Designer Journey: The Autodidact
Having recently relocated from Brazil to Berlin, Luana Busquets is the only designer on the payments team here at Zalando. I wanted to hear a bit about how she got here, why she eschewed university and headed straight to the real world and what it’s like working with a team of non-designers.
Let’s start with how you ended up at Zalando.
I’m from Atibaia, a small town in Brazil. I started working at 15 for my stepdad’s development company. I was lucky to be exposed to tech early on. I read his books and helped out as much as I can. Because of this experience, I skipped university and the internship step and started working in the industry right out of high school. I moved to Sao Paulo and started working in web design, and then as a UX/interaction designer. I worked for three years at Fjord before moving to Berlin. I had always wanted to move abroad (ideally Berlin), and had always wanted to work in fashion. Zalando got in touch with me through Linkedin and now here I am!
So, you were contacted through Linkedin…how did the interview process go?
It was really interesting. I talked with several leads to figure out what would be the best fit for both them and me. I actually really enjoyed the interview process. The idea of being relocated was so surreal that I never actually believed it would happen. I had some remote interviews in Brazil, then came to Berlin for a full day of interviews…then started at Zalando 6 weeks later.
What is your current role?
Senior product designer for payments on the convenience design team.
Zalando is by far the most design-centric company I have ever worked with.
What are you working on at the moment?
Mostly on the deferred payment project. Our “try before you buy” product started a couple of years ago in several countries. At the moment we are studying how to improve the value proposition of this option by conducting customer interviews in four European countries in order to understand our customer “online shopping” payment behaviours.
What drew you to this particular role?
During the interview process, my now lead, Achim, asked what I liked most about my experience working in the financial sector. For me, the most interesting thing was trying to understand how different countries and their unique cultures perceived money, and the nuances associated with how they prefer to pay for things. Apparently Achim liked my answer! Also, the fact that I had lots of experience in development made me a good candidate for a position that included a lot of interaction with engineers.
I was also attracted to the position because of the opportunity for growth and impact. I’m the only designer working on payments, and the non-designers on the team are excited about my contribution and really eager to learn from me.
I feel this is part of my responsibility as a designer…managing stakeholders and instilling empathy and communication is part of the job.
What have you found most challenging about your role?
Like I said, the payments team had never worked with a designer before, so it was up to me to introduce and explain the process. And also set it up. There was no structure in place so there was a lot of learning from other Zalando designers, and then implementing preferred processes to payments. The great thing is that everyone has been so open to it.
Another challenge was the amount of stakeholders involved. My current project involves five different teams that weren’t really communicating with each other. I took a proactive stance to push communication forward. This was really time consuming and some people needed convincing, but in the end the initiative was well received and rewarding. I feel this is part of my responsibility as a designer…managing stakeholders and instilling empathy and communication is part of the job.
What do you think is unique about the design culture at Zalando?
Zalando is by far the most design-centric company I have ever worked with. The emphasis the company puts on customer satisfaction and convenience, along with hiring highly-skilled designers to work in so many areas within the company is incredibly inspiring. Designers here can really make an impact, not only by creating innovations that can are easily measured, but also by educating and spreading the design culture to other teams, like business and tech. Most of the projects are executed by a big in-house design team and this gives great flexibility to create and explore our own tools and processes.
What do you think of Berlin so far?
Berlin lets people be who they are and because of this attracts people from all over the world. Every week I meet someone from a completely different background. Berlin is also a big hub for design.
Luana is a senior product designer on the convenience design team. Check her out on instagram and Linkedin and Medium.
Want to join Luana on the Convenience Team? We’re hiring a product designer to work on checkout flow.
