In 2018, I established and led the Ukrainian chapter of Wix UX Guild, connecting product designers working across seven very different areas of the business. I grew the team from 6 to 17 designers, rebuilt how we hired and onboarded, and shaped a culture of ownership, learning and exceptional craft. The ambition was bigger than growing a team. It was to make great design possible across products, without making every decision depend on one leader.
Wix UX GuildUX Group Lead2018–20229 min read
Impact summary:
Team
~3×Team growth, from 6 to 17Nearly three times the design capacity, supported by shared practices and a stronger professional community.
Hiring
−50%Hiring time, 8 to 4 weeksA simpler, more deliberate process, from six interview stages to four.
Quality
7Product areas, one shared standardDesigners kept ownership in their teams while learning, critique and craft standards connected them.
My role
Designers belonged to their product teams, but they also needed a professional home. I set the direction for the Ukrainian UX Guild chapter, led the team and its development, and worked across product boundaries to strengthen how design decisions were made. My responsibility had two sides: building the capability to grow, and creating a culture that kept the quality bar high as we did.
I grew the guild from 6 to 17 designers, but hiring was only the beginning. I reworked the candidate journey with cross-functional partners and designed an onboarding experience that helped people become confident contributors in both the guild and their product teams.
Across Editor, Stores, Wix Data and other product areas, I helped designers make better decisions without adding centralised approvals. I established shared UX standards, coached people through complex challenges, and created the learning and community rituals that made the guild feel like one team.
Problem space
Wix designers were embedded in products with very different users and priorities. The challenges of Wix Editor, eCommerce and Wix Data were not interchangeable, but the standard of design across the company still needed to be recognisably high.
As the guild grew, each designer needed two things at once: ownership of their product and access to a wider professional team. Hiring alone would not solve slow recruitment, fragmented onboarding, inconsistent practices or the isolation that can happen when designers work in separate teams.
Wix had a global UX Guild across four countries. I established the Ukrainian chapter as a way to turn that larger community into something designers could actually rely on: a place to find guidance, challenge their thinking, develop their craft and belong.
The leadership question: How could we grow design across seven different products while strengthening both ownership and a shared quality bar? My answer: three key decisions
Key decisions
I chose not to centralise every design decision. Instead, I built the structures and relationships that allowed designers to own their work, learn from one another and hold a consistently high bar across the company.
Key decision 1
Recruitment, onboarding, development and culture had to work together. I connected them deliberately, so the experience we promised candidates continued after they joined.
01
HiringBring in people with strong judgment02
OnboardingGive them a clear start03
StandardsCreate shared expectations04
LearningKeep the bar alive as the team growsHiring removed friction at the door. Onboarding, standards and learning made the investment in every new designer more valuable over time.
Key decision 2
I wanted designers to feel accountable to their product teams, not dependent on a central approval queue. My job was to build the shared principles, critique and coaching that improved their judgment.
Key decision 3
Guidelines alone would not create a community. I made space for regular critique, teaching, experiments and informal connection, and opened the guild to the wider design scene.
Systems and impact
I turned the strategy into practical systems that designers felt at every stage of their journey, from the first interview to their next big challenge. Here are five places where that leadership became tangible.
01 Impact area · Recruitment
Our recruitment process took six interview stages and an average of eight weeks. I worked with stakeholders to define what each conversation needed to assess, align on clear criteria and remove duplication. We went from six stages to four, reduced the process to four weeks and made communication with candidates more deliberate.
02 Impact area · Onboarding
Joining Wix meant entering two worlds at once: the product team and the global UX Guild. New designers had to navigate scattered information and numerous stakeholders. I built a structured, task-based journey: an onboarding guide, a shared UX knowledge base and a personal progress board, with support from a buddy and manager.
UX Guild
Product team
Two onboardings, one plan
The guild gives the common foundation; the product team adds its context.
Step 1 · Onboarding guide
One document for the first month: a welcome, our design process and a four-week plan.
Step 2 · Knowledge base
A hub for every part of the product design role, built as a cross effort of the whole guild.
Step 3 · Onboarding system
A personal board per newcomer, with a buddy and a design manager, so progress is visible to everyone.
03 Impact area · Design management
I supported 17 designers across Wix Editor, Premium Services, Stores, Online Programs, Wix Data, Groups and DeviantArt. I aligned standards and practices, helped teams apply UX guidelines, mentored designers and joined the difficult product conversations where experience and judgment mattered most.
One guild, seven product areas. Designers stayed in their product teams; the guild owned the bar across all of them.
04 Impact area · Learning and culture
I ran UX Guild Day twice a month, bringing together designers to share work, debate decisions and learn from one another. Workshops, training, guest speakers, cross-guild sessions and hackathons created space to build craft beyond the immediate demands of product delivery. We also made room for fun, because belonging matters.
UX Guild Day
Critique, case studies and cross-guild sessions, twice a month.
Workshops and training
Research, interaction design, IA and usability testing, led by experts and guild members.
Hackathons and challenges
Mixed teams, one problem, a limited timeframe, outside the roadmap.
Team events
Celebrating milestones and wins, and knowing each other across products.
05 Impact area · Community
I helped build the guild’s connection to the Ukrainian design community through Fresh, a recurring series of public product design meetups. Wix designers shared the stage with external experts, brought new thinking back into the team and showed future colleagues the kind of professional community they could join.
Fresh meetups
Wix designers and industry experts on one stage, for the wider design community.
Fresh meetups. Wix designers and industry experts on one stage, for the wider design community.
Results
The visible results were a team that grew from 6 to 17 and a hiring process that took half the time. The organisational result was broader: designers in seven product areas had a shared language for quality, a clearer start at Wix, and regular places to develop their work and one another. I would not attribute Wix-wide product KPIs to the guild alone; this is a case about building the capability behind better product work.
The guild, 2018–2022
UX Group LeadMe
17 designers 7 product areas
Recruitment
What changedThe eight-week average hiring process became four weeks.
A clearer decision at every stage and a better candidate experience.
8→4weeks to hire
Onboarding
What changedNew designers had one guided journey across guild and product team.
People had an understandable first month, with support and visible progress.
3connected onboarding tools
Design management
What changedSeven product areas shared a stronger, more consistent UX bar.
Designers could make decisions locally while learning from the wider guild.
7product areas
People
What changedSeventeen designers had regular mentorship and feedback.
Support extended beyond immediate delivery and individual product teams.
17designers supported
Learning
What changedGuild Days became a twice-monthly part of the working rhythm.
Critique, teaching and experimentation had protected space to happen.
2×Guild Days each month
Community
What changedFresh connected Wix designers to the local professional community.
Our people could share their expertise and bring outside perspectives back.
Freshpublic design meetups
Team growth
Growth is a team result. My leadership contribution was making it easier to find great designers, welcome them well and support their judgment across products as the organisation expanded.
6→17
Wix’s 200M+ users are platform context, not a measured outcome of this work. The quantifiable results here are team growth and improvements to the hiring process.
Reflections
I started with the ambition to grow a strong design team. What this chapter taught me was how much more design leadership can change. My job was not to have the best answer in every review. It was to bring in exceptional people, give them meaningful ownership, and create the trust and shared standards that helped them make better decisions together.
The growth from 6 to 17 matters. But what I remember most is seeing designers teach one another, challenge ideas openly, take on bigger responsibilities and make the guild their own. Building that environment changed how I lead, and remains one of the most rewarding parts of my career.
Key learnings
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