What Is High-level Design?

Julie Zhuo calls high-level design one motion used at every scale. A task, a team, and a company are the same kind of work.

She started by designing a small thing, a task or a feature. The work then moved up to an application, and later to a system. After she became a manager, it was no longer only the product. She had to design a team, or a group of people, that could build the product or the feature in a high quality way and in a sustainable way. Growing through levels of management made culture the same problem: how to design a culture, beyond forming the team and coaching. Starting Sundial took the ladder one level further. She set out to design a company that can build a product, using lessons about what great culture means and what great processes mean, so the company can sustainably create great products.

She uses that philosophy now as the leader of a new company, both to bring a new product to market and to bring a new organization to life.