Things you might want to avoid as an early career designer
Right, so, I have a blanket policy against telling people what to do or believe, so one is encouraged to take these for what they are: suggestions. I’m sure some would even disagree with these! Good to keep this in mind.
But, for context, they come from my reflections on my own career, and how I wish I’d looked at things differently from the start — I think it would have made my life a lot easier if I had (e.g., better work experiences sooner), which is why I share. I also turn these exact topics over in my mind, even as a designer at this level, so I wouldn’t say these are only applicable to early career designers, either. Anyway, onward to the suggestions from an old spinster.
Not understanding the business
You build products for a company that sells some software service(s), which it does for some reason. The business might also do other things (if it’s not exclusively a software company, e.g., Tesla, which builds and sells both hardware and software), but it also might not. Regardless, it would be reasonable to understand why this company is invested in this software, how it makes most of its money, and how the work you’re doing relates to the company in general. For numerous reasons, it just makes things easier.
Consider that many famous tech companies are simply not profitable (e.g., Uber). Or that some are, but large parts of their product offerings are not (e.g., Google is profitable in general, but some of its products run at a loss, or break-even — until just a few short years ago). For example, there were many years in which YouTube was not profitable. Over the last few years, that’s changed — the business doubled down on this, which gave way to numerous features and offerings: more aggressive ads in videos, features to allow creators choice around how to display ads, YouTube Premium to get around these ads, robust improvements to the ads platform to help enterprise customers get more value out of YouTube advertising, and so on.
There are reasons why this is useful information to have as an IC designer. For example, it might just be that you have a sincere interest in working on a robust ads platform one day. Knowing that a core part of YouTube’s business relies on ads revenue means that YouTube could be a good match for your goals, as they could be hiring at any point for help on the ads product area. Other companies also have ads platforms, like Meta, Twitter, and so on — but, for example, Discord might not, so that might not be a high priority opportunity for you. Now, as you can see, you can start a list of ideal customers for you that are consistent with your interests!
But, also, if do you happen to end up working on an ads platform someday in your life, knowing about the space (why people buy ads on Twitter, what they want to get, what their typical returns are compared against what they can buy on other platforms, what it looks like on the consumer side, etc.) would probably help you think more independently about the work when you’re actually hired on. It’s hard to work on something if you don’t understand what it really is, why there’s market demand for it, or what else customers might want it to do (or not).
But, also, understanding a business — and how your product area relates to the business as a whole — can help you determine if you even want to take an opportunity at all. For example, you might think a Reels-like feature in Instagram could be cool to work on, but you happen to feel that it has an uncertain future in that product, given that the business has talked so openly about its performance. If you happen to feel that Reels may not be a sustainable product longterm and you really want something stable in your career right now, then working on that product might not be the best idea.
Understanding the business can also help you understand how to choose between multiple opportunities you might be working on. If you see that there’s been a big push at your company towards sustainable revenue generation (maybe due to macroeconomic changes these days, totally understandable), and you have the option to build something that you believe could start bringing in money into the business in the short term, compared against an investment that you’re really not sure could at all, then the company’s priorities could be the tiebreaker here, helping unblock you on this decision.
These are just some examples that I made up, but they are similar to ones I’ve run into over my career — making decisions about how stable a job opportunity seems, or making a list of companies that build products I sincerely think would be fun to work on, etc., is a very common thing I end up doing in my career.
Don’t overthink it, though — business isn’t a science, after all! You can start by asking questions like: how does this business make money? What are the products in the business that are high priority (e.g., the ads platform might be more important to the business than, say, a product that’s floundering)? What ways might it look to expand its offerings? What will the company likely continue to invest in? What might it cut? And so on. You can type some of these questions into Google, too, with the company name, to help you glean information from the analyses that any others might be making. If it’s a publicly traded company, you can also check out its SEC filing (you’ll need its stock ticker, e.g., Google is GOOGL).
The more you’re interested in the business, the more you might be likely to understand that getting hired at a company to work as a designer is a market you’re participating on — you are simply selling services to potential customers. Meaning: you can think clearly and independently about how to attract these customers (e.g., what you (don’t) need in your portfolio, what your customers’ expectations might be, etc.).
But, also, if you have a sincere interest in business, this could potentially start you down the path of entrepreneurship, as well. Building your own product someday might be for you! Who knows? Always good to consider one’s options.
Disregarding when someone tells you your visual design needs work
Developing visual taste and excellence is difficult, and it happens over time. If someone decides to make the painful decision to tell you that they think you could invest more effort into your visual skills, consider how much courage it took them to say that! — and that they might sincerely mean it.
Remember when you were younger and would make portraits or paintings you thought — at the time — were stunning? Then you looked back at that work later and wondered what you ever saw in it (e.g., the proportions were all wrong, the composition was totally uninteresting, etc.), because now it’s cringe to you? It’s a certain clarity that you simply never had at the time, and could not understand for yourself. Well, this is probably that time. If you’re early in your career, this is increasingly likely to be true.
