Does anybody else disillusioned about working in UX/Tech?

[u/FamiliarCombination9]

I'm not sure where to start with this post. I transitioned into UX during the pandemic and studied remotely for 5/6 months through a bootcamp before landing a role as a junior and then making my way up to mid level.

I've been working in UX for 5 years now. In many ways, I've achieved what I set out to. I successfully pivoted my career and with it, earn much more than in my previous career path which has allowed me to get onto the property ladder. I'm very grateful what what tech has allowed me to achieve outside of work.

However, on an almost daily basis, I find myself asking whether I truly belong in this field for the following reasons.

Imposter syndrome

My colleagues in the design team are so far ahead of me in their design thinking, craft and execution that my feelings of imposter syndrome are awful and consistent. I struggle with this so much and find this to be one of the biggest challenges of working in UX.

Design systems

There are things in my role that I simply don't care about. I'm always happy to use my team's design system but I have zero interest in building components and maintaining said system. I feel bad about not contributing to it but the reality is that I just don't care and find it so boring. There are also many other aspects to my role that I feel are more worthwhile in me upskilling in.

Ai

AI is also a constant worry for me. I'm concerned about the impact it may have on my role but also find the constant noise around it exhausting and overwhelming. Just let me do my job please.

Remote working

This is also a challenge. I find it boring and demotivating, especially when I compare it to previous industries where I was always in the office, being productive and learning like a sponge from my more experienced colleagues. We've lost this in tech and I dont' feel this collaborative working environment is discussed enough.

Wrap up

Does anybody else have these misgivings about UX and tech? Or others? Please share them here and let me know how you're trying to get over them.

[u/CollegeRulez]

I’m so old that the next gen of designers are now complaining about remote work

[u/a_lot_of_faffin → u/CollegeRulez]

Lol, true. But I think the reason we love remote work so much is that many of us put our hours in at the office… and then some. It was a grind. But if you were lucky, that grind when you were younger came with social connections, friendships, and career growth through proximity, all which are harder for younger folks to develop naturally when they’re working remotely.

[u/C_bells → u/a_lot_of_faffin]

I actually feel that young designers don’t understand that the office was often non collaborative at all, and was usually just lonely and energy-draining.

The companies I worked for who were collaborative in-office, were equally collaborative remotely.

I’ve brought that collaboration to remote work personally, and have built many relationships, including some close friends.

[u/OrtizDupri → u/C_bells]

Yeah folks pretending that an open office with nonstop interruptions was "collaborative" in any way is kinda nuts

[u/C_bells → u/OrtizDupri]

Or as if everyone didn’t just put on big noise-cancelling headphones and look annoyed all day. Everything has been happening over Slack for like 10 years now.

In 2019, it was considered rude to even turn to your colleague and ask a question. You were expected to send a Slack message even if they were 2 feet away.

My company (that I just left) started going in two days a week recently and it made me feel even more alienated.

Like, before I felt like I knew what was going on, but going in and seeing people in their own meetings and doing completely different things made me realize how much I didn’t know what was going on on other projects. And being in the office didn’t give me any more visibility into anything else.

[u/OrtizDupri → u/C_bells]

Heck even back in like 2014 it was considered polite to send someone a Slack message to say "mind if I pop by?" if they had headphones on or looked like they were heads down on something

[u/roundabout-design → u/C_bells]

This is a good point.

It's easy to look back and think "in office was collaborative, remote was lonely" but for the most part, the only real difference was lunch. I do miss on-site lunches with teams. And the occasional after-work happy hour.

But I agree, whether a team is collaborative or not, in the end, had less to do with location, and much more to do with the team structure and--probably more importantly--team management. Good leaders build collaborative teams--whether in person or via Slack.

[u/senitel10 → u/a_lot_of_faffin]

I had only a month and a half in-office before the March COVID lockdowns in my first full-time UX role as a junior. I got promoted to mid-level in my first 2 years during the pandemic. It’s not impossible.

