Avito — Designing the Scoring Service (Merit)

At Avito, one of Europe's largest classifieds platforms, not all design challenges were about the marketplace itself. Some of the most impactful work happened behind the scenes, in the tools employees used to do their jobs.

One of those was the "Merit" scoring service — a system for managers and HR teams to evaluate employees, adjust salaries, and track promotion paths. Before "Merit," the entire process ran on hand-built Excel spreadsheets. It was slow, error-prone, and incredibly costly.

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Context

The "Merit" process affected every employee at Avito, from individual contributors to senior managers. It determined promotions, raises, and long-term career paths.

But the workflow was broken. Comp & Benefits and HR teams spent countless hours splitting, emailing, and consolidating Excel files. Sensitive data was at risk, errors crept in, and employees felt disconnected from the process.

To give a sense of scale: thousands of hours were lost each cycle to "support work" that wasn't even in HR's job description.

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The problem

We faced four critical challenges. Inefficiency meant every scoring cycle consumed thousands of hours across HR and management. Data loss was common because manual Excel handling led to errors and mismatched records. Stress overwhelmed HR and C&B teams who felt burdened by routine admin work. There was also a lack of transparency: managers had little visibility into the process, which bred distrust.

The company needed a solution that was scalable, transparent, and secure.

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My role

I was the sole designer at the start of the project. Over five months, my responsibilities included conducting discovery interviews with managers and HR specialists, mapping the existing Excel-based workflows and identifying bottlenecks, prototyping early designs in Figma and validating them with real users, defining the MVP flow and preparing detailed specs for engineering, partnering with the product owner and tech lead to align stakeholders and C-level, and supporting engineers during development and rollout of the MVP.

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Process

Discovery

We validated early that no off-the-shelf tools (like HiBob) could meet Avito's security requirements. Building in-house was the only option.

User interviews revealed the biggest time sinks: preparing Excel files, resolving version mismatches, and re-confirming data integrity. Managers also struggled with the lack of clear criteria for evaluation.

Ideation

From here, I explored several design directions: a centralised table view where managers could score employees and HR could oversee progress; role-based controls (manager, HR, C&B specialist) with tailored actions and permissions; filtering, search, and side-by-side views to make complex tables usable; and a budget indicator to help managers stay within financial boundaries.

Testing

We conducted 21 UX interviews with clickable Figma prototypes. Managers simulated real flows: selecting scores, adjusting compensation, confirming budgets. Feedback loops were weekly, ensuring continuous refinement.

Delivery

Within five months, we shipped the MVP. Backend services handled parsing, database management, and integrations with Avito's internal tools. The front-end allowed managers to complete what once took hours in just minutes.

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Results

We reduced time spent on scoring cycles by 65%, saving an estimated 14,000 hours annually. Manual errors were eliminated by moving from Excel to structured digital flows. Transparency improved: managers could now see live progress and budgets. Stress levels in HR and C&B teams dropped significantly, with 85% positive feedback post-launch. For a company the size of Avito, the financial savings translated to ~£0.5M annually in reclaimed work hours.

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Challenges & tradeoffs

We had to build everything from scratch for security, since no SaaS tool met requirements. Complexity was another constraint: managers came from very different backgrounds — from accountants to engineering leads — so the interface had to be universally clear. The system also had to scale: handling thousands of employees across multiple cycles without slowing down.

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Learnings

Three key lessons emerged from this project. Investing in role-based design paid off: by tailoring flows to managers, HR, and C&B, we reduced confusion dramatically. Early testing pays off: quick Figma prototypes surfaced bottlenecks before engineering began. Quantifying impact was crucial: tying design outcomes to hours saved and budget efficiency made it easier to prove value to C-level stakeholders.

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Closing thoughts

"Merit" was more than just a new HR tool — it was a shift from fragile spreadsheets to a secure, scalable system that saved Avito thousands of hours and millions of rubles each year. For me, it was a chance to show how design can create direct business impact, far beyond pixels and UI polish. By connecting user pain to company savings, we turned a dreaded process into a streamlined, trusted system.