One can probably put a dollar amount on good visual design in one’s career — it absolutely does impact one’s ability to generate leads (and, thus, potential customers) in one’s interviewing. The worse one’s skills are in aesthetics, the harder of a time one will likely have attracting potential customers (e.g., employers).
Making website redesigns, or clones of apps for your portfolio
I’ve talked about this in the past, which you can read about more extensively here:
But, to summarize, you want to avoid at least these two things in your case studies:
- Cloning apps that currently exist,
- Redesigning websites.
There are numerous reasons for this, mainly: you are applying to product design roles, meaning that you are trying to convince people to pay you to work on their digital product. Websites are generally not products — they are informational brochures, marketing or informational content. You can think of this like graphic design for the web. You, however, are not asking someone to purchase your graphic design services — you’re asking someone to patronize your product services. Demonstrate that you can work on products by showing proof (e.g., case studies) around that exact thing.
Which brings me to my next concern: does cloning an app that’s already successful show that you understand markets, products, and businesses? In my view: no. It shows you know how to open up Figma and copypaste Uber Eats, or Headspace, etc. For convenience reasons, I’ll quote myself from the article above:
Consider this: unless you have a specific, new value proposition for this clone (which wouldn’t make your product a clone, in a strict sense, but a competitor), you will be unlikely to be proposing a clone that’s better than the source product. Your case studies should be plausible — people reading should be able to find the premise of the software you’re proposing to be convincing. The problem with cloning an app is that one is simply reproducing screens, not adding a plausible value proposition. More specifically, the probability is high that whatever you make will be less considered, less complex, less interesting, and less beautiful than the source product.
In the article above, I provide examples of case study prompts that you can either directly use, or can give you inspiration to consider towards the purposes of making your own. If it’s helpful, I also have another article covering case study content, specifically, and how I’d recommend approaching what you should have in yours, below. To spoil it, I recommend putting down any checklists you might be advised to use. See below:
Working at companies where there’s no chance of product-market fit
Some throat-clearing: I am not suggesting that one not work at startups — quite the contrary. Investing one’s time into working at a startup one believes can have a successful business (or even just an exit) is an incredible way to build significant wealth, among other things. However, note that I mention the probability of a successful business, or an exit. What I mean by this is that you want to target a company that builds a product that either has product-market fit (“PMF”), or you believe has a sincerely good shot at it, if the right conditions are met. To explain what PMF is, the good people over at Mailchimp write:
“Product-market fit,” writes startup coach and investor Marc Andreessen, “means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” When an entrepreneur identifies a need in the market and builds a solution that customers want to buy, that’s product-market fit.
This concept might seem obvious, but it’s important to make sure there are enough people who want what your business offers and to define your value proposition accordingly. Product-market fit can matter more to the future of your business than creative ideas, masterful teams, or any other factor, and is critical to take into consideration when you build the product. For any business to survive, there must be people who will buy what it sells.
TLDR: a product is said to have PMF if it does (or reasonably could) have the potential to meet some kind of market demand. This is not easy to do. For this reason, most startups will not experience this — it’s also a big reason why you’ve heard the phrase “99% of businesses fail within the first two years.” Many businesses struggle to find their fit and acquire customers sustainably. It’s not easy.
But I am advising you try to find those companies that either have that today, or could. When interviewing with a company, try to understand its business and its customers (or prospective ones, if it’s that early on). Especially if you’re an early career designer, try to be skeptical of businesses, and look to see if you’d invest in this product if you had ten million dollars (you might not have ten million dollars, but you are giving them at least 2,058 hours for one year of work — so you’re giving something to a company you’re working for). What kind of return do you expect to get out of that investment? When? Can you find out somehow?
Finding a startup to work at that you sincerely believe could work out longterm is very difficult to do — and, certainly, there’s a case to be made for just working for anybody who would patronize your services. Besides, it’s not just startups that have this problem: big companies with established products are always looking to grow and expand, so they engage with new opportunities. This can look like adding a new product area to one that’s already meeting a market demand (e.g., adding Reels to Instagram, or Fleets to Twitter), or building out a whole new product (e.g., Stadia as a new Google product).
Working on these teams can result in amazing experiences that show a real risk being taken, only for it not to work out in the end, and that can actually be super cool. But consider that what I’ve described is the best outcome one can hope for in these situations — this is not the norm. More likely, you might be working on a product that isn’t particularly interesting, at a business that isn’t really realistic, which can result in very strange situations unfolding at work. Talking about these kinds of experiences might not be that illuminating, interesting, or representative of what you can really do, and the work you get out of it might be pretty minimal, as well.
Another thing to watch out for is if you get the sense that a company or team doesn’t output much while interviewing. There might be an established product there but, for all sorts of reasons, the output simply might not be there. I’ve experienced this, and it’s uncomfortable. You are unlikely to get much work in these situations, no matter how much time you spend there. It can be so unproductive that you might not even have anything to say about that opportunity at all. This isn’t good.
For longterm career growth, try to be discerning about a company’s business, or the product focus of a team you’ll be joining at a company. Try to determine if this will really level you up and get you working on something that actually makes sense as a product, versus just doing work for something that is meeting ghost demands in a fantastical market. Or worse: nothing at all.
