Case Study

Transforming Design at Sense

I joined to manage a design system. Three years later we had two design systems, a rebranded mobile app, and a wave of AI-powered products for recruiters, with design leading the way.

HR TechDesign SystemAIProduct DesignMobile AppVoice AgentAnalytics
Sense
Role
Design System Manager → Design Leadership
Scope
Design systems · Product · Mobile · AI
Stack
React · React Native · Figma
Years
2022-2025

01 · The starting point

Hired for a system, handed a platform

Sense is a talent engagement platform used by recruiting teams to reach, screen, and hire candidates. When I joined, the brief was clear and contained: manage the design system.

The reality was bigger. The platform had grown feature by feature, the web and mobile experiences had drifted apart, and there was no shared foundation for the product ambitions ahead, especially the move into AI.

My role changed fast: from managing a design system to building and managing it, and leading the high-level initiatives for all design efforts across the company.

Sense products before the transformation: a workflow builder, a messaging inbox, and a candidate chat, each with its own look
Where we started: the old Sense products, each with its own look and no shared foundation.

02 · The remit

What transformation actually meant

  • 1

    Build and manage the design system own Genesis end to end, from tokens and components to adoption across teams.

  • 2

    Lead the high-level design initiatives set direction for every major design effort across the platform.

  • 3

    Unify web and mobile one design language across the React platform and the React Native app.

  • 4

    Ship products, not just guidelines the system had to prove itself in real product work, from automation to AI.

03 · The approach

System first, then everything on top of it

The strategy was to sequence the work: build the foundation first, then let every product effort compound on it. Genesis, the React design system, came first. The mobile system in React Native followed, sharing the same token DNA.

With the systems in place, product work stopped starting from zero. The mobile rebrand, Voice AI, Write with AI, and the recruiting chatbot all shipped on shared components, which is what made that much surface area possible for one design team.

A design system isn't the goal. It's what lets a small team transform an entire platform.

04 · The work

Six workstreams, one foundation

This isn't everything, but these are some of the most impactful pieces I led and worked on across my three-plus years.

01 / Design System

Genesis, the React design system

The foundation everything else was built on. Base and alias tokens, a full React component library, patterns, and docs, built from the ground up and adopted across the platform.

The Genesis master components file in Figma, a Button Dropdown component with variants across type, size, and state
The button dropdown component from the master library, variants exposed as props, type, variation, size, and state, for full customization.
The Foundations variable collection in Figma, alias color tokens for text resolving to base color primitives
Typography alias tokens, roles like primary, disabled, and danger resolving to base primitives, built for scalability.
The App Shell component in Figma with expanded and collapsed navigation variants
The App Shell: a ready-made container with navigation variants, so designers start at the section, not the frame.

02 / Mobile

Rebranding the mobile app

With the mobile system in place, we rebranded the entire React Native app on top of it, a full visual overhaul shipped without pausing feature work.

The old Sense mobile app: inbox, messages, and chat screens in the legacy visual style
Before: the legacy mobile app.
The rebranded Sense mobile app: SMS and WhatsApp messaging flows in the new design language
After: the rebrand on the new design language.

03 / AI

Voice AI candidate screening

One of the first AI products at Sense: an automated voice system that screens candidates for recruiters, handling the first pass of qualification calls so pipelines keep moving around the clock.

The Voiceflow dashboard in Sense, screening campaigns with call, pickup, and hang-up stats
The Voiceflow dashboard: every screening campaign with its call volume, pickup, and completion rates at a glance.
The Voiceflow builder with a candidate search flow on the canvas and a template picker for interview scheduling, onboarding, and skills assessment
The flow builder: recruiters start from templates, interview scheduling, onboarding prep, skills assessment, or build from scratch.
A nursing screening call flow with agent settings for voicemail detection, message content, and duration
Agent settings: fine-grained control over the voice agent, down to voicemail detection and what it says when nobody picks up.

04 / AI

Write with AI

An AI writing feature built into messaging: recruiters draft outreach with AI, steer the tone, professional, empathetic, friendly, or a custom prompt, and regenerate until it sounds right, on desktop and mobile.

Draft with AI in Sense messaging on desktop and mobile, with tone options and a regenerate action
Draft with AI in the messaging composer: tone presets, custom prompts, and regenerate, the same feature on web and mobile.

05 / AI

Recruiting chatbot

An embeddable chatbot recruiters drop onto their website to meet job seekers where they land: it answers questions, surfaces matching openings, and pulls candidates straight into the recruiting funnel.

The Sense recruiting chatbot widget: a branded home with featured jobs, a chat conversation, and job matches with an apply flow
The chatbot widget: a branded home with featured jobs, conversational search, and job matches with a one-tap apply.

06 / Product

Analytics: Talent Engagement ROI

All of this work had to prove its worth, so we designed the analytics to show it. The Talent Engagement ROI dashboard rolls the whole funnel into one view: candidates reached, sourced, and hired, hiring velocity, hours and job-board spend saved, and the revenue engagement influenced.

The Talent Engagement ROI dashboard in Sense: reached, sourced, influenced submissions and hires, quarterly sourcing chart, hiring velocity, savings, and revenue
The Talent Engagement ROI dashboard: from reach to hires, with velocity, savings, and influenced revenue, exportable for the meeting where budgets get decided.

05 · The outcome

Design as a platform capability

What started as a design-system role became an end-to-end transformation: a unified design language across web and mobile, and a product organization that could ship automation and AI features at pace because the foundation was already there.

1

design language across web and mobile

2

design systems, React and React Native

10+

products shipped using the design system

Want the full walkthrough?

Happy to walk through the systems, the AI products, and how the transformation was sequenced.

Get in touch
← Back to work