Why You Should Hire for Hustle and Hunger
What my background taught me about inclusion, vulnerability, and the power of the underdog
It amazes me how much of a person’s experience we miss when we only make space for the first layer of their story.
You might ask me:
- What is my hometown?
- What were my childhood hobbies?
- What do I see as my strengths?
And I might respond:
- I spent my earliest days in Allegan, Michigan, but my hometown is Kalamazoo;
- I loved writing and drawing as a kid;
- A few of my strengths are empathy, resourcefulness, and big-picture thinking.
But there are layers beneath each of those answers, layers that people with experiences like mine learn how to hide in professional settings. We’re conditioned to think of radical vulnerability as a liability in the workplace. I would venture that it’s a profound strength.
When we think of building diverse teams, what often first comes to mind is skin deep: diversity of race, ethnicity, and gender. And let me be clear: This is important. As a queer, mixed Black woman, I emphatically want to see more people who look like me working in tech.
But why stop there? What would it look like for more companies to seek and celebrate a diversity of experiences?
Our stories hold more than our struggles — they also reveal our unique magic. To show you why this is true, I’m going to share my own.
The Beginning
My dad immigrated to the United States from the small Caribbean country of Trinidad. The son of one of Trinidad’s most influential steel pan musicians, he wanted to carry on the family legacy by introducing folks in the United States to pan culture.
My mom, a junior at the University of Michigan, saw my dad playing steel drum one day in Ann Arbor. They connected over a love of music and art. However, they both struggled with addiction and had a violent relationship that, gratefully, was short-lived.
Somewhere in the midst of that chaos, my mom discovered that she was pregnant. At just 21 years old, and battling mental illness, she doubted whether she could bring a child into the world. It was my father’s mother, a 4-foot-11 angel of a Trini woman, who convinced my mom to take a leap of faith into motherhood.
And so, my mom dropped out of college and moved back home to Allegan, Michigan. On a cold Friday night in October of ’88, she gave me my first breath.
The Dark Days
Allegan has a population of less than 5 thousand, and Allegan County is home to the largest KKK group in the Midwest. When my mom and I went to the supermarket, people would glare at us. I was living proof of an interracial relationship, a foreshadowing of a less-white America — and for this, I disgusted them.
I was the only person of color at my elementary school. Kids on the playground would say, “your skin is dirty!” and would refuse to play with me. Every day during recess, I sat in my teacher’s shadow — until she, too, asked me to go away.
My mom was a single parent and barely making ends meet. There was one summer that she and I now nostalgically refer to as the “Summer of Rice,” because we ate rice for nearly every meal. In the morning, we seasoned it with sugar; in the evening, salt and pepper.
What I was lacking in friends and money, I more than made up for in imagination and creativity. My mom worked for a while as a secretary at a local publishing company, and I’d come with her to work and sit underneath the desk. My mom would bind books of scrap paper and pass them to me, and I’d draw and write stories for hours. I still remember the smell of fresh paper, which is oddly similar to the smell of carrots.
But my imagination couldn’t help me escape the reality of home. When we moved to a new town, my mom’s mental illness and addiction worsened. At just eight years old, I was forced to become a caretaker. When my sister was born a few years later, I suddenly had three people to protect and care for.
The Dream, Deferred
I realized that while I didn’t have control over my home situation, I did have control over my academic success. I poured myself into my studies as I grew older, just as I had poured myself into drawing worlds as a kid. I maintained a 4.0 GPA and stayed busy after school with choir, poetry, and drama programs.
With no guidance in the college application process, I remained a top student on paper yet had no idea where I was headed next.
During one of the few career planning sessions my school offered, I took a career aptitude test that suggested I be a writer, a painter, or a photographer. I shrugged these off immediately. These are careers for people from wealthy families, I thought.
I knew what true hunger felt like. I couldn’t afford to be a starving artist.
I applied to only three colleges, chosen solely for the fact that they were all in Michigan. This meant I could take advantage of in-state tuition while staying close to family. I was fortunate enough to be accepted into the University of Michigan on a full scholarship.
There I was, at the school my mom dropped out of to have me. I was doing very well academically, but I didn’t understand how to utilize the resources at my disposal to make the most of my early career.
I decided to major in Communications: Marketing and advertising felt like the closest I could come to a “legitimate” career that didn’t involve crunching numbers or putting on medical gloves. I thought I was playing it safe, but I was really denying myself the opportunity to dream big.
In my senior year of college, I received a letter notifying me that I was accepted into a Master’s program at the UofM School of Information without even applying. I turned the opportunity down because I didn’t understand what it could offer me: I looked at the acceptance letter, and all I could see was more student loans. Ironically, that Master’s program would have granted me a direct path into the field of product design — if only I knew what product design was.
The Hustle
After graduation, I moved to Chicago in hopes of discovering a more liberal climate and fulfilling career.
I struggled for months to find work. Advertising companies wanted people with internships, not people who spent their summers taking odd jobs to make ends meet. I finally found a job as a front desk greeter at an Equinox gym, and another at a spa in the Fairmont hotel. I woke up at 3 am and traversed the winter tundra of Chicago streets to lay out clean towels for rich folks who were living in, or visiting, downtown. The experience humbled me and gave me an even deeper appreciation for service workers.
