MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

About to start your first UX/UI design job at a start-up? Read this.

Tips on working at a start-up, work culture and lessons learned.

It was the job I interviewed for which I was quite excited about. At first.

I was still doing my final year at the University in London. I started applying for jobs in February 2019. After numerous rejections, in April 2019, a recruiter approached me on LinkedIn. I went for an interview and landed a job on the same day! It was my first full-time position as a UX/UI designer starting 3days later in April 2019 (yes, 3 months before my official graduation).

In May, I started receiving multiple internships offers from interesting companies that I applied for a few months before. One of them was from TicketMaster, which I still contemplate whether it was a good idea or not to reject it. I was quite excited about the start-up work that I was doing at that point. It all changed a few months later.

What I wanted

At first, I wanted to work as a freelancer to be able to work & travel wherever and whenever I want. I struggled to find enough clients to do it, but I also realised that it’s a good idea to gain experience working as an in-house designer & build amazing products that impact millions of people worldwide.

I wanted to work in a place where I would have a mentor — someone who could guide me — a junior designer at that point — and enable me to grow a little faster. Ideally, I wanted to work in a mid-size business, where they’d have senior designers who mentor new grads.

Ready, set, JUMP!

I was super excited and eager to work! We did an amazing job in the first few weeks. We went from a single screen MVP to a much more complex and intuitive app with sleek UI and user-centred UX. I interviewed our customers, gathered feedback about the current app (what works, what doesn’t, etc.), presented hypotheses and the findings. I analysed at quantitative data, implemented A/B tests on the website and made UX better.

I presented the new app design for iOS and Android and new features to the founders and they loved it — yoo-hoo!

We managed to raise an additional £7M investment with the freshly-looking app. I found ways to increase the company’s revenue by listening to customers and creating features they wanted to pay additionally for. Yippee!

At first, we were a team of 12 colleagues in the office. Within 2–3 months we grew to around 25 people in the office. New engineers, new salespeople, new upper management.

We were going out for drinks, socialising and eating lunch together. And it was awesome!

Expectations

When I joined the car subscription start-up, I was the first and only designer there. During the interview, I double-checked whether they were planning to hire a senior designer. I asked that question twice, and my question was confirmed twice. I was fine in the beginning, but I knew I’d need support at some point — we all need mentors, don’t we? I’ve always been quite independent and capable of the work that’s too big for my skills so I was fine. At first.

The product was built. What’s next?

We built UX and UI of the app for iOS and Android, and we raised investment. What’s next? Good question, hmm?

From that point onwards, we created a few more features for the mobile app. The mobile engineers (my team) started suggesting design freeze for the next few months, gah. They had to write the whole code from scratch since the person who built it before did not do a good job. The more code they added, the slower the app would have been. So here it is — design freeze in my small team. What now?

Too many projects, not enough engineers.

I started working with the marketing team simultaneously. They had no clue what UX/UI design is. I worked on everything. From marketing materials to graphic design and beyond. I suggested redesigning the website, creating design guidelines, introducing dark-mode, and other new projects and features so I could sharpen my UI/UX skills. I’ve done it all, but unfortunately, there was no-one to implement it in a timely manner. At that point, there were more design projects than engineers. And the company struggled to hire more engineers, eh.

We did not have a project manager. I had to come up with ideas myself. I started pushing for new projects and make sure engineers do their work on time.

I went extra miles to find ways to increase the company’s revenue. I wore many hats and was doing work of a user researcher, data analyst, project manager, front-end engineer, UX/UI designer, graphic & motion graphics designer and video editor.

I did learn a lot, but it wasn’t 100% what I was there for. Our paths started going in different ways.

Micromanagement.

After 3–4 months, I started receiving worrying requests from my manager (who also was a co-founder).

“Hey Nicola, can you design this? It’s super easy and not that complicated. Can you do this by tomorrow?” (forget about the research first, did we ask engineers about their input?)

“Hey Nicola, I saw you left the office for an hour and five mins. Where were you?” (?!)

(While working from home) “Hey Nicola, I messaged you 10mins ago, but you haven’t reply yet. What’s happening??”

“Hey Nicola, we have investors coming in, I know you’re on holiday in South Arica, but can you quickly help us with X, Y and Z? It’s U R G E N T.”

I started getting a little scared at first, but I tried to comfort myself by saying that soon, there will be someone more experienced coming to share feedback on the projects and requests. Well, that person never came. So I worked even harder. My manager started to micromanage me tremendously. I felt helpless and started hating my job. Therefore, I started looking for a new position (the best decision ever!).

