Commerce / Team Building
One framework, 80+ practitioners, zero resistance
Wayfair · Initiative Lead, Experience Design Career Framework · 2018–2020
The translation problem
Wayfair had an enterprise competency framework. It was outcome and behavior-driven. It worked well for most functions. It didn't translate to Experience Design.
The Experience Design organization had 80-plus practitioners across design, content strategy, and research. They needed career infrastructure: clear roles, progression paths, performance expectations, consistent calibration. But every attempt to build that infrastructure ran into the same problem. The enterprise framework described what good performance looked like in language that didn't map to how designers, content strategists, and researchers actually work.
Why previous attempts failed
Previous attempts tried to force the alignment. They were built top-down, without practitioner input, and delivered as finished documents. The frameworks didn't reflect how the work actually happened. People didn't use them.
The co-creation approach
I took ownership of solving this. The initiative was mine to lead: approach, process, and delivery. My approach started differently. Instead of translating the enterprise framework into design terms from above, the practitioners did the translation themselves.
Co-creation sessions brought together all levels and all three disciplines. Surveys, workshops, and feedback sessions surfaced what people actually needed. Industry research and interviews with design leaders established external benchmarks. Conversations with recruitment identified where leveling was breaking down in hiring.
The framework
Practitioners worked through the hard part together: defining competencies and behaviors that were specific enough to be meaningful for their discipline but abstract enough to span design, content strategy, and research. Then mapping those competencies back to the enterprise framework so everyone could see how Experience Design oriented to the broader organization.
Four competencies were defined, each with behavior descriptors that scaled across levels: how practitioners approach their work, build relationships, use tools and methods, and communicate ideas. Each level had a single-word descriptor that captured the expected posture, from utilizing to defining, from sowing to championing.
| L3 Lead / Manager | L4 Senior Lead / Mgr | L5 Assoc. Director | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scope of influence | + Pod & design partners | + Superpod & cross-functional | + Storefront & CF leaders |
| With work they are...Innovation & Results | Proactive | Directive | Expansive |
| ...relationshipsTeam Building & Culture | Enhances | Promotes | Exemplifies |
| ...tools & methodsCritical Thinking | Operates | Optimizes | Standardizes |
| ...ideas & conceptsComm. & Persuasion | Orients | Aligns | Integrates |
The depth
Each competency was then broken down into detailed behaviors at every level. Critical Thinking, for example, described how practitioners gather the right inputs to build the right things. At level three, a practitioner operates and educates. At level five, they standardize and evaluate. The progression is concrete enough to guide real conversations between managers and practitioners.
| L3 — Lead / Manager | L4 — Senior Lead / Manager | L5 — Associate Director | |
|---|---|---|---|
| OperatesCoaches others on how to approach problems and tasks effectively, while impacting product direction. | OptimizesOptimizes their team and pod's output/processes, while steering product direction. | StandardizesBuilds a framework for a superpod's success, based on team structure and related output/process. | |
| Educates others in the tools, methods and processes necessary to convey concepts, solve problems, and align stakeholders. | Organizes initiatives helping others leverage the most appropriate tools, methods and processes to convey concepts, solve problems, and align stakeholders. | Evaluates and unlocks tools, methods and processes necessary to convey concepts, solve problems, and align stakeholders. | |
| Informs the product roadmap based on a strong understanding of the customer, business context, and available data. | Influences the product roadmap based on a deep understanding of the customer, business context, and available data. | Simplifies complex, multi-faceted problems based on a nuanced understanding of the customer, business context, and available data. | |
| Initiates improvements to the XD design process, creating reusable patterns. | Plans and deploys improvements to the XD design process at scale. | Shapes and institutes improvements to XD design process across the organization. |
The deliverables
Three deliverables came out of the process: a career development framework covering structure, roles, titles, tracks, growth, and promotion criteria. A competency model defining expectations at each level. And the enterprise translation layer connecting it all to Wayfair's broader system.
Training showed managers and practitioners how to apply it in goal setting, performance reviews, and hiring decisions.
The outcome
100% adoption across the organization. Not mandated. People used it because they had shaped it. Calibration became more transparent and more equitable. Recruitment leveling became consistent.
Product Design, Data Science, and other departments adopted the framework as a template for their own organizations. That wasn't planned or managed. They saw what worked and built from it.