The Three Qualities of a Senior UX Designer
Last year I was approached by a recruiter for a company who asked if I was interested in a senior UX design role at a mid-sized fintech company. When I declined, the recruiter seemed confused.
“You have five years of experience as a UX designer, you’ve led design teams, and you’ve worked as a creative consultant. What’s the deal?”
“I just don’t feel like I can do the actual leading.”
I remember his exasperated sigh over the phone. “Dude, you’re already doing it.”
In this industry where imposter syndrome is so prevalent, the fakers seem to outnumber the makers 25 to 1. This means that moving from a junior or mid-level design position to a senior one seems out of reach or impossible to quantify for most of us.
But what makes someone a senior designer? Looking at job board blurbs for senior designers doesn’t seem to be much help: their requirements range from “know about Figma and be able to joke about Sketch” to “Have a Ph.D in HCI, 12 years of UX design experience in FAANG, ability to program in C, own a Dilbert mug, and have a side gig in data science.”
However, over my time as a UX designer I’ve run into countless Senior and Lead UX designers and I’ve noticed they all have three qualities that run as a phenotype. While these aren’t the only…