Still, I knew there was something “more” out there. I was bored. I kept myself busy by finding problems to solve at my jobs: from redesigning intake forms to brainstorming growth strategies.
After a year and a half, I saved up enough money to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area. I’d heard that nonprofits outnumbered coffee shops there, and I thought perhaps I could apply my Communications degree toward a good cause.
My first nonprofit job was a part-time phone fundraising gig, where I made $9 per hour to convince folks to stop eating dinner, listen to a pitch about nuclear disarmament, and then pay me for interrupting their evening. Tough sell, I know. I’m not exaggerating when I say I was hung up on hundreds of times per night.
Something needs to change, I thought. People aren’t one size fits all, so why are we speaking to donors with the same canned script?
I changed my approach. When I got someone on the phone, instead of launching into the script, I’d ask, “Where did we go wrong? How did we lose your support?”
Through this experiment, I learned something that I’ve carried with me throughout my career: Information matters, but relationships matter more.
Donors not only renewed but increased their gifts because they valued the relationships I cultivated. I went from complete job insecurity to becoming the top fundraiser. In three short months, I was promoted twice and received my first full-time salaried position.
The Calling
I loved connecting with people for a good cause, but something was calling me to design. I noticed that we had a lack of communications materials to share with donors at the end of our in-person visits, so I designed the nonprofit’s first infographic annual report.
It was my first taste of design. After that, there was no turning back.
I started my own freelance design business on the side, working pro bono (and then very low bono) until my side hustle became my main hustle.
You can teach yourself anything if you’re hungry enough for it. My hunger for design propelled me into a fury of Udemy courses, Google searches, and side projects.
By day, I was learning how to build the plane as I flew it. If a client needed a donate page on their website, I researched “how to embed a donate button on WordPress” and “psychology-backed principles to increase conversion on donation pages.”
After hours, I continued to absorb everything I could pertaining to design. I’d copy user interfaces I admired, then try to research what made them effective. I even learned front-end development so I could understand how things work under the hood.
As passionate as I was about design, I was sure that freelancing was the only path I’d be allowed to traverse. The job listings I saw called for experienced designers with HCI degrees, projects with major tech companies under their belt, and the portfolios to back it up — so I didn’t bother applying.
The Wildcard
Things changed when, three years into my freelance career, I received a LinkedIn message from an early-stage startup called Darby. The message came from Rico, the office manager / interview coordinator / executive assistant / talent sourcer / resident Nespresso expert. (Startups, amirite?)
Rico, like myself, is a queer black person working in tech. Perhaps because of this, something compelled him to search further than the typical list of designers from prestigious schools. There was something about me that made him want to bring me in as a wildcard pick. Something about my hustle.
Rico convinced the team to bring me in for an onsite interview. I was far from Darby’s typical design candidate, so I knew I had to give it everything I had.
Darby was an Instagram-like app for learning and sharing hobbies, and they started in the DIY space. I came into the interview with a handcrafted popup book resume. I also brought a proposal of three strategies to monetize their app.
In one afternoon, I went from the wildcard pick to the second design hire.
Rico, who is now one of my dearest friends, opened a door for me. In every role I’ve held since then, I’ve thought about what it means to open doors for others. It’s why I created a different flavor of design challenge generator, why I host a coffee hour with aspiring designers every month, and why I started /reframe, a book club for decentering whiteness in design, here at DoorDash.
It’s also why I want folks to hear my story.
The Lesson
I’ve learned from experience that there is power in lifting as you climb. No matter what your role or level is, you have an opportunity to help a designer from an underrepresented background.
If you’re part of a hiring team, advocate for underrepresented candidates. Diversify your sourcing efforts to look beyond the traditional pool of top design schools. Interrogate your own biases.
Consider the wealth of soft skills that designers from underrepresented backgrounds bring to the table. And please, if you see a spark in someone like Rico did in me, do whatever you can to get that person an interview.
Even if you aren’t a part of the hiring team, there’s a ton you can do as an ally: Offer portfolio reviews to designers from underrepresented backgrounds. Question the norms you find in the workplace and who benefits from those norms. Perhaps most importantly of all, get to know your fellow designers beyond the surface level. Contribute to a culture of radical vulnerability by speaking authentically and listening compassionately.
Though it has taken considerably more time, I’ve also learned another important lesson: to view my background as an asset rather than a setback.
I see this embodied in the DoorDash values:
- I naturally Make Room At The Table because I know how it feels to be uninvited.
- I have a Bias for Action because I grew up making a lot out of very little.
- I’m an avid Truth-Seeker because a hunger for learning is what got me here.
To all designers from nontraditional backgrounds reading this, I invite you to celebrate the path you have carved out for yourself.
Take up more space. Ask for what you need to succeed. And don’t ever doubt that what makes you hungry could also be what gets you hired.
If you’re a junior designer from an underrepresented background seeking advice or opportunities, or if you’re an ally interested in chatting about equity in design, let’s be friends on LinkedIn.
