🍨 The Inside Scoop: Ryan Molyneaux 🇺🇸

Ratta Kidakarn

Published in

Amazing Together

16 min readSep 16, 2021

Get to know your mentors: Ryan Molyneaux

Welcome to ADPList’s mentor interview series 🎉

My hope is that these interviews will serve as a useful resource for mentees who are looking and getting to know their mentors on our platform 💬

The amazing design mentor: Ryan Molyneaux

I wish whatever journey you are on, find the work that feeds the fire and passion inside you. You’ll go far and you won’t ‘work’ a day in your life.

Favorite Emoji: ❤️ Especially on Facebook because in the work environment, when we’re working with each other, we’re chatting and talking about work topics, you can use thumbs up, or if you really like something that person is saying or like the idea, we use the heart. At work, we can also use the heart to show how much we love something and support each other.

Current favorite song: Fleetwood Mac — Dreams
Currently binge-watching: Black Summer, artsy post-apocalyptic zombie series on Netflix
Current favorite movie(s): Apocalypto

👋 Hi Ryan, can you share a little bit about yourself?

My name is Ryan, I am a bay area native in Silicon Valley, California. I think it has now become popular all over the world as the destination for tech.

When I grew up here, I was more interested in surfing, the outdoors, music, artwork, and creative design.

I didn’t expect that this part of the world would become such a popular destination for tech, innovation, and design. So yeah, I’ve stayed here, because family, friends, and opportunities are here.

A lot of other interests keep me here living in California. And yes, for a career, it’s been a great place to stay. In addition to going down the path of design and marketing and creativity, I love living here.

2. Tell me something that would never come up in conversation. (martial art: Capoeira)

I think people are surprised when they find out another big part of me is Capoeira

It’s a martial art I discovered that is rich in expression and folklore. There’s a lot of martial arts and cultural arts. Even Muay Thai I’ve done. Martial arts are a way for me to experience different perspectives and different cultures, the art form. I like that aspect of martial arts.

Capoeira is the martial art that I’ve devoted to for 23 years. So I’ve always given that my time and commitment to become a professor.

I teach and train in my spare time and it’s also become a very connected part of how I look at design, work, and collaboration. Because this martial art is very much about community and connecting with other people that are in the art form.

The martial art also has music as dance aspects. So it always reminds me that I think humans are meant to share a common experience and that’s also something we try to achieve in the workplace. When possible, it’s really important to have a community and have collaboration with everybody. ideally working towards the same goals.

So yeah, people don’t know that martial arts side of me, but I really think it’s important for me and the way I also look at my professional life.

3. What was the pandemic hobby that you picked up?

I found that mentoring was a hobby because I’m working at home a lot and I missed the connection of people at work / in our industry. At a time I was also looking for a new role, which I got with Facebook Gaming.

I realized there was this platform called ADPList. It was like, wow, this whole world of designers from different backgrounds all over the world, and whether they’re out of school, or people that are at a point of their career that are looking for guidance, I thought, it’s a great opportunity to connect with and help people.

Because I really believe like I said, community and giving back. Also, mentoring was a way for me to learn from about myself, because I spent so much time answering really great questions and talking to people all over the world, whether it’s Nigeria, Thailand, New York, or Latin America, everybody. and

I love the idea of a global community and ADPList has with the focus on design.So that was kind of the hobby to pick up, which is more than just a hobby.

I’d say it’s now integrated into being a big part of my life and it has an effect on how I handle myself at work because I also do a version of mentoring / design leadership at work, and also do a lot of speaking.

Mentoring is a way for a mentor to also grow and learn how to give very clear understandable guidance and insight. Mentoring is also about making new friendships and sometimes symbiotic professional relationships.

So during the pandemic is a good time to establish that because you have more time, you’re not meeting people locally as much. Mentoring is such a great way to meet people.

4. What kind of impact are you making in the world using your design skills?

I feel like mentoring gives impact because for me I don’t have so much design skill, but the creative strategy and Creative Leadership, working with designers in my career, which has been the more recent thing I’ve been doing.

The impact that I really am passionate about, and that I’ve been able to do has been working at Google and Facebook, knowing these are companies that impact millions of people’s lives with useful products and experiences. The designs we work on are culturally relevant and created with deep consideration.

Ryan’s first group session on ADPList. There were more than 100+ people who joined the session.

Being a part of products, meetings, and teams where we’re literally strategizing UC and design that will help bring people closer together — I think it ties into what I was saying earlier with some of your questions that I really try to look at the world about how to build community.

It’s great to work with Facebook Gaming, it’s very fun. How do we create a gaming experience that will help people be closer together no matter where they are in the world and can connect through gaming experiences? I feel like I’ve been able to help instill those values in the Facebook Gaming perception and how we’re marketing and communicating it to the world.

Like I said before we have Facebook Gaming in Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, Europe, the United States, everywhere. I feel lucky to work on global impact. With Google, I was able to do the same thing for Google Play Store, which is more like a marketplace. Working on the design, managing the design team that’s creating those kinds of Google-style illustrations and characters, and showing diversity to bring a delightful experience when people are browsing Google Play.

