At a glance…
When Carl Rivera became Shopify’s first Chief Design Officer in eight years, he inherited a team of 170+ designers across one of the world’s largest commerce platforms. But rather than optimize the existing system, Rivera chose transformation. His approach combines philosophical clarity about design’s role with hands-on building, from shipping code himself to creating internal tools that replace industry standards like Figma presentations.
What makes Rivera unique is how he operates simultaneously as strategic leader and individual contributor. During our evening at the Flatiron studio, he live-demoed internal tools his team built while explaining the organizational philosophy behind eliminating job titles, restructuring teams, and requiring all designers to ship code. This is leadership through example and systematic change.
Rivera discovered massive latent talent at Shopify that was operating at 70% capacity due to permission culture, which he unlocked by simply stating that design matters and giving people permission to do their best work. The company abandoned universal design processes in favor of material-driven approaches where each project gets the methodology it needs rather than forcing everything through the same workflow. Over 50% of Shopify’s designers now actively ship code to production after completing mandatory engineer onboarding, with Rivera viewing technical fear as the primary barrier holding back the design discipline. Teams have been restructured around “rovers” who move fluidly between projects and agency-style deployments that can pivot quickly to emerging opportunities rather than permanent assignments. Rivera believes taste, aesthetics, and strong points of view become the key hiring differentiators as AI democratizes baseline design skills, favoring candidates who provoke strong reactions over safe consensus picks. The apprenticeship program reflects his commitment to developing junior talent while the industry faces a K-shaped distribution where seniors accelerate with AI but juniors struggle to find opportunities. Internal tools like Artifact demonstrate his philosophy of building what you need rather than accepting limitations, combining project management with presentation capabilities that seamlessly integrate Figma designs, live prototypes, and traditional slides.
Permission culture: unlocking latent talent through leadership clarity
Rivera’s first major insight as CDO was recognizing that Shopify had tremendous design talent operating below capacity. “There was a ton of latent talent in the company in design specifically. There were a lot of people that were really outstanding but were producing at about 70% of their capabilities,” he observed. The root cause was permission culture where designers felt constrained from doing their best work. Rivera’s solution was direct leadership: “Just saying that design actually really matters and we’re going to become the best at it. Just saying that, my experience was that a lot of people just immediately became better designers because they felt that someone said that they were allowed to.” This experience shaped his broader philosophy about claiming leadership before having the title. The transformation demonstrates how clear communication about priorities can unlock existing talent without hiring.
Material-driven process: why Shopify abandoned design frameworks
Rather than implementing universal design processes, Rivera took the opposite approach based on his belief that process should follow material. “Companies generally try to come up with the process because it feels like management, and then they take all of their material and squeeze it into that process,” he explained. At Shopify, working on Shopify Payments (processing billions of dollars) requires completely different methodology than launching experimental merchant tools. Rivera’s approach demands active management to understand each project’s unique needs and adapt accordingly. This philosophy extends to team structure, where “all problems are people problems” but solutions depend on having the right people working together in the right way for that specific challenge. The approach requires more sophisticated management but produces better outcomes by matching process to problem rather than forcing standardization.
Technical transformation: requiring all designers to ship code
Rivera identified fear as the primary barrier preventing designers from embracing new capabilities, particularly around shipping code. “Fear combined with startup cost. You open up cursor or you open up terminal and they really don’t feel like welcoming interfaces,” he observed. His solution combined support with requirements: all designers now complete devop (engineer onboarding) and ship code to production as part of joining Shopify. The results are dramatic: over 50% of 170+ designers actively merge code, with 1,800 pull requests in six months. Rivera emphasizes the goal is overcoming initial apprehension rather than turning designers into engineers. “Once you get past it, it’s very natural and fluid and very easy.” The transformation has fundamentally changed what design teams can accomplish and how they approach problems. Rivera noted an unexpected discovery: teams often start with code rather than wireframes, flipping traditional process assumptions.
Structural fluidity: rovers and the end of permanent team assignments
Rivera restructured Shopify’s design organization around flexibility rather than stability, abandoning the traditional model of permanent team assignments. “I wanted to achieve an organization that was much more fluid with far fewer people attached to single defined problems,” he explained. The new structure includes “rovers” who float between projects and agency-style teams that can be deployed quickly to emerging opportunities. The Molly acquisition exemplified this philosophy, introducing a new way of working where context moves around the organization and fresh perspectives can be applied to entrenched problems. This approach allows leadership to “flex resourcing up and down depending on what is the most important problem that you’re dealing with right now” without constant reorganization overhead. The model requires different management skills but enables rapid response to changing priorities and prevents teams from becoming stuck in solution spaces.
Hiring philosophy: seeking taste and spiky perspectives over consensus
As AI democratizes baseline design skills, Rivera has shifted hiring criteria toward qualities that remain uniquely human. “We hire for taste. For aesthetics. For a point of view. It’s the difference between utility and affinity. Anyone can generate a good baseline, designers reach for the ceiling.” His approach favors candidates who provoke strong reactions over those who generate safe consensus. “My favorite people were the ones and fours,” he explained, referring to interview ratings where most candidates receive neutral threes. “They have something that is like they’ll bring a point of view. It will maybe be a little difficult at times, but they’ll bring something that’s a little spicy.” This philosophy reflects his belief that memorable experiences require designers who won’t settle for AI-generated baselines but push toward truly exceptional outcomes. The approach supports building a culture where strong opinions and creative risk-taking are valued over playing it safe.
Quality standards: building a no-average-work culture
Rivera articulated an uncompromising stance on maintaining quality standards across a large organization: “There should be no space in our company for people that can’t produce amazing work.” When challenged on this bold statement, he compared it to sports teams where having the best person in each position would be uncontroversial. His responsibility to Shopify’s mission (14% of US commerce flows through the platform) requires building “the world’s best design team.” Rivera believes this creates a self-reinforcing culture where “when you get really great people into a room, they look around and they get super excited and they work really hard and they inspire each other.” The approach prevents the drift toward mediocrity that affects many large organizations but requires active leadership to maintain standards. Rivera’s philosophy extends to the apprenticeship program, which develops junior talent while maintaining high expectations for performance and growth.
Internal tooling: building what you need rather than accepting limitations
Rivera demonstrated Shopify’s approach to internal tooling through Artifact, a project management and presentation platform that has replaced Figma presentations company-wide. The tool seamlessly combines project discovery with presentation capabilities, allowing fluid transitions between Figma designs, live coded prototypes, and traditional slides within a single interface. What makes Artifact special is dual functionality: practical replacement for slide decks and discovery mechanism where designers find work happening across the organization. Rivera showed diverse projects from Sidekick’s “teach” mode (where AI guides users with its own cursor) to SimJim (sending AI agents to shop and provide feedback). The tool represents his philosophy of building what teams need rather than accepting existing tool limitations. This approach extends to creating their own brand generation tools and design systems that enable the specific workflows Shopify requires.
Leading before having the title: claiming ownership through action
Rivera’s strongest advice for aspiring design leaders centers on taking ownership before formal authority. “Be a leader. You can claim that space and you can be a leader well before you have people report into you in an org chart.” He emphasizes that leadership emerges through caring most about outcomes and bringing conviction to conversations. “If any person cares about it, then just start to speak about it and own that space in the conversation and have the most ideas and be the most passionate about your ideas and fight for your ideas.” This philosophy shaped his own path from startup founder to CDO and reflects how direction gets set in organizations. Rather than waiting for permission or formal delegation, Rivera advocates for claiming leadership through demonstrated expertise and passion. The approach requires courage to have strong opinions but creates real influence regardless of organizational hierarchy.
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