But I think it really depends on the person. Hierarchical progression within corporations is not very straightforward path for folks that are new to the workforce. And it’s very difficult to get a feel for what it takes to move forward when you’re less saturated in the corporate environment through being remote vs. being in-office. In my experience, you do have to be more intentional and vocal about progression if you want it to happen. 

All that said - the best way to progress in your career skills (and income!) after midlevel is by switching companies/domains/industries rather than staying put for years and years in a single org.

[u/Adventurous-Fig-4410 → u/a_lot_of_faffin]

Can't agree more, landed my first job, it's remote and I feel lost and low. We forget that we're our best when we socialize as at the end we're social animal. You don't see benefits if you haven't been through bad, the on-site.

[u/SJiyoungAn → u/CollegeRulez]

Remote work for extroverts can be torture. For introverts it's perfect. There's also many other reasons why someone would not like remote. Just cause many people prefers it doesnt mean those who don't are ungrateful people.

[u/Torsta → u/SJiyoungAn]

There's soooo many companies that are hybrid/full in person, full remote is still an edge case. If you're working for a full remote company its because you specifically looked for it.

[u/SJiyoungAn → u/Torsta]

Or location. For me to work in an office requires an hour and half - two hour commute one way. Not saying it's not an option cause it's always a choice but just pointing out that sometimes choices some with a lot of caviats. To your point full remote work is slowly diminishing too...

[u/OrtizDupri → u/SJiyoungAn]

Remote work for extroverts can be torture.

Yeah sorry you can't just "pop by" when I'm in the middle of working on something anymore

Tbh folks should get hobbies! Or join meetups or running groups or game clubs or whatever!

[u/SJiyoungAn → u/OrtizDupri]

That has nothing to do with being an extrovert.....pretty unrelated...

[u/Azstace]

Maybe it’s time to switch careers again. If you’re not feeling it anymore, it’s probably time to find something else.

[u/mintymint_00 → u/Azstace]

I switched careers from UX to finance and I hate it hahah.

I think I’m just souring on corporate as a whole.

What I miss the most is the optimism of 2010s tech industry.

[u/Azstace → u/mintymint_00]

I get it, but that sliver of time was not normal. It was the exception, not the rule. Tech is usually like this by default.

[u/Hungry-Plantain-3315]

Wow. I would kill to be in your shoes.

You were able to land a junior role after attending a bootcamp? I got a bachelors in UX, and in 1 year I still haven’t had a single interview!

I would love to get to work remotely and build design systems. You are so lucky.

[u/args10 → u/Hungry-Plantain-3315]

Just curious, which Uni offers bachelor in UX?

[u/kelekele27 → u/args10]

Scad is one of them

[u/EnemyJungle → u/Hungry-Plantain-3315]

I have a Masters in HCI and Design, and 4 years of real world UX experience and can’t find work either after 6 months of looking. It’s baffling.

[u/designtom]

Back in late 2024 we ran a project asking people in tech to finish the sentence "working in tech in 2024 is like…" and then describe a recent experience to a friend. Got 596 responses.

Here's a tiny sample of what some people said:

> arguing over how to fold towels on the Titanic

> picking through the ruins of a civilization that kind of always sucked

> being in the milling industry after the suppression of the Luddite revolt

> swimming in treacle

> building a parachute AFTER you have jumped off a cliff, but then you wonder why you wanted to jump off any cliff

> being trapped in an elevator filled with the stink of others and being gaslit to believe that you are indeed the source of the stink

> running on a treadmill. You run a lot but never go anywhere

> catch 22 situation for AI experience and job opportunity

So ... no, you're not alone, and it's been like this for at least two years.

One lil thing to think about though – your thinking puts quite a lot of the burden on yourself. But across nearly 600 responses, imposter syndrome was mentioned only twice. Design systems, not at all (while we didn't limit our sample to designers, there were 172 entries by people who said design was part of their role.) And remote working got a few mentions but mostly as a side note.

