As Design Systems Lead at IXL Learning, I led the creation of a shared design system to unify five-plus products across a decades-old brand. I managed a team of designers, established a biweekly cadence for audits and reviews, and worked directly with product teams to ensure components were built for real production needs. Using atomic design principles and strong foundational tokens for color, spacing, and typography, we created a system that reduced drift, sped up delivery, and made new UI feel cohesive by default. The result was a living design system that teams actually adopted because it worked in practice, not just in theory.