Senior Product Designer
Design Systems
Hey, I'm Karlee — builds systems others build on, infrastructure is the product. Ask me about tokens (or DIY projects).
Under construction
Rev. 26
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I'm a Senior Product Designer who builds design systems — token architectures, component libraries, and the infrastructure that lets design and engineering move as one. I own Fluent Flex Tokens at Microsoft, built from first principles to work for both designers and the AI tools now building alongside them.
I grow systems, from the people in them to the people they reach.
What I
bring
Top trait
makes ambiguity un-ambiguous
Thinker
not band-aids, long-term structural support
Bridges
without code, we're just drawing pretty things
Sequences
work so no one's blindsided down the line
There's a System Under the System (I Built It)
Built so every downstream artifact is an output of the system, not a parallel effort. Design intent lives in the token name — meaning the system scales to platforms, themes, and AI without touching component logic.
I've Never Designed Anything Like This
A markdown-first repo where one spec file simultaneously serves as designer reference, engineering source, and AI agent prompt — with headless component delivery and a 7-minute Figma build via Claude.
From Fork to Framework
Delivered Copilot as a token-based theme extension of Fluent — not a parallel system. Full code-to-design parity across 72 assets and a brand theming framework now used by 10+ Microsoft products.
Before Anyone Touches a Component
Before the work starts, I build the infrastructure for how it will get done. Audit frameworks, measurement systems, a process that holds across a distributed team — turning ambiguous scope into a shipped plan.
Where It All Started
The project that first made me think in semantic layers. A brand color update request revealed a brittle system — so we rebuilt it with a semantic variable layer that turned hundreds of future updates into a handful.
Component + Property Naming Framework
Naming things is hard. A research-backed framework — two workshops, 11 categories, card sorting and pressure testing — standardized how Homebase names components and props across design and code.
Overlays and UI Regions, Oh My!
A community proposal to update the Drawer component turned into an audit of 17 design systems, a hand-calculated box-and-whiskers analysis, and the conclusion that what teams actually needed was a brand new component entirely.