Where all the (hidden) design jobs are
Hint: It’s not where you’d first think to look. Many don’t even have design in the job title. But they’re closely related to design, are an important part of the design process, and can naturally progress into the designer role. The catch is, these designer roles need to be unlocked first.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of design and where we go from here. We all know that great majority of organizations fall in categories 1–3 below, and do not have a mature design function. That NNG study even cited selection bias of not capturing enough of the companies on the lower end! If these companies aren’t hiring for designers, what does one do?
If you were to map where their maturity falls to which sector they are in, I am fairly confident that those higher on the maturity scale would be in the IT sector. Logically, they’ve been doing it for longer so it makes sense that they’ve had more time to mature.
The implications are that there are many companies outside of the tech industry who have organizations that are untapped and ripe for growth of their design practices. Their legacy tools and interfaces are in dire need of getting updated. (But you won’t see these design opportunities until you’re in a company.) There are numerous compelling examples of why this is necessary, not limited to the Citibank example.
What you also may not realize is that many companies beyond the usual tech suspects are ramping up their investments in design. A lot have done them by inorganic acquisitions – starting with the acquisition of Adaptive Path by Capital One by in 2019. The challenge is, a company’s culture can still be at odds with the acqui-hires. It’s not necessarily a recipe for lasting change. This is its own issue.
The opportunity clearly lies within low maturity companies who exist outside the tech industry. That’s where all the hidden design jobs are! Simple right? The catch is that these positions are figuratively speaking, locked. They have not been created and by default are not posted because the companies’ design needs are not fully realized.
So how do we unlock the high potential of the companies with lower design maturity? The easiest explanation is we need to find a way to get them to better understand design and how close it is to their revenue stream. The further they perceive it, the less value it is perceived to have. The culture change will comes when they realize that design can move the bottom line. Many of the design immature companies are larger and it takes time to steer the ship. Company culture changes take time.
The catalyst for this tends to happen with an Agile rollout or some kind of innovation group. At this point, they are indirectly investing into design, they just don’t know it yet. This is the first step in evolving their organization so that design can grow. Incidentally, pushing for more change is what any existing designer leaders already need to be doing within an organization.
Pivoting into Design
As I’ve spoken to many aspiring to get into UX/product design via ADPList, perhaps the next best step, or should I say pivot, for some may not be to directly have jump into job as a designer. In fact, it took me many years after college to return to graduate school for design.
Prior to graduate school, I had taken already knew how to code basic HTML/CSS, taken web design courses, industrial design courses, and engineering design courses. And I even got an internship with a local industrial design firm and taken a summer design course at Stanford. I had many design friends and connections. Sadly still, it wasn’t quite enough to tap into the field yet.
In the following years, I doubled down. I used my time as a working professional in technical marketing & sales to get as close to design as I could: designing recruitment material for the marketing organization, designing visually compelling spreadsheets to forecast sales, designing clear & consistent presentations to make leadership look good. In my free time, I visited design museums and even found ways to sneak into design conference parties as a guest.
By no means am I saying people shouldn’t become designers! If that’s your genuine passion, of course that drive alone can be sufficient to get very far. But you should start by asking, “How big of a pivot and I making as my next step to get into the design field?”
Start by asking, “How big of a pivot am I making as my next step to get into the design field?”
Pivoting a career is difficult. You have the factors of seniority, industry, function, and sometimes geographic location (which implies network). It’s hard enough to pivot on one, but if you pivot on multiple at once – well, that’s as difficult as it gets. In fact, the biggest pivots tend to happen after people find success and have the financial cushion to take such a risk. Even if you got that design job, are you sacrificing seniority that you have, going into an industry you’re not familiar with, and having to move to get there? Is that worth it?
I’ve been advised by senior leaders to try not to pivot on more than one of those area unless you have a strong advocate within an organization who is going to own that risk for you. Or you have a strong network who can help you make the leap. Likewise, consider that products frequently find the continued success in making slight change to their already familiar flagships. If you have existing strength from prior experience, keep capitalizing on the same network, domain knowledge in order to maintain your seniority.
Regardless the reasons, it helps to know your options and understand the supporting cast that can get you a step closer to the designer role. Incidentally, these roles are the very drivers of change within an organization. Much like a great film involves more than special effects, achieving great design involves much more than the designer. The producer, director, cast, and crew must both align on their vision of how special effects fit into the overall narrative of the film.
Consider the Designers’ Supporting Cast
My intention is to share this larger world of one more degree out from the design field (that includes UX writers, researcher and content strategy). In doing so: 1) perhaps people can realize that other attainable and pivot-able jobs do have elements of what they may feel excited about — allowing them to get one step closer to either eventually becoming a designer assuming that’s the goal… and 2) slowly change the culture across many companies who so desperately need to make it happen, there by unlocking more job openings as a company moves higher on the design maturity scale.
For larger, corporate settings
- Subject Matter Expert (SME)
What is it: This could be really any role that is giving their informed opinion on how a tool should be used. It’s usually an internal or B2B tool that requires specialized knowledge.
Required background: Practically anything
Relation to design: You get to work closely with a designer who translates the knowledge you share into a design. Typically, a designer will check with the SME as a representative for their user base. When SME is the user base, the designer may co-create with them. In a sense, this does imply that anyone can participate in the design process. - Business Analyst or BA (also may go by Business Systems Analyst, Systems Analyst, even Product Systems Analyst)
What is it: Their role to understand how business expectations and goals translate into technical and design requirements. They are formally documented to get everyone aligned on scope.
Required background: If you are a technical and organized person, this is a good fit.
Relation to design: You are in a position to influence the design and make sure all the details are covered. Applications like Jira will be your best friend here more than Figma. - Product Owner or PO (also my go by Product Manager or Project Manager)
What is it: Role is to decide on how features are prioritized and the direction of the product. They need to determine the right vision and roadmap for what the product may become.
Required background: It can be someone who has experience managing a project or small company. It may be someone who was in BA role or from being an SME at the right place and time. If you want to feel like an entrepreneur in a big organization, this could be a good fit.
Relation to design: It gets you close to the action of the design and you make many important decisions on what to work on with the design – even more so than the designer sometimes.
Intermission: Designer Reality Check
Conversely, what may come as a surprise to those entering the design field is that you don’t have as much creative liberty as you would think as the designer. Yes, you need to come up with new ideas. But the start of those ideas are regularly pre-selected for you and mainly come from business needs such as existing tools that need to be redesigned. By the time, you work on the design, most decisions are already made for you based on the constraints of time, technology, brand guidelines / design systems, budget, and stakeholder or user desire. Creativity works best within these constraints, but it can a frustrating process for many who think it is more akin to the artistic process where the artist explores the boundaries of the unknown. This is true unless you’re on the fringe of doing something completely innovative… which doesn’t represent what most designers get to work on, unfortunately. If more exciting work does appear, too often it gets farmed out to an external agency.
Wait a minute, what if you worked at that external agency, you ask?!
For the agency setting
Yes, the agency may be an option to consider, too. Agencies provide a wonderful array of work and exposure across industries. They are, however, not without their drawbacks because they again, don’t get to make the final call. They can make recommendations, but the most exciting concepts are rarely even chosen. A conservative call is made to the chagrin of the agency and leaders play it safe (and what they “know will work”). Leadership tends to go with what is familiar and don’t want to push the envelope with what’s new. New is risky. Finally, when they hand over the work – it can get changed, and you don’t always have the satisfaction of knowing it will be built as recommended either. After the fact, the agency may still show of their favorite concepts later to other clients they’re pitching to even though those concepts were not picked.
This leads us to another set of roles within the agency world:
- Client
What is it: This role technically doesn’t sit within the agency, but is more like an honorary guest.
Required background: It is another generic term like an SME. But anyone with an approved budget can start a design project or initiative.
Relation to design: Clients act as the PO and get to make important decisions along the design process. If you make the case to redesign something, you get to have this control. If you are client, you get to pick which agency you work with, and people pitch their ideas to you so they may get selected. Maybe you’ll even convince leadership to try that risky concept they’re not sure about! - Account Manager
What is it: This role is more specific and helps to make sure that the client has what they need to feel good about the project. They setup all the meetings and act as a relationship manager for the client.
Required background; If you have an extroverted side and love keeping people on task, this might be a good role for you. A variety of background can work here from sales to project management.
Relation to design: They get to see how the designs even along the way. Although, they don’t have design decision making control, they can negotiate for more valuable time/budget and must keep the work within agreed scope. You get the satisfaction of seeing the design go from beginning to end. - Business Development
What is it: This involves lots of relationship building and a clear articulation of how design can make a difference in their business. Agencies are always looking for their next partnership.
Required background: If you’re a natural salesperson or marketer, this is one to consider.
Relation to design: You get to make people excited about the potential and are always on the lookout for partners who want to try something new or even explore a new technology like AR or VR.
For the startup setting
Lastly, for startups it almost goes without saying that the key person to either become or influence is the founder. That founder has incredible power to shape their company.
A Collective Push for Design
The beauty of these roles is that they all work in concert with the designer. I would go as far to say that the designer, in fact, cannot truly be successful without their informed support.
One of the most common pain points in designer within low design maturity organizations is that these important roles are not educated with the design process. They end up getting that design education while a project is happening and comes at the cost of a lower quality deliverable. Already coming in with that education puts you at a real advantage to deliver a product or service that’s stronger than another who doesn’t have any previous design exposure.
Just think, what if Steve Jobs (as a founder) had never taken that calligraphy class? He made a huge impact on the design field, but was not trying to make a career as a designer. He stuck with his strengths and it was his informed opinion of design that set him apart, knowing the full potential of how design could shape his companies, products, and eventually society.
Consider that your next best pivot could be into one of these roles. Know that they allow for a future, easier pivot into design. With a collective push, we can change the pace of how companies mature while getting to participate in the design process. And ultimately, being a part of the creative process to bring something to life, no matter your role in it, is what’s satisfying.
