Growing into senior roles

In most roles there exists a range between brand new up to the point of extremely senior. These are not based on age, but rather experience and ability to solve a problem.

With design roles, and more specifically product design, seniority means a number of things.

First, you’re expected to have depth and breadth across a company, able to dive into a specific vertical as well as think about how a feature fits across the organization as a whole.

Second, you need to have an understanding and capability within your craft. It’s a given that you know the tools, understand the industry, and can problem solve.

Third, you’ve got stories. You’ve failed, succeded, and learned from your past. You can pull these forward into the future and use them to contextualize the present moments.

Fourth, you’re t-shaped, with breadth of your skillsets and depth in a specific area. For instance, maybe you’ve specialized in mobile consumer apps. Or you’ve spent time on B22 BaaS. Maybe you excel in a specific area of the work. Though you can handle anything broadly, you’re the best person you know at system design, UX prototyping, or handling the fine details of creating a great consumer based emotional UI.

Fifth, you’re able to think strategically about how your work fits into the company metrics and where things are going. You’re able to weigh features against goals and pushback where needed.

There’s more, such as experience working cross-functionally, UX research, and frontend development, and now the daily changes within the world of AI and LLMs.

For someone interested in going into this role the world is changing fast, but there’s so much richness involved that these skillsets will always be valuable.