I am Aaron Martin. I create web experiences, mobile products, custom typography, and branding experiences. I provide creative direction by way of design, strategy, and art direction.
As a design leader, your impact reaches far beyond the boundaries of your team. True success hinges on your ability to collaborate effectively with other departments—product, engineering, marketing, sales, and executives. Each of these partnerships brings its own set of challenges and opportunities. In this chapter, we’ll dive into practical strategies to forge strong, productive relationships across your organization. You’ll discover how to embed design thinking into product development, bridge the gap with engineering, align with marketing and sales goals, and communicate design’s strategic value to leadership. Along the way, I’ll share personal stories from my own journey to bring these ideas to life.
You can’t be an island and be effective. Your ideas are worthless without teammates who can plan or build them. The further you progress in your career the more you’ll realize that design is the easy part. The hard part is the people, and even more challenging are the people who aren’t designers.
Your collaboration with product teams is where design’s influence takes root. To maximize your impact, you need to move beyond being a service provider and become a true partner in shaping the product vision. This starts with embedding designers within product squads, co-creating strategies, and fostering a culture of open collaboration. When done right, this approach leads to better products and elevates design’s role in the organization.
To make design a continuous presence, assign your designers to specific product teams or squads. This integration ensures they’re part of the daily rhythm—not just called in when needed. I’ve worked on teams that operated like an agency, with design centralized but disconnected from the action. It kept our work consistent, but it didn’t shift how the organization valued us. Embedding designers changes that. They join stand-ups, sprint planning, and retrospectives, building trust and ensuring design isn’t an afterthought. Encourage your team to show up consistently—nothing damages credibility faster than skipping these rituals.
Partner with product managers to define the product vision, making user experience a cornerstone from the start. Lead workshops that unite design and product teams to align on goals and weave design thinking into the strategy. One tool that works wonders here is the design sprint. These short, focused sessions let you prototype and test ideas quickly with product managers, engineers, and stakeholders, creating shared ownership.
Personal story: Early in my time at Ridgeline, I pushed for design sprints to align on big ideas. The first one met resistance—it was uncharted territory, and I had to lean on personal credibility to get buy-in. But after delivering high-quality work in just a week, the value was undeniable. It gave us space to think strategically, and soon other teams were asking us to help them think purposefully. We became enablers of quality, boosting our influence and teaching others to approach problems creatively.
Get involved in quarterly and annual roadmap planning. Your insights from user research and design can shape priorities in ways others might miss. Present your findings clearly to advocate for user needs, ensuring they’re baked into the plan.
Set up systems to gather and share user feedback regularly—think user testing, surveys, or interviews. Then, bring those insights to the product team to guide feature development. This keeps the user front and center, reinforcing design’s value.
Push for accessibility and inclusivity as non-negotiables. Offer training on inclusive design principles and highlight how they benefit all users while opening new markets. It’s not just the right thing to do—it’s smart business.
Design and engineering are two sides of the same coin. You focus on the user experience; they ensure it works. Bridging this gap requires empathy, early collaboration, and clear communication. As a design leader, you set the tone for a partnership that turns ideas into reality while preserving design integrity.
Start by encouraging your designers to understand the technical challenges engineers face. Likewise, help engineers see the user-centric focus of design. One way to do this is through cross-functional workshops. At Ridgeline, we hold regular sessions where designers and engineers share their workflows and hurdles. It’s simple but powerful—mutual understanding lays the foundation for collaboration.
Bring engineers into the process early to spot constraints and opportunities before they become roadblocks. Invite them to brainstorming sessions—their technical insights can spark creative, feasible solutions. Then, align your design and engineering timelines through shared tools and regular syncs to keep everything flowing smoothly.
Clear communication prevents missteps. Set up dedicated channels—whether meetings, Slack, or quick check-ins—and provide detailed design specs like annotated wireframes and prototypes. Make them easy to digest, covering user flows and edge cases so engineers know exactly what’s needed.
When designs hit technical limits, treat it as a shared challenge. Hold collaborative problem-solving sessions to find alternatives that satisfy both sides. Be flexible—adapt where you can—but prioritize the core elements of your vision and work with engineers to protect them.
Personal story: At Ridgeline, our Monday kick-offs include each designer sharing a key learning from the past week. One time, an engineer joined us and shared a constraint we hadn’t considered. That sparked a discussion that led to a better solution than we’d started with. It’s moments like that—small but intentional—that build trust.
Balance adaptability with quality. Involve your designers in QA to catch inconsistencies early, and celebrate joint successes to reinforce the partnership. A shared goal—like delivering a seamless user experience—makes collaboration second nature.
Your work with marketing and sales ensures the product’s story is told consistently and compellingly. Even if these teams don’t report to you, collaborating with them strengthens the brand and drives results.
Engage with marketing early in campaign planning to shape the creative direction. Co-create visuals that align with the strategy, and use joint personas or journey maps to target the right audience. Test designs with real feedback to ensure they resonate.
Sales teams thrive on engaging materials. Offer your design expertise to refine their slides or demos—it’s a small gesture that pays off big. I’ve found this to be one of the most effective things I do. It’s easy for me, hard for others, and lets me shape how the company thinks.
Personal story: At Ridgeline, we built a slide deck of product stories for sales to use. It wasn’t just about pretty visuals—it showed how design decisions drove outcomes. Sales loved it, and it gave us a tangible way to prove our impact.
Back up your work with data—case studies, metrics, anything that ties design to business goals. When marketing and sales see the numbers, they’ll view you as a partner, not just a support function.
To secure executive support, you need to speak their language. Position design as a strategic asset by connecting it to revenue, market share, and customer satisfaction.
Tell a story with outcomes, not process. Use metrics—like how design reduced churn—or customer stories to show impact. Quantify the benefits: cost savings, sales growth, risk reduction. Share trends to position design as forward-thinking, and advocate for a seat at the strategy table.
Keep executives in the loop with concise updates. I keep a “top of mind” list to share wins and progress—it builds confidence in our team. Be ready for their questions—resources, timelines, ROI—and offer solutions to show you’re a step ahead.
Personal story: After a meeting with my manager, I tweaked how I framed updates to better suit their focus. It was a small shift, but it made our conversations more productive. Little adjustments like that keep the relationship strong.
Cross-functional collaboration isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential for design leaders who want to drive real impact. By building partnerships with product, engineering, marketing, sales, and executives, you make design indispensable. The relationships you nurture today will shape your organization’s future. In the next chapter, we’ll explore how to lead your design team through change and growth, keeping them agile and inspired.