i've been many flavors of designer in startups—full-time, part-time, freelancer, agency, and at all levels of the totem pole.

i've learned the only way to truly create a design-driven product is to design the org chart. 

design is culture, not a job.

hard agree. the "form" of a product emerges as a Gestalt from the intersection of multiple and different layers. whether or not the outcome is design-driven depends on how those layers intersect, and it's not something that can be superimposed by a "designer"