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How to solve a designer’s biggest fear with startups: wearing multiple hats
Startups offer tons of value to designers if you know how to handle the extra work
In this economy, mid-size startups (50–350 people) are the best environments for Junior Designers to accelerate their career growth.
After making the switch half a decade ago, I’ve experienced tremendous career growth and helped mentor Junior Designers to do the same. However, one fear that often comes up when considering working for a startup is the need to wear multiple hats.
I understand that fear perfectly: I left a ‘safe’ design job working for the government to join a startup in my 30s with a wife, two kids, and a mortgage.
I was afraid I wouldn’t get to see my family because I would be working nights and weekends wearing multiple hats, and suddenly getting fired from my first startup didn’t exactly help either.
However, now that I’ve made it out to the other side (and still wear multiple hats), I can say that it’s not as bad as I feared. Over the past couple of months, you might have seen the multiple hats reflected in my writing, which included:
- UX Writing
- Strategy
- Analytics
- User Research
- Data Visualization
- Design systems
- and more
There’s one piece of advice to keep in mind with this extra work: you’re wearing the Design/User Research hats as your job and other hats to solve a problem.
Here’s a guide to surviving while wearing multiple hats.
Being flexible as a designer is a competitive advantage
Here’s the harsh truth about startup life: sometimes, the organization is lean enough that you being ‘only’ a designer is thought of as a negative. I’m pretty sure that was the reason I was fired from my first startup: they loved my design work but felt like they weren’t getting enough value for my paycheck.
It’s not just the startup world, either. Product Design is overtaking UX, and part of it is that it’s hard to justify…
