Developers doing cool shit that we would’ve never thought to do.
Role
Sr. Product Design
Program Manager
Services
Program Management
Project Management
Product Strategy
Design Ops
Team
PMs x4
EMs x6
Design Directors x1
Designers x15
Date
2021-2023
🔥👉
Role Highlights
Intro
In the earliest days of Twitter, a thriving developer community powered consumer innovation, optionality, and customization via alternative or additive tools built upon Twitter’s foundation.
“One of the reasons why Twitter is where it is today is because of developers doing cool shit that we would’ve never thought to do.”
The Developer Platform Team empowers developers to directly impact the public conversation.
Where I fit
My role was split between local & global programs. Local programs enabled the Developer Platform Design team to do their best work in a complex product environment. Global programs aimed to lift the quality of design across Twitter.
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Boosted productivity & morale, and reduced meeting overhead with new meeting formats & cadence.
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Created onboarding plan, custom environment, low-overhead maintenance process, and moved 50+ design ICs onto Jira.
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Created and lead ‘Culture Squads’; ‘Event’, ‘Storytelling’, & ‘Best-Practices’ squads to drive cultural growth.
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Rejuvenated org-wide crit with improved moderation, slack sign-ups, and sharing.
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Managed XFN critical path to launch of timelines for Bachelorette, Fortnite, Buzzfeed, & Bloomberg.
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Organized 3-day offsite for the Design organization, focused on how to build team ‘empathy’.
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Ran & moderated XFN design sprints to develop and align on product design vision.
😘 💬
Team Feedback
“Dominic has impacted the team in so many ways; all positive. Not only is he keeping individuals accountable for tracking projects, but he has spearheaded a number of rituals that encourage improvements to our team culture.
Our weekly crits has opened communication and more collaboration between the workstreams, he has championed the use of Slack in new ways to combat the remote working environment.
He has helped to create a fun work environment, where the team can be our authentic selves and still perform at a high quality.”
— Design IC
“Without Dominic, my role would be utter chaos. Dominic proves daily to be essential to the Developer Platform team. He has created systems that improve overall productivity, and also makes our processes even more lean.
Dominic exudes empathy - he checks in with me daily to make sure I am not inundated. He always is reaching out to me to see if there’s anything he can do to alleviate pressure/stress, as well making sure my time is being protected.”
— Design IC
“Dominic has done a ton of amazing work in a very short period of time.
He’s not only helped to set up more valuable team cadences than we’ve had in years, but has also been critical in helping to coordinate workshops and collaboration with other teams.”
— Design IC
“Since he joined, we gained so much in productivity, tracking, and team bonding that was missing for the months I was on the team before he joined.”
— Design IC
“Dominic is absolutely essential to our team. He initiated and executed a process to unify how our team works in order to keep us operating at the highest level of efficiency.
Dominics’ integration into our team provides a buffer, lifting the burden of documenting, tracking and communicating updates to cross-functional partners and leadership.
I have never seen our team connect in a way that we have before now. I directly attribute this to Dominics’ ability to pull us together as a team and create opportunities to connect in a grass-roots way.”
— Design IC
“Dominic has set a strong foundation for operational excellence within this design team and will be a critical piece of our team’s success in the future.
In a short amount of time, he has taken initiative and has created new communication frameworks for our team. We have already seen the impact of these changes in our design culture and excellence.
Dominic has the rare gift of connecting with individuals on an honest, human level and supporting them through the professional challenges of the workplace.”
— Design IC
🤖
Slack automations
& async tricks
🚢 🎉
Shipped highlights
Alternative Timelines
Opening the way to algorithmic choice
Developer Built Cards
Identify new use cases using custom cards
Chirp
Production management for developer conference creative.
Partner Launches
Managed XFN launches for Buzzfeed, ABC, Epic Games, & Bloomberg
👯
Culture Squads
Lead org-wide design programming to improve:
Design Inspiration: Inspire the design team to see new possibilities and feel energized in driving design at Twitter in innovative directions.
Craft Excellence: Every employee is supported and encouraged to master, and exceed, in their area of expertise.
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion: Promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. Be inclusive of other styles, cultures and ways of working.
Retention: To keep employees happy, motivated, engaged, and with Twitter.
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Supports the coordination of:
🐤 Design Events: Assists with planning & running design wide offsites, design days, etc.
👯 #team-events: Promoting more team events by providing playbooks, ideas, past formats, and cleaner slack workflows to get admin done faster.
🍩 #donuts: 15 min randomized 1on1s with designers using simple slack-bots.
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🎙 Small Talk: 5 min at the start of All Hands -> Purpose: sharing and celebrating personal topics of interest
🧠 Brain Food: 15 min per month -> Purpose: supporting professional learning and development
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Promoting 5 key best practices across GB Design:
⚡️ Design Sprints: Lead and moderate XFN sprints.
📖 Storytelling: Weave compelling pitches to generate buy-in.
💡 Ideation: Low-effort ways to quickly formulate new ideas.
✏️ Figma: Setup and manage Figma using consistent practices.
🚀 Product Development: Best approach to use through pd cycle.