Leading with Craft
To retain designers, companies should enable them to grow — Jess Eddy
Interview with Jess Eddy about her career path as a freelancer and individual contributor in startups.
Leading with Craft is a limited series of articles where we shed a light on stories of designers with successful careers as individual contributors. We have noticed an abundance of resources out there for designers switching careers to management, but a gap for those who want to continue to focus on their craft.
This series highlights professionals (such as Jess Eddy) who never let their seniority move them away from what made them great in the first place: their practice, their passion, and their craft.
Jess Eddy is a Product Design Lead and the creator of UI Goodies. She honed her product-building skills and process through working as an independent designer for almost six years in New York City, before moving to Australia.
We interviewed Jess to learn more about her path to becoming a lead designer while keeping her hands always on her craft.
Being hands-on
UX Collective: At what point did you realize you wanted to stay on the individual contributor track, and not follow the managerial path?
Jess: I don’t know if I ever made a conscious decision to stay on an individual contributor track. I just always gravitated towards positions in start-ups and scrappy projects as I enjoy building something from nothing and getting my hands dirty through being involved in the nitty-gritty details of starting and growing a business.
I also freelanced for a long time, so I didn’t work for any company in any role, but I did contract mainly for start-up companies and individuals trying to get their idea off the ground.
I enjoy building something from nothing and getting my hands dirty through being involved in the nitty-gritty details of starting and growing a business
When I started my career, I had a couple of bad experiences in the workplace (poor and unkind/insensitive management). I was also young and very idealistic! This experience turned me off to work for someone else, so I transitioned to working for myself.
I was also very eager at this time in my life to do things my way and use the knowledge and experience I’d gained up to that point to run my own projects and collaborate with people and clients directly. I enjoyed this aspect of the work.
What I missed by choosing this path is being around and learning from other designers and product thinkers as well as working a more structured, hierarchical framework. What I gained was confidence from being successful at what I personally set out to achieve.
Creating your own opportunities
What were some of the challenges you have faced?
Honestly, in hindsight, I do have some regrets about the path I took but in the end, it’s impossible to know if a different path would be a better one. Over the years, I’ve been able to push myself to become a better designer. Still, I do feel like I lost out on the opportunity to have the kinds of experiences you get when you work on larger design teams or products with thousands upon thousands of customers. Although I still don’t work on a large design team, I have gone back to working on small product teams for tech companies in the past few years.
I’ve been in the industry as a product designer for quite some time, and I’m still in the role of a product designer. This can sometimes feel limiting and figuring out how to evolve into the next version of yourself, challenging. I sometimes think about if transitioning to a managerial path is the next thing I should do, but the other train of thought and questions I ask are, how can I have more of an impact doing what I already do. How can I focus on decreasing friction in the product or customer experience and bring more value to the organization? Sometimes opportunities for growth or achievement are presented to you, and sometimes you must seek them out.
How can I have more of an impact doing what I already do? (…) Sometimes opportunities for growth or achievement are presented to you, and sometimes you must seek them out.
I’m not sure if the managerial path would be right for me, and I wouldn’t know until I do it. I do care about people a lot, their experience in the workplace, and if they are set up for success and can grow and reach their personal goals. I worry though that a managerial role won’t allow for the time it takes to be a good manager. I think there’s a lot of learning you do on the job to become competent, and most managers are busy with many other aspects of the work. I’d want to dedicate the time it takes to not only manage but also get better at managing, and I feel that many companies only give you the time to manage, and becoming better is an aspect handled in your personal time. I don’t believe it’s fair to be a manager and do it poorly as managers directly impact the livelihood of people they lead, so I wouldn’t want to do it unless I could do it right. I also don’t want to be consumed by my work or a job, balance is essential to me, and I have concerns about the managerial track being exhausting and all-consuming.
Moving forward, how do you see your career path evolving in the next few years? What keeps you up at night?
How do I see my career path evolving is a great question, and I think about this a lot! I don’t have the answer myself yet, but I know that I crave some novelty, new experiences, learning new things, being challenged, and a path to personal growth. What role will offer these things, I’m not sure.
One beautiful thing about being a product designer is in your life you can work in many different domains, and you can learn a lot by doing that. But I (and others) probably put a lot of pressure on a job to be incredibly fulfilling in the ways I mentioned above. In reality, maybe we need to lower our expectations and not expect so much from work. I routinely struggle with this paradigm. Having such expectations is, in part, why I work on personal projects, so I can get some value, meaning, and reward from something other than my full-time job.
One beautiful thing about being a product designer is in your life you can work in many different domains, and you can learn a lot by doing that
What keeps me up at night is pondering how our profession will change in the next ten years and wondering if I’ll want to remain in the industry. Or what if I, at some point, I don’t enjoy product design as much as I do now.
Technology evolves so rapidly now, it’s hard to tell exactly how our industry will change, but I think it’s safe to say that it won’t stay the same. There’s an underlying uncertainty that comes along with that sentiment, and it’s a reminder–for me anyway–that we can’t hold too tightly onto anything. On the flip side, emerging and evolving technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence will create new, exciting opportunities for designers. I think these opportunities will make the old debate around “should designers code,” feel antiquated.
Job security is something I’ve never worried about before, but the recent global health pandemic and economic meltdown bring these concerns a little closer to home. I’m sure whatever happens though, I’ll adapt, that’s what we do as humans.
As a different career path, I’m interested in helping new creatives become better designers and navigating their careers. What shape and form that will take, I’m not entirely sure yet.
What are some of the challenges you see in our industry for those who want to continue to grow but not take a management position?
I think many of the challenges for people in our industry who want to continue to grow but not take a management position are around the “how": being a manager is not the only path to growth, but it’s a very distinct path. One of the biggest challenges is for the companies themselves; to figure out how they can enable growth for designers on small teams or individual contributors. It’s especially hard in start-ups where the business’s primary focus is about becoming profitable, stable, and viable. My experience in this scenario is that companies have good intentions, but no time or wherewithal to help employees grow. That puts pressure on the individual to take growth into their own hands, but as we all know, it’s much easier to learn by doing, so it makes sense to integrate your growth goals into your work. For example, it’s one thing to take a class on designing for conversion; it’s another thing to take that class and implement your learnings on the job.
I think one of the biggest challenges is for the companies themselves; to figure out how they can enable growth for designers on small teams or individual contributors.
Companies already know that it’s hard to retain good, talented people. Perks are great, but they’re not a sustainable method of retention. I do believe most people want to evolve and become better, and companies that can help employees do that will have a better chance of retaining them in the long-term.
Another challenge for people in our industry is figuring out in what direction they want to grow or evolve; what new skills do you want to learn, what appeals to you as an individual, what will you be good at, and is there a place for this in your current role. If not, what does a different position, in possibly a different company for you look like?
Job roles tend to be still relatively black and white; there’s not a lot of blending. Sometimes you can carve out a niche or adapt your role, but not always.
I think it’s helpful to keep in mind that anything really is possible with enough practice and effort. You can create opportunities in your own life if you want something badly enough and are willing to put in the work.
Finding mentors to grow
When you first started leading design projects, where did you find mentorship to keep growing?
When I started leading design projects on my own, I was working for myself. I was very focused on the process, working with clients, and delivering an excellent customer experience for them. I did a lot of workshops to engage groups of people and get the group’s best knowledge and input to incorporate into the work.
I did reach a point in my career where I was not satisfied with the quality of my work, and I wanted to be better. I spent some time resetting my personal bar and set my expectations of myself higher, and I focused on the work I did on reaching that bar.
Having tried different methods of improvement over the years, the one I believe works best is having a mentor or some means of obtaining feedback. I’ve had different types of mentors, ones that helped me improve at validating business ideas and ones that helped me get better at something specific thing like visual design. As you evolve as a designer, you find that you want to improve at different aspects of design at different points in your career.
I even recently picked up photography, and I can say that getting just a little bit of feedback from a professional photographer, followed by practice, greatly improved my photography.
I also have an excellent friend (hey, Brian!) who is a designer, and I routinely ask him for feedback on my work. As an individual contributor and one of the only designers in my organization, I need a sounding board and feedback on my work. I don’t think it matters how experienced you are or how long you’ve been doing the work, we all benefit from feedback.
I don’t think it matters how experienced you are or how long you’ve been doing the work, we all benefit from feedback.
Finding a mentor can be hard, becoming part of the design community makes it more accessible. Some mentors I met through education that I pursued or workshops I did. Other mentors were willing to work with me from a cold email.
How different is being an individual contributor in a leadership position in a start-up versus in a more established company?
As an individual contributor in an established (and larger company), you might have more support and opportunity to specialize. For example, in an established company as an individual contributor, you might be an Interaction Designer. At a start-up as an individual contributor, interaction design might be part of what you do, not all of what you do.
As an individual contributor in a start-up, like many in that setting, you do many different things. Your job role might be more loosely defined than in a larger organization. The environments are very different too. I think the irony is that although “manager” may not be in your title in a start-up, you’re doing a lot of it! You’re probably, to some extent, managing projects, and a lot of expectations surrounding the work you’re doing and when it will get done. You might even be working towards success or growth metrics set by the company, there’s quite a bit of hustle.
Although “manager” may not be in your title in a start-up, you’re doing a lot of it
Concerning work styles, when you work in a start-up, there is usually so much that the company wants to get done, and it can feel like you’re working against the clock. Sometimes the work can feel rushed or like you don’t have enough time to spend on it. Maybe everyone everywhere feels rushed, but when I talk to my friends in larger organizations, I see that teams sometimes spend months on a piece of work and elaborate testing throughout the process. In start-ups, you tend to ship more frequently; your personal work style may mean you’re more suitable for one environment over the other.
You mentioned that being a manager requires a different set of skills, but I can imagine that being an IC lead might need different skills from someone who is not a lead yet. How do you see their work changing?
I think as an individual contributor, you must learn how to work with different people in the business and remember that you are also sometimes a teacher and facilitator. Sometimes your job is to explain and guide. For example, as an individual contributor, you may work with different Product Managers on different projects. Each Product Manager might work with designers differently so you may have to help define the right process for working together.
Specific differences between designers and ones who are individual contributors depend on your level of experience and how much you’re willing to lean into not just producing work but facilitating and impacting the process. Individual contributors may find themselves doing more facilitation, development of frameworks, and leading and driving.
It’s the difference between working within an already established process and developing the process in which in you; between attending and contributing to a meeting and designing the format of and leading the meeting; between communicating the rationale of your design decisions and using storytelling to persuade, build trust, communicate and create alignment within a group. (Peter Merholz has done some great work in designing a framework for this!)
Everyone, including managers, have a responsibility to communicate well. So much of what we do at work can be positively impacted by how well we articulate problem spaces and solutions.
Follow Jess on Twitter.
More about this series:
