Alan Design: Behind the screens
Wondering what it’s like to work at Alan? Judging by the uniqueness of our culture and questions in interviews, we wanted to dig in.
The Alan design team has doubled every year since 2019. Now we’re a team of 16 designers, working remotely across Europe on an experience that means the world to us: healthcare 💜
A few of us decided to answer your most frequently asked questions. Let’s go!
Alan’s unique way of working
Alan has a fully asynchronous, written culture. Is it true — you have no meetings? How does the magic happen async?
Maxime: It’s been two years that I haven’t had a meeting! Quite a change from my previous experiences where meetings prevented me from deep work.
Now, our process is relatively simple. Every time we want to make a decision, we open a Github issue where we share:
- The goal of the discussion to avoid going sideways
- The context around it
- The proposal(s), which can a design and the rationale behind it
Then we discuss it in a thread with the team. The author handles everyone’s input and decides on the conclusion. It applies to anyone in the company: a budget decision, a strategy to define, or an offsite to organize… we use the same format!
Ivan: Indeed, we don’t use meetings as the primary tool for decision-making. That being said, we still have occasional syncs and pairing sessions with fellow designers to collaborate on a project, or have coffee meetings with Alaners from other communities (departments) to get to know each other.
What is refreshing and what’s challenging with our way of working?
What’s refreshing 💦
Christelle: Focus time is a big one for me! As designers, we often have to manage a lot of stakeholders. By doing things in writing, we get more focus time to provide clarity and manage many opinions.
Transparency — when you have access to the process of every decision, it creates a virtuous circle where everyone wants to take the best decision for the best reasons, feels accountable, respects others’ decisions.
Maxime: It allows me to learn beyond design. I’m interested in learning how fundraising works. At Alan, I was able to follow the path to our series D and E fundraises, information that’s usually kept behind closed doors. It shows the trust everyone has in one another.
What’s challenging 👻
Ivan: When working asynchronously it’s very important to over-communicate. I learned that my priorities or project status might be extremely obvious to me, but my team might not have the same level of visibility. In remote and async cultures there is no such thing as “communicating too much”. This is something I had to learn pretty fast.
Aiswarya: Writing is an efficient way of working, but it can’t function alone. Sometimes, tone of voice is misunderstood or discussions escalate and take way more time than a simple Google Meet chat. It’s about picking what’s appropriate. You need team camaraderie, trust, and respect for time to complement the writing process. It can be more challenging as a fully-remote Alaner. But even total flexibility comes with a price.
Design’s role in the company
How does Design engage in the overall company strategy?
Maxime: To create an effective strategy, a team needs to deeply understand who our members are and what problems they are facing. Designers are in a great place to share that knowledge and make it actionable. In Spain, we are currently working on building our long product term vision. We also have a yearly strategy, which we break down into goals for every 2 months.
Aiswarya: Designers heavily participate in our bi-annual planning sessions with PMs to define goals and major initiatives for teams in the product area (B2B or B2C). We also work on other company initiatives like the brand language, recruiting for key positions, and continuously learning with discovery projects.
How do you collaborate with other designers at Alan? How do you collaborate with researchers or other roles in the team?
Ivan: Designers usually work in small pods and own a specific part of the product. (Learn more here.) The designers are our sparring partners. We collaborate with weekly syncs, pairing on brainstorms and doing design reviews together.
Christelle: Each designer is also part of feature crews. They are small and focused teams with different expertises meant to ship. Mine is composed of: a PM, 2 engineers, a data scientist, and 1,5 designers. Depending on the crew’s scope, we can add UX researchers, marketing, ops…
💌 Love letter to researchers: it’s SO refreshing to have an in-house research team! We have access to fundamental research and the possibility to conduct usability tests on the spot. It is a game changer. It helps me produce better designs and feel more confident when releasing.
What’s your day-to-day like at Alan?
Ivan: I usually start my morning by contributing to relevant GitHub issues and answering messages on Slack. After that it’s time to open Figma, turn off all my notifications and jump into deep work mode where I can focus on my projects without any distractions.
After lunch I can have a pairing session with a fellow designer to jam on a topic or jump back into the deep work mode. I like to close off my day by replying to Slack messages and GitHub pings and plan the next day.
Aiswarya: I work best when I dedicate slots for design work separate from everything else. Sometimes you just need large expanses of time to get in the flow! In everything else, I am writing proposals, coaching, or recruiting. With this separation, I am able to balance topics better.
On a personal level, I try to manage a clean separation between work and life too. It quickly becomes important when you’re fully remote and it blurs together. Thankfully, I have access to a co-working space to spend a few days in the beautiful, bustling heart of Amsterdam.
Working at Alan
How did you get a job at Alan? What steps did you take?
Ivan: I was first contacted by Julien (a senior designer at Alan). He got a reference from a friend of mine and she referred me instead (and I’m so thankful that she did). I went through the entire process — screening interview, technical exercise, behavioural interview and finally — a half-day exercise where I worked on a project. I could also meet Alaners from different communities and learn more about the company culture.
I was amazed by the swiftness of all the communication and feedback during the process. I got an offer within 2–3 days after the half-day and I was, to say the least, excited to start my Alan adventure.
Christelle: Édouard (our head of design) contacted me twice. The first time wasn’t right: Alan was in Paris, I was not… and hopefully will never be 😅. And to be honest, I’m not confident that I would have passed the recruitment process back then. A few years later was the right time! Alan decided to hire from anywhere.
I did the whole process and felt surprisingly calm. I tried to show my skills and to be upfront with my flaws and expectations. Then, the offer came and full disclosure, I was a bit afraid of “the Alan bulldozer”. Alan is known to move fast and I feared a bit for my work-life balance. I expected to work long hours and as a new mom, that wasn’t something for me.
Since joining Alan, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. The no-meeting rule is key to take back control of your time. And my work-life balance has never been better.
How can I evolve as a designer at Alan? What is the growth path?
Christelle: As a designer, you can either grow by sharpening your technical skills or your mentoring skills. Ultimately, it’s about what impact one’s actions can have on the company. For example, a more senior designer will be asked to handle complex projects or own the recruiting process. To have a better idea of what is expected to grow at Alan, each community has its own level grid, aligned on a unique company grid.
At Alan we hire people, not roles. What does this mean? What are we looking for in a new product designer joining Alan?
Maxime: We’re always trying to have people working on what they enjoy most and where they can have the most impact.
For example, we’re looking for a Spanish designer. Initially, it will probably make sense for this person to contribute to our Spanish product, because they can test the product in real life, write better copy, handle user interviews in Spanish, and have a better understanding of the culture. All things no other designer at Alan can do! But that doesn’t mean this person is limited to this role. If they can have more impact somewhere else at Alan, because of their unique skills and interests, so be it!
👉 P.S. We are hiring now for a Senior Product Designer, and would love to hear from you ✨ If you have questions, you may reach us on Linkedin.
About our authors
Maxime Robinet (Linkedin) is a French product engineer who discovered digital product design while creating his company Kumpa. After helping a few early-stage startups get an edge through design, he joined Alan in 2020 and is contributing to Alan’s international expansion for Spain and Belgium.
Christelle Mozzati (Linkedin) is 36 and has been in the design industry for about 13 years, paving her way from graphic design to product design, with a detour in product management (a pretty helpful skill for designing at Alan).
Ivan Shestunov (Linkedin) is a Ukrainian-born designer passionate about creating meaningful and impactful experiences. He has 4+ years of industry experience working on digital products and currently lives and works in the beautiful city of Barcelona. Ivan is an extreme sports enthusiast in his spare time and loves playing music.
Aiswarya Kolisetty (Linkedin) is an Indian product designer who studied electrical engineering (!) before moving to product design 9 years ago. After hopping between the US and India, she currently lives in Amsterdam. Aiswarya is an illustrator in her free time.
