Design Career Panel Wrap Up - How to Get In? How to Grow?

Karthi: Self-taught Designer vs University graduate. How does hiring differ?
Vasudha: For self-taught designers, side projects are a must to stand out from the crowd. You have to show that you’re self-motivated to get your word out. When hiring managers are scanning portfolios, they’re looking for something that can stand out. Before applying, read about the company and make changes based on the company. If you’re a Product Designer, it doesn’t make sense to have some creative design in your portfolio. Any hiring manager has 2-3 seconds to scan through your portfolio. So, your portfolio is your product which you’re designing for the end user who happens to be the hiring manager. If you have this knack, you’re way ahead of the curve and your chances of getting a call back from the company increases manifold. 

Karthi: How do you move from an Individual Contributor to a Design Leader? How do you handle teams and adapt?
Ramesh: Whether you’re an executive or a manager, you should be true to your roots in design. As you move up the ladder, it becomes easy for you to lose touch with design and that shouldn’t happen. It’s akin to an orchestrator; he/she does not play an instrument but your job is to make sure the orchestra performs well. Your responsibility is to provide guidance as people execute things. Start doing all these things and then you’ll know if you’re better off as an Individual Contributor or a Team Leader. 

Karthi: How are things changing with the pandemic? 
Stu: At Atlassian, we were already remote before the pandemic with just 60 out of 220 working out of an office. We had our remote working processes already. For teams forced to work remotely, it’s all about adopting a few best practices to mimic the collaboration that would usually happen while working out of an office. For us, we’re using Figma to collaborate and Miro to ideate new designs. Finding the right collaboration tools and leveraging them is key.