The Bridge Team: Scaling Design Fidelity Across Amazon’s Device Ecosystem

When Amazon created the Digital Devices Group (DDG), its goal was to unify design and product development across a growing family of hardware, from Kindle readers and Fire Tablets to new, experimental devices. I was part of this shift from the start, leading the 3D architecture for Amazon’s most ambitious device at the time: the Fire Phone.

While building the Fire Phone’s pioneering 3D interface, I also developed something less flashy, but just as foundational: a new model for how design work was produced, documented, and delivered to engineering. We separated design execution from documentation, created specialized workflows, and began forming a dedicated team focused on maintaining fidelity between design and code.

That early system, forged under the pressure of launching the Fire Phone, became the seed for what would later grow into a formal, cross-functional unit: the Bridge Team.

From Fire Phone to Fire TV: Expanding Across Devices

As we wrapped the Fire Phone and began launching the first version of Fire TV, we started expanding this operational model to Amazon’s existing digital products, Fire Tablets and Kindle, and onboarding new programs as they emerged.

We transitioned all production and design documentation work to my team. As the portfolio expanded, so did our scope. When Alexa launched, we natively supported all Alexa-powered devices from the start, alongside products developed internally that never made it to market. If DDG designed it, we supported it.

And as the demand grew, we scaled. What began as a small, specialized group evolved into a full-fledged, embedded service team with disciplines in:

• Design Production

• Design Documentation

• UX Writing

• Visual QA (a practice I developed to systematically test visual implementation)

• System Design

Auditing the Problem: Inconsistencies and Churn

Before formalizing the team, I led a comprehensive review of the existing design-to-engineering pipeline. Across all device lines, we uncovered similar issues:

• Visual discrepancies between mocks and shipped UIs

• Redundant work due to inconsistent asset libraries

• Manual spec processes that slowed teams down and caused confusion

• A lack of centralized documentation or QA checkpoints

There wasn’t just friction, there was a real risk to design quality and user experience at scale. I realized we needed to institutionalize what we had built during the Fire Phone era and turn it into an operational foundation for DDG.

Building the Bridge Team

I formally established the Bridge Team within DDG, a cross-functional group designed to close the gap between design intent and implementation.

We embedded directly into the product development cycle to ensure:

• Pixel-perfect fidelity between mocks and code

• Centralized and reusable asset libraries

• Clear documentation standards and design specs

• Robust QA and validation workflows for every device

The Bridge Team wasn’t just a resource, it became a pillar. We introduced governance, consistency, and operational scalability to an increasingly complex ecosystem of products and teams.

Automation, Standardization, and Scalability

To keep pace with DDG’s rapid growth, we invested in tools and automation:

• Built automated design spec tools to replace manual redlining

• Created a central asset management system using GIT

• Developed responsive component libraries and design tokens for scalable UI

• Standardized Visual QA processes across platforms, enabling us to catch issues early

These changes reduced production time, improved quality, and eliminated the back-and-forth that had previously cost teams both time and trust.

Launching the DDG Design System

Out of this work came another major milestone: the DDG Design System.

I initiated and led the development of Amazon’s first comprehensive design system for DDG, shifting from traditional static guides to dynamic, reusable design components. Over time, we:

• Expanded the design system to support Fire TV, Alexa, and Fire Tablets

• Transitioned tooling from Sketch with custom plugins to InVision, and ultimately to Figma, improving collaboration across roles

• Embedded metadata directly in components to support automated design specs, streamlining the handoff to engineering

This system allowed us to deliver design at scale without sacrificing quality or coherence.

Impact: A Scalable Model for Precision and Efficiency

The results were measurable:

• 121% increase in overall production capacity (2015–2019)

• 290% increase in weekly Jira ticket throughput

• 6,000+ tickets handled in the second half of 2019 alone

• Substantial reductions in engineering rework and visual QA issues

The Bridge Team didn’t just help DDG ship faster, we helped DDG ship better. Our work ensured a consistent, high-quality user experience across a vast array of devices and touchpoints.

Reflection: Building Systems That Last

The Bridge Team wasn’t born overnight. It was the result of years of iterative improvement, grounded in the lessons I learned building the Fire Phone, and scaled across an entire organization.

By embedding operational clarity, automated workflows, and cross-functional collaboration into the core of DDG’s design practice, we created something sustainable, something that could scale with Amazon’s device ecosystem.

More importantly, we brought together disciplines that had previously lived in silos. We connected design to engineering, vision to execution, and intent to reality. And in doing so, we showed what it means to treat design operations as a product in itself, one that delivers clarity, trust, and quality at scale.