First Head of Design — building the design function and scaling Webflow’s vision for the visual web.
Context
Webflow was growing fast, and design needed to become a first-class function — not a service org bolted onto product. As the first Head of Design, I hired, shaped process, and kept the team close to Webflow’s core belief: more people should be able to build for the web with real layout and CMS power.
Scaling the team
The work spanned org design and product quality:
- Hiring and leveling a multi-disciplinary design team across product, brand, and marketing surfaces
- Design systems and critique rituals that survived hypergrowth without freezing exploration
- Partnership with engineering on layout engine constraints — prototypes in code when Figma was not enough
Outcomes
We shipped experiences that matched Webflow’s ambition: expressive sites without giving up accessibility or performance. Config talks from this era (including scaling design teams) came directly from lessons learned inside the company.