I’ve been lucky to work on all kinds of things like that. When you ask about the impacts on the world, I can look at things on Google or Facebook and say, oh, wow, I got to work on that or come up with some ideas that designers were able to create, that hopefully enhance people’s lives or their experience.

5. What kind of mentorship do you wish to provide and why?

I want to provide information on how people can be successful / talk about strategies and give them tips on their portfolio and how to do better writing and have better storytelling in their interview materials to really make themselves presentable the best way they can be.

I also enjoy having those deeper conversations about the psychology of recruitment. Sometimes we have conversations about ‘what’s important to you, what gets you excited? How do you want to apply that passion to your next role?’ That’s what I enjoy really getting to the core of — what’s going to make people satisfied and successful in their design journey.

6. Tell me about a time when you didn’t know if you would make it and how you overcame it.

I think I will tell you this because other creatives and designers might have the same challenge.

That is a lot of times when you’re in a design environment within a company you have, you know, multiple individuals. A lot of people have great ideas and brainstorms. Sometimes you might think your idea it’s a really good idea, a good design, a good concept, a good video, a good storyboard, whatever the creative is, and your idea may be scrapped / not used.

Or you might get feedback like “Oh, that’s not that good’’. Then you might have other creatives, you’re almost in competition with. Competitiveness in the design world is very strong and you can have that in the sales world and it is everywhere.

You have to learn how to overcome it in the design world, especially because this industry is very much about passion and designers give their heart to their work.

If you know, you’re creating something that’s coming from you. So I think when you create something and somebody gives you feedback or a lot of rounds of changes, it can be hard. It could be that you get you upset, or you can internalize it and think like I’m failing and not good. I’m not a good designer, should I quit or I’m not a good creative leader. So that kind of doubt can happen.

I work to maintain objectivity and confidence- focus on the brief and the ultimate business need. Especially in meetings, show that you can be strong if your idea gets a lot of criticism, or it doesn’t win in this campaign, or this UX.

Ask questions, show that you want to grow and how you can be better, especially because every place you work might have different opinions and perspectives about what you’re creating.

Overcome that feeling like you’re failing — you might not be happy in the current role, the current team dynamics, there’s a lot of ego with the design world and that’s something to overcome.

That’s where I try to be very open, ask questions, and especially with the strong personalities, I’ll ask them questions before I assume that they’re trying to attack me or coming from a bad place. That lets me reset and overcome that insecurity that I might have in a creative, collaborative kind of environment.

7. Working with the FAANG company?

It’s very busy and fast-paced. You’re the only one that’s in charge of your own boundaries and a lot of people call that work-life balance. I think it’s work-life harmony. So harmony means. Harmony doesn’t mean balance. It means interaction.

So when I talk about my life, I also play music, which is different from my professional career. But there are elements of those things that I love to do that are creative and energizing to me that give me harmony with my professional work.

I think when I’m mentoring, I try to ask people, what else do you like to do? It doesn’t mean you have to like to do things that are the same as your job.

For example, you might like to cook or lift weights, and you might find a certain peace in that. That really helps harmonize that stress you had from your big job because back to the FAANG company — There’s a lot of expectation and a lot of people, they should be in charge of their own boundaries.

Friends that I have at Facebook, Apple, Google, they’re working so hard because they feel they need to earn that title they work for, and sometimes it might just be that they are maybe slower or they do like to work overtime because they can get a lot of work done after the normal business hours.

Somebody like me has more harmony with other elements in my life.

If you see me posting a fun Instagram Story at 5 pm it’s because I worked hard but I also want to make sure I can keep myself healthy mentally and physically so that I can really be a good performer in my job that’s eight or nine hours a day. So that’s any way you have me thinking about that from what you said I thought that occurred.

8. What are the three most common questions you get as a mentor, and how do you usually answer them?

They see my background, like the companies I worked with Google and Facebook, and Ubisoft / video gaming.

So they want to know:

How do I get to the FAANG company?- I’m always happy to share and I’m very honest with them because there are good things, and there are very challenging things. I like to be as honest as I can about the culture and expectations, from my lens. Well, I’m lucky to be in a place where a lot of people want to work.
How did I get to the company and find myself on my journey? How do I make my choices? — They like to get kind of like the conversation we’re having and get insights on what’s important to me. How did I make my choices to not be a designer but care more about managing design people and helping be a connector?

When I get that question I tell them I’ve discovered that and I think design is very much about humanity and connection. That’s important and designers are so empowered, especially nowadays, to be the connecting person at the company. They go into the meetings, and they have to present their ideas and talk about the audience and the customer and be close to research and understanding. How does the design answer the needs that the research team has shown?

So I feel like as I have grown through a design, marketing career, the definition of design and marketing and UX has also changed a lot over these last 15 years.

