How Netflix builds design systems
Interview with Amber Feinerman
Amber Feinerman is a multidisciplinary designer with an affinity for intuitive and flexible systems. Over the past ten years, she’s utilized her hybrid skill set on a range of projects, from prototyping for product innovation to leading design systems teams.
She’s enjoyed collaborating with talented folks at companies including Indeed, IBM, Shopify, Sprout Social, and Intuit.
She’s a Senior Product Designer at Netflix, working on their design systems team to help scale and innovate design solutions across consumer experiences.
Can you walk us through the current state of the design system you're involved with?
Our design system at Netflix is named Hawkins.
Hawkins is two-pronged: the Professional side tailors to the feature teams building internal applications for Netflix, and the Consumer side focuses on the Netflix experience most people are familiar with.
Hawkins started as a grassroots effort on the Professional side, and after reaching a stable state of maturity, needs on the Consumer side emerged. This is the side I work on. We’re a tiny but mighty team building core components applied across our four main platforms: Android, iOS, TV, and Web.
While each side of the system tailors to different audiences and platforms, they share an underlying architecture through design tokens and assets (e.g., icons and illustrations), ensuring that all experiences powered by Hawkins look and feel like Netflix.