Designers starting out their career

I joined my first full time product design role on January 4 this year. It has been bit of a longer journey then I thought, partly because I switched from physics major, lacked industry experience, the world amidst pandemic and many more. However, It worked out just okay for me. The thoughts that follow are partly, notes for myself and anyone who is in their early career in design industry.

Define your role

Quite often people would give you a job that they think you are capable of, Its a well defined box. A hiring manager more or less looks for someone close to the job description. If you get lucky, you work on a particular problem, implementation, feature set with a team within a certain timeline. Its easy to fall into the trap - that’s my job and this is my role. Sooner than later, you have to expand your role shape in mould it, In the end your role is what you make of it. Its your career, own it.

Work like a network

In a large organisation you have got to expand beyond your decks, docs, frames (or whatever tools that you bury your head). You have got to work like a network.

As measured by business

All impact is business impact. You work in a company that earns profit for shareholders and gives you paycheques. No matter what you do, it demands an impact on the business. You might have a liberty to explore things if the company decides to have a competitive advantage on innovation. Even then the real impact should be on business now or five to ten years horizon.

Its not all about process

I have seen often people bring up coloured stickies, this method or a book or a website. Sometimes this goes even further without a hypothesis or a defined problem. In the end it is about the the outcome, design education tell you its all about the process. No it is not. They tell you because they want you to learn all those processes, like a grammar of a language, chords of an instrument. Your slangs and your tunes are your own. So do yourself a favour, leave that quote in the school desk when you graduate.

Infinite Ts

There’s a common notion that is passed around in design community called the T model. An individual’s experience in a horizontal domain of knowledge and an expertise in a particular vertical domain. If you’re in a consulting then you tend be more of a horizontal designer and in a product team you tend to be a vertical Designer. The good ones are the ones who have T shape expertise i.e a minimum knowledge in many but a expertise in one. However, I think you have got to work with multiple Ts in a larger organisation. Its the ability to see across and work with those multiple Ts that sets you up for success.

Promote your ideas

My intern manager once told me just when you are tired of saying it, you know people are starting to listen. Its good to over communicate than to under communicate. If your work is not being shared with your peers and if your top executives are not getting visibility into work in progress. The needle is not moving.

That’s it for now, I would write more about day to day product design, working with engineering, shaping product timelines, working with PM and Engineering partners in future articles. Let me know if you would like to add something to this conversation. Stay safe.