3. Review portfolio — I enjoy that it’s a really good opportunity for me to see all the different people out there, how they choose to design their portfolio, how they want to showcase their work, and their design thinking.

So a lot of the mentor time is spent going through the portfolio, and I try not just to give opinions, but I try to pretend like I’m the hiring manager for the role that they’re applying for, what would I look for. A lot of times, I’m asking them to redesign certain things, a lot of nuances in rewriting because I like to do writing and I’m a writer with part of my job.

So I think a lot of younger folks that are doing portfolios put so much content because they want to show all the stuff they’re doing. Actually, there are a lot of benefits and a lot of power and showing that you can take so many designs and objectives and use the STAR method to make your stories concise to show impact.

So the whole idea of pruning down cutting your ideas of your copy and your storytelling to very quick, like one sheet of a slide with one statement, and then one small design being very minimal.

That’s just one perspective, not everybody I tell this to, but try to be able to talk through the presentation. So your presentation in your portfolio isn’t so overwhelming visually. I’m learning a lot through those portfolio reviews.

I’m getting so impressed, whether it’s a college intern or somebody who’s working for a while. You get to see some really inventive portfolios. Somebody showed me their portfolio that they styled in the Spotify design, color system, and patterns and fonts because they were applying for Spotify.

Because they wanted you to know that I’m applying here, I’ll make my portfolio, use the brand guidelines and show you how I can adapt that. And it was very bold, and I thought, wow, I never thought that I’m learning something here.

So, I’m going off on the deeper answer, but it’s exciting to see all the portfolio’s so those are three if that’s good.

9. If there is one thing you could tell every single mentee you meet, what would that one piece of advice be?

What I tell every single mentor/ mentee I meet is,

no matter what stage of their career they’re in or what they’re applying for, LinkedIn is very important.

I spend a lot of time on their LinkedIn. Even if they don’t ask me, I say, let’s look at your LinkedIn. Because that’s been kind of the first point of destination for any hiring or any professional kind of interest is it’s your social media for your professional life.

Anything from picking the profile picture to the background image, for designers, I think it’s really important to make a good presence with LinkedIn, and then the titles, what job titles they have under their name. And again, just like I was saying, with portfolios, I try to coach on LinkedIn that the information should be quick and readable.

The recruiters are going to like you more if you show that you have written skills to be precise.

They’ll appreciate and feel better about it. I think getting those mentees that I talk to is getting them in the door for the interview, instead of seeing a LinkedIn or resume that’s like I am passionate about design.

But through LinkedIn is where every single mentee at least I tried to look at helps me understand who they are and how they’re trying to personify themselves. Because it’s where every job seeker goes or not job seeker every recruiter goes.

The other thing I try to tell every mentee and I said this before, is to find their passion, embrace it and BE passionate. That sounds very basic. But I meet some mentees that sound maybe tired or shy and that’s okay. But I also say.. you’re going into the design world, a passionate, creative world.

That’s a world where there are so many possibilities. You can design a new car, you can design a movie, you could design a new app, that is all very exciting stuff, and the teams that want to hire you, they want people that are energetic and excited.

So I always make sure that I ask goal questions to the mentee and try to help them discover what excites them about design.

10. Activities in Bay area/ living in Bay area

I’m a bay area native — lived in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, California, and I’ve never moved away. A lot of people have moved to a lot of places throughout their life and that’s good.

Who knows I still might move but I’ve found with my work and career, it’s been a great place to be and also for the harmony of everything else I like to do in my life. The Bay Area has beautiful outdoors, the beach, we have mountains with snow, we have nice hills for hiking.

Then we have the tech innovative city of San Francisco, one of the biggest cities that is very diverse, culturally.

In one weekend you can do so much here. I can go to you know surfing and then go biking in the Mountains and then also there’s wine tasting a lot of wine country. So you have all the variety and then you have people.

San Francisco is a very international city where even before tech, I think we always had a vast diversity of people, which has been great. I grew up with that.

And now with tech and the big companies we have here, I think you see people coming from all parts of the world to work with these big companies, hundreds of 1000s of people.

So that’s what I really like: the outdoors, diversity, the big city experience. You can go out to great restaurants, international shopping. So all of that stuff in one kind of small place.

So if any of you decide, I really encourage you to visit the San Francisco Bay Area, for all those things I mentioned, it’s a lot of fun. If you have some job interviews at these big tech companies that a lot of you want to work for, you can go in person (hopefully soon) and really impress the recruiters.

Also, it’s good to go and explore cities on your vacations, I believe, pick vacations for places that you think you might want to live there sometime and you get to be there, breathe the air, smell the place and you feel as if it really connects with you as a ‘home’ feeling.

I believe a lot of us are lucky enough to grow up and live where we feel we fit and we feel like it’s home and other people need to search and travel and maybe find a place that feels like home to them.

Not just for the job, but for everything, you know, whether you like hot weather, cold, snowy mountains, or you like a mix of it. Like I said, I like a mix of all that and that’s what we have here.