The Hard Truths of Being a Product Designer
They're not easy battles, but keep going
Being a product designer is rewarding for so many reasons: you can potentially design something that gets used by a lot of users, changing or nudging the landscape. You get paid rather handsomely, and you can work from anywhere. It is a great time to be alive, and to be a product designer.
However, there are also hard truths that you need to be aware of. These truths can actually apply to anyone working in tech too — and in different kind of organization. So, buckle up and enjoy this ride.
Most of your work will not get to see the light of day
Here’s the truth. You work hard to explore all design alternatives, do user research, gather requirements and validate all those designs. In the end, those are only the process or the journey. Be ready to ship only a fraction of them, or nothing at all. Things will get cancelled. Teams will be restructured. Priorities will be shifted. Or simply, the work is not that good at all for everyone. For the 10% that gets shipped (this is optimistic, of course), be ready for stripping down or compromises. If you go into a startup, the portion might shift, but still — you get the idea.
You’ll be in an organization or company that suck to you
Obviously, the best way to find the organization and company you want, is to run your own business. If not, just accept that most managers, most teams, most organizations and most culture will suck. That’s a given. Why? Because you have expectations. Others have expectations. We can’t never fully align personal and business expectations. So the better way is to try to change this within your scope and pay grade, or leave. If you can’t afford it, stay and try to change, or just cruise to it.
In most organizations, designers already lost the battle
If you join medium- to big-sized companies, the truth is that the roles have become specialized. You’ll find product managers, analysts, product marketing managers, engineers, marketing specialists… all of which will already define the product or feature you are going to design. You can push back as much as you possibly can, and depending on your negotiation skill, it will only get far a little. Admit it — by the time the spec or brief come to you, it’s already defined. You also have design systems that will further put constraints in your craft (in a good way, of course, but still).
In startups (and probably agencies), these are where you can shine better to “fight the battle”, although it comes with some costs too, like you have to learn the ropes of business, product and engineering at the same time at a lower pay (usually!).
Next time you come in to a company, don’t expect you’ll be able to make an absolute dent or influence the team within the first year or so. Even in the subsequent years, it will be hard too.
I would say, as a designer, your primary job is to question and challenge. Build your case around observation, research, data, analysis, desk research. Then try to advocate it continuously. It might not work the first time, or on one project, but at least you’ve shown you contributed to the discussion in a meaningful way. However, at the end, learn to let go most of the time. You’ll be less stressed.
You’ll get stuck in your career
Most designers I know prefer to be an individual contributor (IC) to keep their heads down designing pixels. Even those who moved to a managerial position didn’t have a clue what to do, or still prefer doing hands-on work at some point in time. A few of them moved to product roles. Of course, you can demonstrate leadership even if you’re a craft person a.k.a IC, but the career path up to principal or “distinguished” levels is only available in select, very few companies.
So, at some point in time, you will wonder and get stuck. Do I want to proceed to be an IC, but keep being a “senior designer” forever because my organization doesn’t provide IC-level career path, or move to a managerial role, or even move to more business-y product role? Things get harder when you consider the compensations do get stuck when you keep being a “senior designer”, unless you move around companies.
This is a normal feeling, and I would suggest you to be adaptable to these situations. Even if you are “stuck” to be a “senior designer” IC, find ways to elevate your career outside the organization, by creating products, writing, sharing content, and demonstrating your craft elsewhere while keeping your job. Maybe a bit of freelancing if you have time.
There I said them—some hard truths of being product designers today. Maybe things will change in the future, but who knows. What we can do now is to be adaptable, know your worth and limitations, and just show up then deliver value as much as you can.
Like this post, Sigit! I can totally resonate with the last point!