To this end, during interviews, one can ask if the team can be specific about what, specifically, you will be working on. What you want to do is ask for any information needed to increase your knowledge about the team, what it’s up to, what it’s building, who it’s selling to, how you can help, and so on.
Developing distortions about the market
I find this to be particularly concerning, but there seems to be a lot of distortions about what it’s like to participate on the market as a designer. It’s hard to speculate about why these distortions happen and take root — it could be that there has been a lot of evolution over the last ten years in the design of digital products, and some pockets of the industry don’t experience corrections. For example: there is a belief, especially commonly asserted in design programs, that you actually have a choice about being a “UX designer” or a “UI designer.” I can’t agree that this is really possible. I’ll explain.
Product design didn’t coherently exist as an industry until about a decade ago (for example, about seven years ago, it had only just started being called “UX/UI design,” and that was the big, cool, industry revelation), in my view — and, certainly, there was not this much demand. But this changed with time, likely when “making apps” (also called “software as a service,” or “SaaS” companies) became a serious, sustainable way to build businesses. This likely coincided with the release of the first iPhone, and later its attendant developer ecosystem, where it became ever easier — and more reliable — to start building software for mobile devices and getting it into consumer hands.
Needless to say, things looked very different before that time, and things have continued to change. I can give an example: I started as a product designer seven or eight years ago, back when it was still common that “UX designers” would make “wireframes,” and then pass those off to “UI designers.” However, since that first job, I have not experienced this workflow. I also do not believe I have a reason to believe I ever will again.
But I could see why someone who is accustomed to this workflow — or is a fan of it — would feel that “UX design” is unequivocally “not UI design,” and that they are totally separate functions performed by different people. However, because this assembly line-like setup for planning software is no longer a common workflow, this necessarily means that market expectations have changed.
In reality, you do not get to choose whether you are a “UX” or “UI” designer in today’s market. This is an academic discussion about a market that no longer exists — a luxury belief. The reality is that you are going to experience increased difficulty finding — and retaining — customers as a designer if you do not make professional looking work. When FAANG companies hire designers under titles like “UX designer,” or “product designer,” or “interaction designer,” these are all the same jobs: you are planning out how some software will work. But there is an additional expectation — not always explicitly stated — that you will put in the effort to make the product or feature look professional. There will not be an attendant visual designer at your beck-and-call to jazz up your schematics. It’s just you.
Because technology has improved (e.g., the introduction of asynchronous requests via AJAX — some people define this as the point where the web became “web 2.0”), user expectations around what can be done — and how they can interact — with software in their hands have evolved. It’s not practical anymore to cleanly excise these functions, which is why most companies do not. Interactions are increasingly moving away from exceedingly simple asynchronous injections into markup, or styling tricks. There’s timing involved now, for example, and complex front-end frameworks that watch for certain messages from user behavior, causing a cascade of whole different interactions, at times.
What’s more, peopled hired under titles like “UI design,” or “visual design,” are unlikely to do product work at all — they might work on design systems, or they might work as illustrators making the iconography or rasterized product imagery, or they might design the product’s marketing or support sites, or other brand work. These are totally different jobs than that of the product designer’s. They’re good ones, but if you’re this far down this opinion piece, these are unlikely to be the jobs you’re competing for.
You, by contrast, are working on the product — your customers want you to make products that make sense, but they also expect you to bring excellence to it in other ways: namely, aesthetically. Therefore, if one wants to reliably meet market expectations, it would not be wise to try to “it’s not my job” one’s way out of this. This is the nature of your job now and, to participate effectively on today’s market, one would do well to accept that.
But this is just one example of these distortions, though it seems to be a particularly common one. Other ones I’ve seen is the push for designers to learn more advanced Figma features (most designers do not understand the box model, or autolayout — this is fine), how to make “design systems” (unless you’re working at a smaller company, or you market yourself as a design systems designer, you will be exceedingly unlikely to be the first design hire, or hired on to a design systems team), and so on.
To get around distortions, be serious about understanding what the market expectations are: ask to see designers’ portfolio presentations; ask them to describe the two most recent hiring pipelines they went through, step-by-step; ask them about the times they have been rejected, and what the reasons cited were; talk to product designers with strong visual skills, and ones with weak visual skills, soliciting their perspectives about how much these skills have played a role in their hire-ability; understand that FAANG companies do have outsized impacts on what smaller companies do, and how they hire, so watching how they hire designers is a worthwhile investment; and so on.
When you understand what employers — your customers — expect, it’ll be easier to make sure you’re on the right track to at least respond to market pressures. Always avoid academic discussions about choices you cannot really make. Do your best to determine what the market actually wants, and then sell your services with that in mind.
So these are a smattering of thoughts I keep in mind today. Questions like: is working here going to get me working on something really interesting to talk about in my portfolio? What is this product? What is this team, specifically? What are they selling? What’s the temperature on the market right now? How can I compete and make sure I’m sufficiently addressing market demand? And so on. Not to be shrewd in any way — I would just sincerely recommend this approach to thinking about opportunities.
I wish I’d thought about things this way when I’d started — I’d have probably had a better time, honestly.
