Hey 👋 

This week we have a Q&A with Juan Ramirez from Netflix, my thoughts on the design job market and 7 great recruiters you should connect with if you’re a design leader.

In this mail:

• Q&A with Juan Ramirez on how to be a better designer

• Review of the Design job market in 2023

• 7 top recruiters to connect with in 2023

Good to Great 

Juan J. Ramirez is a seasoned designer that specializes in Developer Tools. Currently a Product Design Lead at Netflix, formerly at Meta, Gitlab, and AWS. He also runs his own personal studio, Rasterwise, through which he has developed products such as getscreenshotapi.com (a profitable API as a Service) and selfgazer.com (an experimental AI tarot app).

Today we look into how to level up as a designer. It’s even more important that we are levelling up as a community, proving the “ROI” and aligning our work success to how the business views success.

1 - How do you define a good and great designer?

I would say that good digital product designers are the ones that care about their craft and focus on adding value to the spaces in which they operate.

In the current state of the digital product design industry, I believe there are already a set of canonical skills that most companies are looking for, such as the ability to think critically about problems, communicate and articulate ideas, produce compelling product visions, work well with developers, understand underlying business dynamics, having a strategic mindset, being adaptable, producing good visual designs, being a fast tactical worker, etc.

What defines a great designer is a little bit more nuanced and layered. I believe great designers are those who have the hard and soft skills to perform as a designer but also are radically authentic and genuinely interested in embracing their creativity and offering it to the world.

2 - What are the attributes of the top 1% of designers?

think is mostly about authenticity. What makes you who you are, and how do you align that with what the world needs?

I also believe that genuine curiosity is the defining attribute of the top 1% of designers.

When you become really curious about how the world works and you start seeing its vast interconnectedness, you start realizing that there’s an opportunity to shape reality and improve the world at any scale. From how you organize your desk to the strategic implications of a corporate design job, I think there’s always an opportunity to ask yourself why things work the way they do and creatively find ways to improve them.

I see design as a useful medium to imagine new and improved realities, so in that sense, I’m convinced that what defines the top 1% of designers isn’t the width or depth of their skills but how intentional they are about using those skills to make a difference.

3 - What are the top three skills for new designers to perfect?

1. Strategic Thinking: Do you understand the long-tail implications of your designs? Are you capable of creating artefacts that go beyond the surface and shine a light on hidden and underlying challenges?
   

2. Technical Acumen: Do you understand how digital products are built and distributed? Do you understand the low-level technologies that allow a given digital product to deliver its value? Do you understand the constraints and limitations of your technology stack?
   

3. Visual Skills: Can you produce generally appealing designs that are aesthetically pleasing and that promote trust? Are you able to capture the cultural dynamics of a product and its audience and create visuals that trigger an emotional response?

4 - What tips would you give on strengthening communication and prioritization?

I would give the same tip for both communication and prioritization. Be effective and direct. Don’t cut corners but also don’t overcomplicate yourself.

Being a designer is a hard job because you’re continuously trying to define the value you create and how exactly you create it.

If your communication and your priorities are scattered, is pretty hard to deliver that value. My standard advice is to leverage your existing strengths and find ways to improve your communication and inform your priorities.

For example, in my case, I believe I’m a way stronger writer than a speaker, so I choose to leverage that skill set to level up my communication style and balance out those areas where I’m still developing.

The same applies to prioritization. It’s easier to do first the things that you’re strong at and save some brain cycles for those tasks where you need to push a little bit harder to produce the desired results.

5 - How can people level up as a designer?

This is a hard question because you can level up in many different ways, but I’ll tell you what has worked for me.

Most of my career growth has happened as an effect of changing jobs. I know changing jobs is emotionally tolling, so I understand why many people prefer to stay in one lane and drive on it as much as possible.

But for me changing jobs has been an opportunity to go and take on new challenges and reconfigure my skills as I grow professionally.

When you do it right, you cannot only take on new and more challenging responsibilities. You also upgrade your financial trajectory because there’s no faster way to grow your salary than taking on new opportunities.

Again, I know this is not for everyone, but I believe there’s an effective way to level-up as a designer by staying 1 to 2 years at a company, learning as much as you can, having as much impact as you can, and then going to a new culture to learn and teach new ideas.

The only problem with this approach is that it obviously has a limit, and at a certain point is wiser to stay put and modulate your growth trajectory so your career doesn’t become your life.

But the best way to up-level as a designer is to get out of your comfort zone and try new things.

6 - What kind of impact should new designers expect to make?

This is an interesting question. I think “impact” is a complex word because even the smallest acts can have a huge impact on something or someone.

I honestly think new designers should see the kickstart of their careers as an opportunity to define what kind of value they are trying to add and intuitively figure out what direction allows them to grow and have the biggest impact.

So I would say that new designers should only have one priority, and that’s learning as much as they can and being as helpful as they can.

If you operate on that policy, you will have multiple opportunities to have an impact and add value to the products and initiatives you’re working on.

Design Job Market in 2023:

“The design job market is volatile”

2023 in a nutshell:

- Companies focused on surviving.
- Centralised to Decentralised teams.
- It’s the year for agencies to clean up.
- Less budget, fewer people, more work.
- Leaders are being hired with no OKRs…
- Lots of companies building hubs in India.
- Lots of soul-searching for design leaders.
- The death of IA continues in a lot of roles.
- Inflated titles being handed out like candy.
- Content Design has been affected by cuts.
- Salaries being reduced in the perm market.
- Designers been asked to do more with less.
- Majority of leaders I speak to are not happy.
- Taking roles 1 or 2 levels below true skill set.
- In-house design leadership seen as a luxury.
- Lots of player-coach roles, less people focus.
- Lots of hands-off design people managers cut.
- In June there was a pick up of Director/VP roles.
- We still cannot agree if we need portfolios or not.
- C-Suite changes, design not positioned correctly.

In a lot of discussions with designers and leaders, a lot of them want to “remove” Design from their title because they feel it’s a hindrance when looking for a job or with clients to gain buy-in.

7 Design Recruiters To Connect With In 2023:

Note: For Head of Design + above.

We all need to spread the love.

• Me. Sorry, had to get that in there.

• Wert&Co - Famous Design Exec Search firm based in the US.

• ByG - Legendary Design Recruiter Garrett Fowler.

• Michelle Stuhl - Experienced Creative Exec Search.

• Rob Magowan - Focused Design Leadership Recruiter.

• Lena Kul - Leading Design Hiring at Miro. Awesome Recruiter. 

• Jared Tredly - All over the US hiring scene.

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Until next time!

Tom