Full office (around 25 people) with only 1 bathroom.

At some point, our tiny office was full. We were all placed in a single room (suitable for around max. 15 people). We had only 1 bathroom (yes, only 1!!). As you can imagine it was always occupied. Many times, I had to walk 5 mins to the nearest cafe which also had waiting time. In addition to that, we had a single mini-fridge which never had enough space for everyone. To top it up, there was a coffee shortage as well. Damn. Things started getting awkward and out of hand.

I said to my manager that I needed a mentor. Instead of supporting me, he started looking down on me.

We had quite regular 1–2–1 meeting with my manager. At some point, I got overwhelmed with all requests and micromanagement. I stated out loud that I needed a mentor. I expected them to invest in my skills, set a budget for online courses and conferences, but that never came. I also had to spend hours convincing him that I needed X design software for prototyping, Y design software for sharing files with engineers, Z design software for this and that. It felt like all the company cared for was saving money and making employees work each minute of their 8.5h work-day. Sadly.

“When one door closes, the other door opens.”

Finally, I wasn’t excited about the projects anymore. I felt drained, lost and unmotivated. I started interviewing somewhere else.

Damaging my personal Macbook & refusal to pay for the repair costs.

At some point during the meeting with 6 other colleagues, my manager spilt a coffee on my personal laptop. Yes personal, because after 5 months working at the company they still didn’t want to provide me with a Macbook because of its high costs. After the incident, I refused to work on my personal laptop. They finally ordered a new machine.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t use my personal laptop anymore. I’ve given it to Apple Store, and a few weeks later they said it’d cost me more to repair it than to buy a brand new laptop. I’ve given the receipt for repair costs to my manager and a few days later I was told I was being made redundant. True story…

My manager refused to pay for the damages he caused to my laptop (huh?!). I ended up writing a grievance letter to the CEO explaining the whole situation (because there was no HR in place). As you can imagine it was an extremely stressful situation. I really wanted to keep good relations with my manager, but things had gotten out of hand. Luckily, a few months later the CEO approved the repair costs and apologised for the whole situation…

My tips on thriving.

Tip 1: Get to know your teammates closer.
People have different personalities at work and outside of it. They tend to be more honest and relaxed during a lunch break or a simple coffee break. Talking to your colleagues about your hobbies, travels and culture makes the atmosphere at the office much more friendly. So make sure you socialise!

Tip 2: Get to know people outside of your team.

Get to know people from marketing, sales and upper management. I exercised alone for so long until I started talking to colleagues from other teams. I found my exercise-buddy with whom we shared our work struggles. We became good friends and stay in touch until now!

Tip 3: Speak up!

Speak up during the meetings. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas and opinions. Maybe you’ll be wrong, but so what? You can always find a different workplace if you feel like you messed up. I noticed that I felt super anxious when I wanted to share my ideas in front of 6–7 colleagues. My heart started beating fast and then I was usually backing-up. I decided to enrol in public speaking classes which helped me overcome this uncomfortable fear.

Tip 4: Attend design meet-ups and share your experience.

At some point, I got sick of my routine. Go to work — go home — exercise — sleep. Repeat. I wanted to meet new people, talk to other designers in similar positions. I started attending meet-ups, I enrolled in an Intrapreneurs Club, met people my age from the industry and suddenly my life started gaining new shapes and colours.

Tip 5: Have a side-project.

Learn something new. Always! This way endorphins will trigger a positive feeling in your mind and body.

I started learning piano, was coaching tennis during the weekends, and improved my skills using Adobe AfterEffects. I also opened a new Instagram account on which I add design-related findings and learnings.

What did I learn?

Yes, I wore wear multiple hats and I learnt how to facilitate and help a company define their product so it was no longer just a concept. I learnt the granular complexities that go into designing a product from scratch and how integral the role of a UX designer is within the engineering team. I increased the company’s revenue, played an integral part in investment meetings, learnt how my insights contributed to the strategy, and I may now be an expert in project management!

I hope this is helpful to those of you who have just changed careers and thought about joining a startup.

Want to learn more?

Want to get an industry-recognized Course Certificate in UX Design, Design Thinking, UI Design, or another related design topic? Online UX courses from the Interaction Design Foundation can provide you with industry-relevant skills to advance your UX career. For example, Design Thinking, Become a UX Designer from Scratch, Conducting Usability Testing or User Research — Methods and Best Practices are some of the most popular courses. Good luck on your learning journey!

I’m a UX Designer based in London. You can book a 1:1 time with me for a portfolio review or to get more advice on breaking into UX/UI!
For more info, check out my Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/nicolaguzowska.
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