Industry
DevEx
Target group
SREs, Software engineers
Client
Engflow
Position
Lead product designer
Supercharging developer productivity
When a developer updates a single line of code, they often need to retest everything, to ensure that one small change doesn’t trigger unexpected failures. This process is inefficient, especially in large projects. Bazel helps developers save time by only rebuilding the parts of the software that have changed, leaving the rest of the project untouched.
Problem
Developer productivity is often hampered by slow builds, fragmented feedback, and difficult debugging processes. Key challenges included:
01
High onboarding friction for new developers
02
Lack of actionable, real-time feedback during builds and tests
03
Difficulty diagnosing issues across distributed workloads
The strategic goal was to design a system that simplified workflows, accelerated developer feedback loops, and built trust across teams while supporting long-term platform scalability.
What I did on the project
EngFlow is a platform that improves developer productivity by optimizing build test. I led design as the first product designer, establishing the vision for MyEngFlow, guiding cross-functional collaboration, and shaping the design strategy to ensure the product delivered measurable developer efficiency gains while scaling across diverse engineering teams.
Design Goals
We established four primary design goals:
01
Reduce cognitive load and onboarding friction for new developers
02
Provide real-time, actionable insights to accelerate build/test cycles
03
Enable advanced debugging and comparison workflows for senior engineers
04
Design a scalable, consistent experience adaptable to future platform features
These goals guided all design decisions and ensured alignment with engineering, product, and leadership priorities.
Implementation details
What We Shipped / Solution
Guided onboarding
We created an onboarding flow that helped new developers understand the system quickly, with contextual tips, tooltips, and example workflows.
Real-time feedback
The interface provides live feedback during builds and tests, highlighting failures, progress, and actionable insights.
Engineers can inspect, compare, and resolve issues efficiently through a side-by-side UI, making distributed workloads transparent and easier to manage.
System-Level Consistency
All components follow a unified design system to ensure scalable, consistent experiences across features and teams.
Research & Iteration
Research & Iteration
We ran iterative usability testing with developers of different skill levels and team contexts:
01
New developers responded positively to onboarding improvements
02
Experienced engineers appreciated advanced debugging workflows and comparison views
03
Iterations refined terminology, layout, and the balance between guidance and control
Insights informed design decisions and helped prioritize features that delivered maximum value across teams.
Impact
Key outcomes included:
01
Reduced onboarding time for new developers
02
Improved developer build/test efficiency and reduced time to resolve errors
03
Increased of early adoption of EngFlow across new customers
04
Strengthened trust and confidence in the platform through transparent and actionable feedback
The solution influenced the broader engineering workflow and informed future platform-level enhancements.
Reflection
Leading EngFlow reinforced the importance of strategic design leadership in shaping developer-focused products. My role extended beyond executing features to guiding vision, influencing cross-functional teams, and designing systems that scale.
Next project
Supercharging developer productivity
When a developer updates a single line of code, they often need to retest everything, to ensure that one small change doesn’t trigger unexpected failures. This process is inefficient, especially in large projects. Bazel helps developers save time by only rebuilding the parts of the software that have changed, leaving the rest of the project untouched.
My role
EngFlow is a platform that improves developer productivity by optimizing build test. I led design as the first product designer, establishing the vision for MyEngFlow, guiding cross-functional collaboration, and shaping the design strategy to ensure the product delivered measurable developer efficiency gains while scaling across diverse engineering teams.
what we shipped:
We built several key features to help teams identify and resolve issues before they negatively impacted end users: