Our industry needs a transparent career path that rewards our craft
Interview with Gabriel Valdivia about his career journey building teams, products, and bringing the craft along the way.
Leading with Craft is a limited series of articles where we shed a light on stories of designers with successful careers as individual contributors.
Curating and publishing hundreds of articles every month at the UX Collective, we have noticed an abundance of resources for designers switching careers to management, but a gap for those who want to continue to focus on their craft.
This series highlights professionals that never let their seniority move them away from their practice and their passion for what made them great in the first place, such as Gabriel Valdivia.
Gabriel Valdivia has been practicing design for more than fifteen years, both as a design leader within large organizations, such as Google and Facebook, and sole designer for startups. He’s currently leading Consumer Experience Design at Patreon as a Senior Staff Designer. Prior to that, he managed a design and research team at CNN Digital’s Emerging Products following the acquisition of Canopy, a private personalization startup that he helped to build.
From legitimizing yourself as a “real” designer to focusing on new experiences
UX Collective: You have a solid journey through big tech and also as a founding designer in startups. What are the key forces driving your journey as a designer?
Gabriel Valdivia: My relationship with technology is a bit different than most; I’ve had the privilege of witnessing how it can completely change the way we live. Growing up in Cuba meant that my access to the outside world was extremely limited. My baby photos are unironically in black and white and our family’s TV had only two channels. The contrast between that and the always-on mobile world we know today is wild to experience in a single lifetime. So I’ve always been inspired by the possibility to be one of the people responsible for the next technological leap.
I’ve always been inspired by the possibility to be one of the people responsible for the next technological leap.
When I was younger, I was just excited to be a part of the industry. When I graduated college, I jumped jobs (first between boutique agencies and later startups) in an effort to legitimize me as a “real” designer. It wasn’t until I worked at Facebook that I was able to check that box and the carrot on the stick became more about being exposed to new experiences and using my design skills to have a positive impact on the world.
After nearly six years working in big tech (Facebook from late 2013 to 2017 and Google from 2017 to 2019) I’ve been fortunate to lead design for products that reach millions of people, mentored other designers, been a part of hundreds of interview loops, and managed designers and researchers. When I look back at my experience, I can’t help but notice that I tend to gravitate towards zero-to-one projects. Whether it’s skunkwork teams within a large org or brand new startups, I find a lot of joy in bringing order to chaos.
That’s great — you’re really intentional with your career moves. What are some of your principles when it comes to making those career decisions?
Now that I’ve accumulated all these skills and learned what to do — and above all, what not to do — the changes in my career have been in pursuit of the intersection between a few things: (1) a mission I feel has an opportunity to fundamentally change how we relate with technology, (2) a design void that could be filled with the skills I’ve amassed, and (3) the opportunity to step outside my comfort zone.
How was your process to decide to join Patreon?
When looking for a new gig, I felt I wasn’t ready to double down on management, so my options were to stick to early-stage companies or focus my energy on the player side of the spectrum. Before starting at Patreon, I explored a few early-stage startups that were in need of a hybrid. I even moonlighted with a couple to learn what it’d be like to dive into new product areas. Ultimately, I fell in love with Patreon’s team and mission and became really excited to go back to focusing on the work, without the distractions of management.
What are these distractions?
The type of management I’ve done in the past is the infamous player/coach hybrid where I’ve divided my time between Individual Contributor (IC) and Management responsibilities. Player-coach hybrids are usually best in early-stage teams in which wearing multiple hats is expected of everyone. It’s a tough role because, as teams scale up, they demand more of each “hat” and each side of the spectrum starts competing for your time and attention. More specifically, there are questions around how we work to be solved when wearing the manager hat (“who works on what?”, “who reports to who?”, “how and when we work with other designers?”) while an IC has the privilege of focusing on the product itself (“are we solving a real problem for people in the best way possible?”).
Are you the first Staff-level designer in the organization?
That’s right! It’s a small team without a firmly defined career ladder so the title may not accurately represent my role. I’ve seen a similar role described as “Head of Consumer Experience Design” in more mature design organizations. Either way, I’ve been tasked with leading the design for the Fan/Patron Experience for Patreon and help level up the design across the product and company.
What were the biggest differences you noticed in your routine and your craft as you moved from being head of design to now being senior staff designer at Patreon?
Being a “Head of Design” for a startup like Canopy is very different to being a “Head of Design” for a more mature design org. Canopy was a small team. I was the sole designer for the product and acted as creative director with a couple design agencies we used for its branding.
The ambition of a Head of Design at a startup is to define the Design culture within the company and eventually build and nurture a team under you. In my case, Canopy was acquired before I was able to do that, so I spent most of my time representing design with engineering and product. Once at CNN, I was able to build a small team of designers and researchers under me. I spent half my time growing and nurturing the team (everything from defining a career ladder and interview loop for UX Research to running crits and representing Design in stakeholder meetings) and the other half knee-deep in Figma.
At Patreon, I’m lucky to have joined a team where someone else is focused mainly on the questions around how we work and I can provide a support role there while focusing on the product as my main responsibility. What I’ve found is that these things are fluid and tend to be cyclical so who knows! I may jump back into management once I feel the product is headed in a good direction.
Defining the artifacts you want in your toolbelt
When it comes to job titles and career paths we often try to fit everyone in the same job titles and career ladder. What’s missing in our industry so we can overcome this?
I think we’re missing a lot more transparency among companies to really align on what a job title actually means. A “Lead Designer” at a startup means something entirely different than a “Lead Designer” at a large company. In fact, even companies at the same scale have different design cultures and levels don’t actually translate across them.
A “Lead Designer” at a startup means something entirely different than a “Lead Designer” at a large company.
One of the most frustrating truisms that have been shared with me is: performance reviews are an art, not a science. That means that the process for advancing in one’s career is far too opaque and circumstantial.
I yearn for a future where we all share a single meritocratic framework to evaluate our career growth. The only way I can imagine us getting there is through increased transparency into the product-making process. We should be able to easily answer questions like: Who is actually responsible for the decisions behind that product? What is the impact of those decisions on the business and the design industry at large? We need a design historian of sorts.
What’s the one thing you have realized about design career paths that you don’t think a lot of people have?
I think a lot of people have thought about the tension between IC and management but we still have this model where we believe management is an evolution of your IC career — you design for a while and eventually become a manager. It’s actually pretty liberating when you realize that they’re two entirely different careers with different skillsets.
A manager’s “artifact” is their team and their goal is usually to amass and retain power. Like an IC’s iterates on Figma files, a manager iterates on teams and org structure. Instead of critiquing design, a manager strategically trades power with their peers based on their teams’ performance. To an IC, politics is an obstacle to be overcome to build a product. To a manager, politics is the product.
To an IC, politics is an obstacle to be overcome to build a product. To a manager, politics is the product.
And while politics is not necessarily a bad thing — just another product, what are we missing for those who are less interested in it?
We’re missing a viable path for people who are only interested in improving their craft. Designers climb from Junior to Staff levels and then hit a ceiling. Late-stage IC work tends to focus more on connecting dots by communicating ideas among cross-functional partners rather than execution. Once a designer reaches staff level, their impact gets diluted to weigh their soft skills over their craft.
I watched the Dieter Rams documentary titled “Rams” and don’t remember him talking about “soft skills” you know? He is a master of his craft and is celebrated because of it. In our field, we’ve somehow gotten used to looking down on execution. We roll our eyes at gradients and refer to “designing a button” as a diminutive. Don’t get me wrong: I love people skills, but our industry doesn’t really reward those who obsess over the details once you get above a certain level of seniority and push the craft forward. As a result, design has remained somewhat stagnant and we’ve traded real innovation in exchange for vapid trends every few years.
We’ve somehow gotten used to looking down on execution. We roll our eyes at gradients and refer to “designing a button” as a diminutive.
So, I think that we need to find a way to elevate people who are truly dedicated to the craft and get out of their way. In fact, enable them by providing the space, focus, and inspiration they need.
Learning where and how much energy to spend
What advice would you give to designers who are at a leadership level and want to keep focused on their craft?
- First, think long-term. No matter how trite it is, sometimes it’s useful to ask yourself the classic “where do I see myself in 5 years?” If the answer is something like “I’m Head of Design at X well-known company,” you’ll need a proven record of building and iterating on teams. If the answer is simply “I’m building products I love with people I care about” then make room in your lower back for that IC LYFE tattoo.
- Second, learn how to redirect excess energy. I usually expect my full-time job to satisfy my pay requirements, advance a mission I feel passionate about, and allow me to exercise my leadership and IC skills. That’s a tall order. Sometimes it is best to give your full-time job a certain part of you and redirect that energy elsewhere like freelancing, design advising, or moonlighting with early-stage startups.
- Third, ask yourself “How much is enough?” That’s something I struggle with as well. In an effort to always continue to improve, I sometimes forget to take a moment and enjoy what I’ve accomplished. Self-awareness is one of the hardest skills to master but if we properly invest in it we could discover that the hustler can’t-stop-won’t-stop culture is not for everyone. Reading Jenny Odell’s How To Do Nothing helped me realize that it’s okay to stop, take a breath, and reap what you’ve sowed.
Have you done your IC LYFE tattoo already?
You’ll have to join my private Patreon to find out ;)
Check Gabriel Valdivia’s work and writing on his portfolio and follow him on Twitter.
More about this series on craft.uxdesign.cc
