only manage the people on the team, but I also operate as the Tech Lead, the Project Manager, and the Product Manager.

After recently coming across an article about Engineering Manager archetypes, which listed the types of tasks of different types of Engineering Managers, I thought it would be interesting to list the tasks I perform in my role. I’ve broken them down into the four categories used in that article: Technical, Team, Process, and Product.

These are the tasks and responsibilities I perform on a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis.

Technical:

• acts as Tech Lead
• leads the design system’s technical direction
• determines architectural decisions
• performs code reviews
• maintains code quality standards
• constantly considers technical performance
• manages technical debt
• maintains high accessibility standards
• advocates for good engineering practices
• contributes code
• mentors team members from a code perspective

Team:

• conducts regular 1:1s with direct reports
• manages individual and team performance
• provides feedback
• addresses performance issues
• grows team members “hard” and “soft” skills
• delegates tasks to help team members grow
• removes blockers
• manages stakeholders
• manages risks
• leads team sync meetings to promote communication unrelated to project updates
• resolves or manages conflict
• coaches team members from a career-growth perspective
• leads the hiring process and performs interviews from a technical and non-technical perspective
• organizes activities to increase team engagement

Process:

• acts as Project Manager for the design system
• prioritizes delivery
• maintains the kanban board
• leads stand ups
• maintains the backlog
• leads goal setting sessions
• leads backlog grooming sessions
• leads iteration reviews or demos
• leads retros
• sets the scope and acceptance criteria for tasks
• sets the definition of done for tasks
• provides status reports or updates stakeholders and directors
• participates in UX Ops/Managers meetings
• participates in Service & Sytems Leadership Team meetings
• manages internal and external expectations

Product:

• acts as Product Manager for the design system
• sets the roadmap
• prioritizes new features, enhancements, and bug fixes
• manages changelogs and version history
• collaborates with DS designer(s) to set UI direction and principles
• promotes the design system to adopters and potential adopters
• attends UX squad iteration reviews of design system adopters
• leads DS office hours
• understands and represents user needs, both adopters (designers and devs) and end-users
• works with researchers and end-users to find areas for improvement
• manages resource limitations
• outlines what success looks like
• showcases ROI
• acts as main point of contact for the design system