131. DSP Rewind | Rick Rodriguez on Building an Adaptable and Scalable Design system

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This week, we're digging into the Design Systems Podcast archives. Guest host Richard Banfield, VP of Design Leadership at Knapsack, revisits a 2020 conversation between host Chris Strahl and Rick Rodriguez, then Head of Design Systems at Walmart Labs.

Rick shares how his team developed Living Design, Walmart’s internal design system, to support both customer-facing and associate-facing digital products. The conversation explores what it takes to design for scale across a massive enterprise ecosystem, how to navigate legacy technologies while planning for the future, and how to engage people across your organization to drive alignment and adoption.

You’ll also hear about:

• Lessons in contribution, ownership, and iteration within a federated design organization
• The ambassador program that helped evangelize and align teams across the enterprise
• Insights into how data and qualitative feedback drive system decisions — especially around complex components like carousels

Although this conversation originally aired five years ago, the lessons Rick shares remain strikingly relevant. As design systems continue to mature, this episode offers a timeless perspective on scaling thoughtfully, building collaboratively, and evolving with intention.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest

Rick Rodriguez is currently a Product Design Manager at Meta, but at the time of our original episode he wast the Head of Design Systems at Walmart Labs.  He is an avid runner, hand letterer, and superfan of cappuccinos and donut breaks. You can find Rick on Twitter as @rickrodriguez, and on LinkedIn.

Hosts

Richard Benfield is the VP of Design Leadership at Knapsack. He's acted as an advisor and interim executive to category-leading organizations, ia a best selling author, been a founder/CEO, and built and sold several businesses over the last 20+ years.

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.