↖ ALL PROJECTS
Stock Plan Migration
E*TRADE
[
SUMMARY
]
When I inherited this project mid-transition, the squad had never worked formally with UX and design collaboration didn’t exist. I established critique, Figma review, and legal-approval processes, led three engineering handoffs with weekly syncs, and pushed the design system team to evolve for a dynamic-slider edge case. What was ad hoc engineering execution became a repeatable design-culture foundation the team still uses across migrations.
[
FEATURE 1
]
Equity Choice Flow: Two Clear Entry Points
Employees previously faced one long list when making stock-award decisions, making it hard to understand what they were choosing and why. I split the experience into two clear paths: a quick dashboard option for time-sensitive decisions, and a dedicated page to review current and past awards. The redesigned selection screen uses clear cards to group award types and flag the company-recommended option, so employees always understand their choice.
[
FEATURE 2
]
Flexible Option Slider
Employees with more than one stock-award type need to choose the percentage allocated to each. I designed sliders with plus and minus buttons and direct typing as backup. Values automatically rebalance so the total always equals 100%, giving employees immediate, visible feedback while making a technical financial decision feel simple and hands-on.
[
FEATURE 3
]
Responsive and Accessible Grant History
People check stock-award history across devices, sometimes with ten or more awards to review. I designed the table to reflow from a full desktop layout into stacked mobile cards, while keeping each award ID visible as the anchor point for both scrolling and screen-reader use. The result kept a dense, data-heavy screen easy to scan on every device.
[
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT
]
Ambiguity is where my work actually starts.
The task looked simple: move an existing flow into a new system. What I found instead was a project with no clear owner, half-finished decisions, and questions nobody had answered yet. I joined during a stretch of change: a new manager, a new team, and my first project outside the domain I knew well. Engineering was already building, but the more I examined the existing logic, the clearer it became that the real problem was structural, not visual. I stopped treating it as a handoff to finish and started treating it as a problem to define. When everything around me is unclear, I don’t wait for someone to hand me a defined problem. I look for the point where the obvious answer stops making sense, and I start there.
[
PROJECT INFO
]
MY ROLE
Independent Lead Product Designer. I took over full ownership after a transition period, inheriting an early flow from the previous designer and independently leading screen optimization, new entry points, responsive and accessibility work, specifications, and engineering handoff.
TEAM
1 PM, 5 engineers, 1 QA, 1 content designer, the design system team, an accessibility team, and the previous designer supporting the transition.
DURATION
March–May 2024 for design through engineering handoff; launched around Q3 2024.
TOOLS
Figma, Jira, design system library, Figma design review and inspection.
[
IMPACT
]
The project shipped the full Equity Choice experience: two entry points into award selection, a redesigned selection flow covering fixed and flexible award types with real-time percentage adjustment, an award summary with visualization, and a current and past grants history built to work responsively and accessibly across devices. No adoption, completion, or support-ticket metrics were tracked or made available, so none are reported here. Beyond the release, the Activity section and related components were reused across other Shareworks-to-E*TRADE migrations, the dynamic-slider requirement informed the design-system roadmap, and the squad adopted critique, structured handoff, office hours, and QA acceptance practices that stayed in use after the project.
Migrating a Stock Award Tool to a New Platform Without Losing the People Who Depend on It
From given to grounded.
UX audit & heuristic evaluation
Information architecture
Dealing with ambiguity
When this project started, my manager had just changed teams, my director became my direct manager, and the studio was folded into a new department right as I inherited an already-started flow. I didn’t take the existing screens or logic at face value. I went through handoff notes, original selection rules, and assumptions in the earlier design to trace why each decision existed. What looked like a simple visual migration turned into a project that needed its underlying structure rebuilt, not just restyled. Before changing anything I inherit, I need to understand why it was built that way.
Constraint is my leverage.
Trade-off
Feasibility assessment
Design system
One screen needed a slider with dynamic minimums, maximums, and increments that the design system did not yet support, and the design-system team initially pushed back on building it. I brought the requirement to a workshop, separated company-specific business rules from implementation choices, and worked with the team on an interim solution that protected the rule while the component caught up later. What stayed the same mattered more than how fast we shipped it. When a system cannot support what I need yet, the real decision is knowing which part I cannot compromise on.
Less waiting. More leading.
UI specs & dev handoff
Cross-functional collaboration
Influence
Once the design was ready to hand off, the squad had never worked formally with a designer through implementation, so nobody had a routine for it. I set up recurring reviews, walkthroughs, and annotated specifications, and led roughly three formal handoffs followed by weekly syncs with the PM, five engineers, and QA. Instead of waiting for engineering to flag questions, I brought structure to how we checked work against the design and closed gaps. Those practices stayed in place after I moved to my next project. Leading a handoff well means building a routine the team keeps using, not just answering questions as they come up.
