Define a clear contribution model: how teams propose new components, the review process, and how you decide between "add to the system" and "keep it local." Governance prevents both bloat and bottlenecks.
Strong answers cover governance models: who approves new components, how to handle team-specific variations, semantic versioning for design tokens and components, communication of breaking changes, and metrics for system adoption. Best candidates discuss the tension between centralised control and team autonomy.
Senior design leadership skill. Design systems without governance become inconsistent or stagnant. Ask: "How do you handle a team that builds a component outside the system because the system did not meet their needs?"