Growth Designer vs. Core Product Designer–A cheat sheet
🤔 “Is a Growth Product Designer different from a Core Product Designer? If yes, exactly how? ” 🤔
I recently joined Atlassian and lead Central Growth Design — and this is a question I often receive. People frequently ask because they want to know what to expect from Growth Designers, and how best to collaborate with them.
Understanding the two archetypes is also crucial to ensure collaboration between the archetypes. Additionally, understanding the nuances can continue to shape career development, especially for those interested in pursuing Growth Design.
Here’s my high-level answer to that question, followed by a granular breakdown of the key differentiators between Core Product Designers (CPDs) and Growth Product Designers (GPDs).
I wrote this article referencing Atlassian products (Jira, Confluence etc.) to anchor the concepts in product, so the concepts are easier to understand.
TL;DR
🧭 The high-level difference between Core Product Design and Growth Product Design. While Core Product Designers (CPDs) prioritize enhancing user experience and product features, Growth Product Designers (GPDs) focus on optimizing user acquisition and conversion.
📈 GPDs catalyze growth through pathfinding and optimization. With experimentation and iteration, GPDs find net new levers to optimize existing product for activation, engagement, and monetization.
🧠 Different operating mindsets. The design skills are the same for a Core Product Designer and a Growth Product Designer; it’s the depth and focus on certain skills that show up differently in day-to-day work.
💭 A common misconception. Because CPDs tend to work through longer design cycles, carefully developing robust product features, and GPDs work in shorter sprints to make incremental improvements, there is a misconception that Growth Design is “hacky.” GPDs also could work in long design cycles but the difference is that its driven by continuous sequence of experiments, the designs are grounded in data + hypothesis, and they are intentionally broken down into milestones of experiments based on nested/smaller hypothesis.
💪 What makes a strong Growth Product Designer. A strong CPD has the best chance of being a strong GPD. Solid Core Product Design hard-skills are a necessary foundation on which to build Growth Design (hard+soft) skills. GPDs are curious about data and are always thinking of ways to improve the business+user metrics. They identify opportunities by showing business potential through pixels.
🌱 Who thrives as a Growth Product Designer. Not everyone thrives as–or draws energy from being–a Growth Product Designer. Choosing one over the other is driven by what motivates you as a designer. Opting into either path demonstrates a clear understanding of where to best apply one’s specific skills and interests.
💎 Building a successful product requires a holistic approach. CPDs and GPDs are two equally important sides of a single coin. CPDs ensure the user experience is delightful, while GPDs optimize it for growth. The two archetypes work together to create a product that wins both for users and the business.
To tease out the nuances between Core Product Designers and Growth Product Designers, I have compared and contrasted both against specific dimensions, but please keep in mind that there is no actual crisp delineation. Core Product Designers are likely leveraging their growth skills and instincts in their role and vice versa. The difference lies in the degree of focus in specific areas and depth of skills in those specific areas.
🔍 Role overview
Both Core Product Designers and Growth Designers contribute to the overall success of a product, but their objectives and tactics differ. Core product designers prioritize finding product market fit, enhancing product with new features and deliver retentive enduring value to users, while Growth Designers focus on driving measurable business growth through pathfinding, experimentation, and optimization by focusing on the entire end-to-end user journey of discovering a product, trying it, and buying it. Additionally, Growth Designers focus on increasing the number of users per product as well as users gaining value by using multiple products together.
🧩 Archetypes
It’s simple enough to list out the overlapping and varying responsibilities of the two roles, but it can be tricker to pin down exactly what type of designer thrives best in one role versus the other. Examining the two fundamental archetypes, and looking more closely at the dimensions that comprise each one, helps clarify who thrives in each role.
The Core Product Designer can be thought of as an archetype comprising three unique dimensions: The Craftsperson, The Empath, and The Visionary. CPDs are driven by empathy to create a seamless and intuitive user experience; they use their design expertise to address core needs and requirements of their target audience; and they lean on their aptitude for vision to refine fundamental features of the product.
Likewise, the Growth Product Designer can be thought of as another archetype comprising three different dimensions: The Optimizer, The Scientist, and The Alchemist. GPDs are driven to optimize and enhance the product to boost user acquisition, retention, and engagement. They use their design expertise to scientifically identify opportunities for growth; and they lean on their aptitude for bringing it all together (alchemy) by implementing strategies and features that increase user adoption, conversion rates, and overall product usage.
🎯 The work
Core Product Designers and Growth Product Designers engage in work that is symbiotic.
Synergy for success. A product company thrives when Core Product Designers and Growth Product Designers work together. Their complementary skillsets create a powerful synergy, resulting in products that are both user-centric and achieve business goals.
Greater than the sum of its parts. Core Product Designers and Growth Product Designers are like peanut butter and jelly. Individually they’re good, but together, they create something truly remarkable. Their combined efforts lead to products that are both meticulously crafted and strategically optimized for user engagement and growth.
🧠 Mindset — What drives the work?
While a lot of the design hard skills are transferable between Core PD and Growth PD, the operating mindset of a Growth PD is one of the biggest differences.
🛠️ Hard skills — What underpins the work?
Both CPDs and GDs must have solid design skills, including core product design, product strategy, ability to run design sprints, interaction and visual design skills, plus prototyping and motion design, but their strategies differ.
🪄Soft skills — What facilitates communication and collaboration?
Both CPDs and GDs have strong foundational soft skills, but they communicate and influence others differently.
🤓 Interested in becoming a Growth Product Designer?
Here are some things you can do:
✅ Practice. Flex the “growth-y” skills mentioned above in your job as a core product designer — you’d be surprised how many of these you can immediately put into play.
✅ Immerse. Do a secondment with Growth teams to build skill quickly.
✅ Connect. Get a mentor in Growth.
✅ Learn. Seek L&D courses in Growth, and attend brown bags.
✅ Apply. Check out the open positions in Growth Design.
🙌 You made it to the end.
Growth Product Design is a rapidly growing field that is here to stay. It is a challenging but rewarding experience that is well-suited for designers who are passionate about using their skills to help businesses grow.
There is a high demand for Growth Product Designers especially as the industry now understands how “Growth” drives user and business outcomes.
Growth is not a bunch of horizontal hacky tricks — Good Growth is Good Product.
