After graduating with my Masters in HCI, I thought I was ready to face the design world, but I wasn't right in the slightest. I started working at Blue Raven Solar which had a small product team and 0 designers so I had to not only wear a lot of hats and deliver value but also redefine how I worked with developers. As soon as I started to figure that out and advocate for the value designers bring, my team started growing and more designers were brought on. This brought me an amazing opportunity to grow, lead, and mentor other designers, but also brought a lot of challenges. I started to realize that more tools and processes had to be established to help other designers and myself succeed as a team. Soon enough, we started building a design system. I knew what a design system was obviously but setting one up for an already existing and complex system like a CRM was a whole other beast. Through the past couple of years, I've realized how important it is to be a go-getter, self-learn, collaborate efficiently, lead, and set up a design team for success, in addition to being good at your job. And I couldn't be more grateful for this experience!