Meet One of Our Principal Designers

It’s my job to find the best product designers out there. The ones who are empathic, creative, communicative, and collaborative. The doers and thinkers. Those who care about being a force for good in the fashion world, and who want to make an impact. As a talent relationship manager for Zalando’s Product Design community I actively look for talented designers who want to craft engaging and joyful experiences for our users, and ultimately reimagine fashion for millions of people.

Since I started two and a half years ago our community of world-class designers has grown to over 100 members who are based across Berlin, Dublin and Helsinki. Their professional backgrounds are as diverse as the countries they come from, and the ambitions they nurture.

When I speak to senior candidates hoping to join our team they often want to know more about who our senior designers are and what their roles entail — so we decided to ask one. Principal designer Clementine Jinhee Declercq is a driving force behind key design projects within the Digital Experience team of the Zalando Fashion Store (our core B2C business). I sat down to have a chat with her; here’s what she had to say…

So when did you start working at Zalando and what made you want to join?

I started here four years ago. Before I joined I was with a consulting agency where I worked on different design projects for companies from various industries. I was becoming frustrated because when you’re working on a project you dedicate your time and love to it, but then it’s taken away from you when the client decides to insource the process. I knew that I wanted to join a product company so that I could work on a product, see it evolve, have a sense of ownership, and know that I could make an impact — and Zalando offered me that opportunity.

Why Zalando? Because it was a fashion company, because it seemed like it had an exciting design community?

At the time no. At that time the design team was very small. They hired me as a mobile app designer and there were a few other designers but they didn’t necessarily work together, they were embedded in different teams. There wasn’t a very strong design culture back then. It’s crazy that in the last few years Zalando has changed so much — the team grew so much and so fast, it’s hard to keep up with!

So what’s changed since you started in 2015?

I don’t think that what you call ‘design culture’ and ‘design maturity’ was there at the time that I joined, which actually presented an exciting opportunity for me because I got to come in and contribute to that, and contribute to hiring, to growing the team, to bringing design thinking and practices into our day-to-day work. So it was an amazing opportunity at the time. My role grew alongside the company’s vision. Now that we’re more established our community gets to play, prototype, and solve tricky problems, together.

Different companies have different definitions of the role of a principal designer. What does it mean to be a principal designer at Zalando?

So at Zalando, we have two ways of helping people grow and thrive: through our expert and management tracks. It was clear that I wanted to become an expert and so I became a principal designer. I had a background in app design, but I’ve been able to contribute the full array of customer touchpoints.

As an expert I lead various projects from inception to execution. For instance, I recently lead a team of designers, as well as extended team members working in engineering and business, in building a design system for a mobile app. To translate your vision into everyday action you have to think strategically, shape the design strategy, and of course enable your colleagues to achieve great things. The work’s both strategic and hands-on.

You also need to have a knowledge of not only design, but also technology and business. You’ll work closely with and act as a bridge between stakeholders from these different disciplines when you lead projects so you’ve got to be able to weave together business, strategy, design, and data.

And it’s important to have deep insight into whatever your field of expertise may be, and be able to distill different learnings and communicate them. It’s also important to share your knowledge either through coaching, design reviews or other formats. In one of the projects I took on, I created a set of principles for teams working on personalisation to ensure that they deliver a human-centred personalised experience. So you’re not only working on the product side of things but also providing an intellectual basis for discussions about design.

I’m not sure if there’s a typical day for you so in general, what does a good day for a principal designer look like?

On a personal level, you want to leave with that sense of achievement, right? And there are two types of achievement for me, so personally I really like to work on complex problems and I get that thrill when I find a very simple, elegant and smart solution to something that is seemingly complex — if that happens I consider that a good day. For instance, the personalisation project I’ve been working on seems very complex; how do we as product designers tackle an abstract concept like delivering a personal experience? The more you dig into this topic (which you have the time to do when you’re a principal designer) the more insight you gain, and you have this moment of enlightenment where you say “Ah! This is a way you could approach this complex topic.” Reaching that moment of clarity is everything for me.

I also love working in a collaborative environment. So I get a sense of achievement when I bring people from different teams with different ideas and opinions together (like designers, engineers, business people), and at the end of the day after a lot of discussion and debate you get to a stage where you’re all on the same page and good to go the next day. There’s this quote that I like: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” It’s a good day when I realise we’ve come far as a team to bring our product experience to the next level.

Have you always liked the idea of working in a collaborative environment?

Yes. I grew up between both France and Korea, my mum is Korean, my dad is French. I grew up enjoying kimchi stews made by my grandmother, you know the really smelly ones using old fermented kimchi? But at the same time I enjoyed equally smelly blue cheeses like roquefort with a glass of wine. I think that made me naturally culturally receptive and very open to different practices, viewpoints, and thoughts, and also made me curious to explore more. In my day to day work at Zalando, I collaborate with people from different countries, backgrounds and disciplines and I’m always learning something new.

Some candidates ask why they should work for a fashion company or wouldn’t even consider it. What would you tell them?

People have different associations with fashion, but ultimately it comes down to a piece of clothing, and we all have to wear clothes so fashion is something that’s inseparable from our daily lives and that presents a lot of challenges. Most notably, sustainability — how can the industry become more sustainable? Like a lot of product designers, I want my work to have meaning. I love that Zalando’s design community has a sustainability team and believe that this is the future of the fashion industry. Moving forward the industry will need more designers who want to make a meaningful impact in the area of sustainability.

It’s no secret that there are fewer women in tech than men and many women in the tech industry have felt their gender has affected the way that they are perceived or treated. What’s your experience been like?

In Zalando’s design team women actually outnumber men, but even if I’m in a meeting where I’m the only woman I never feel like I’m being treated any differently. There have been moments in the past where I’ve felt very aware of the fact that I’m a woman, but I don’t feel like that here, I just feel like a person. I don’t feel like in my day-to-day work there are any biases because I’m a woman; I just feel like I’m respected for what I do in my job.

How do you de-stress after having a busy workday?

I don’t want to sound too geeky, but I like to watch ARTE, which has loads of cultural programmes and documentaries. My latest obsession is Greek mythology!

I’ve also been watching ‘Mind Hunter’ on Netflix which is a great show about two FBI agents in the ’70s who set out to interview convicted serial killers to see if it helps them solve open criminal cases. Before, they assumed there was a clear and simple motive for a killing, like “I hate you so I will kill you.” But after interviewing these infamous killers, they developed new investigative methods using psychology, anthropology, and sociology to reveal the motives. They try to find patterns amongst the killers’ sociopathic minds and solve open cases using those insights. I find it fascinating as it kind of relates to what we do: we do user research to gain insights, find patterns, see what common aspects arise. Then we see what we can do to improve their lives.

I also do ballet, and some sports but I really think it’s important to spend time alone away from all the chaos and noise!

Have you given Zalando’s meditation room a go?

I did once. I only ever meditate now and again though. I love solitude, maybe I should make the most of it!

Thanks so much for chatting to me, Clementine!

We are now looking forward to hiring more principal designers at Zalando. If you think you might be interested in joining our community please apply here!