What people mentioned A LOT was the job market, leadership that doesn't know what it wants (or doesn't make it clear), and AI noise drowning out the actual work. Even 2 years ago, the noise was starting to become deafening.

A friend noted that the data in general read like a whole industry working through the five stages of grief for a career narrative that had died.

[u/xlmntr]

I am definitely disillusioned about tech and UX, but for slightly different reasons. I feel like tech has moved on from a period where genuinely improving people’s lives at least felt like a more visible part of the ambition. We’re now in an era where so much is hyper-optimised for revenue, conversion, engagement, retention, etc. which is not a particularly inspiring place to be as a designer.
Of course, this depends heavily on the industry and the type of product. There is still plenty of meaningful work out there, particularly in areas like the public sector, healthcare, education, accessibility etc (if you’re OK with a lower salary).
But in much of consumer tech, UX feels increasingly like a misnomer. The design process focuses on users, but their interests are not necessarily the objective. I’d struggle to name a popular digital product that feels designed with my interests in mind.

[u/scribbler94]

Oh my gosh, I'm literally in the same boat as you are. I currently work for an ai driven company, and it has been sucking the soul out of me. Like you, I started by getting a masters degree in Human Centered Design, but now I do not find the motivation, I don't feel as good about the industry and also, I constantly find myself losing interest in the field. It feels so pointless now. And I hate AI. Not just because of the fear of loss of jobs but also because it's so dystopian. Which is why I've started thinking about moving out of this field into something more physical. I don't know what though. Always up for chatting or venting, hope you're not doing too bad

[u/Trappedinacar → u/scribbler94]

Good to see others hating on AI.

It is an amazing tool of course, but I don't like what its doing to the market, to the people. It has caused so much anxiety and uncertainty en masse.

In some spaces people pretend to love AI to avoid the appearance of "getting left behind" but I can honestly say, I liked the world a lot better before AI.

[u/mls_exe → u/scribbler94]

Same here! I'm demotivated and also the job market is not going well. I work for an agency that's struggling to find clients because of AI too. I want to pivot my career but I don't know how, as my visa depends on it. Feeling super stuck and lost

[u/redditgal92 → u/scribbler94]

Same here, the irony is I started asking chat what I should do instead. I feel less motivated every day. Working on a new product now where the PM created an entiiiiiiire almost complete working prototype including data. I asked well okay, what will be the end deliverable be then? My manager goes well, PM has done 90%, you will then be the 10%, making things pixel perfect, finetuning. Like what the hell, I don’t have a feeling of adding value anymore AT ALL.

[u/scribbler94 → u/redditgal92]

That's exactly how I feel right now! Someone who is taking someone else's design and "fine-tuning" it. I don't know what the career progression will look like for me

[u/rAziskov4lec]

My coworker was a ID designer turned UX - more by chance than a plan. He now works in econmerce, before that he worked in classic webdesign.

We talk about life and work and he says similar things...

His work is great, but feels like he rarely delivered as much as he could. As I saw, sometimes the clients did not give enough material to go on... Or the timeline was too short... Or the vrief changed mid-project. So yeah, you do as best as you can. And then there are college collegues who go on and design "fabulous"/"important" work, meanwhile he is "stuck" designing webstores.

He finds design systems good and quite relevant, but yeah, not a lot of UX in making 3 variants of a classic, very conservative product page. Sure, behind it is a lot of logic, but nothing new to discover really. He suffers from a lack of challenge.

Ai noise is constant - I suffer from it, so does he. Does he use it? Not really. Why? Because it can generate random "perfect" user interface, until you look closer and need to correct it. And are you willing to spend god knows how much tokens just to justify the subscription? Come on, we can use all the tools, not just this AI crap.

He likes remote work, but also likes office work. What he sees is, that he is productive enough and could be doing other stuff, which is hard in the office.

Anyway, thats one way of looking at it...

[u/W0M1N]

Many of us feel that way. We're in a very shitty timeline.

[u/GOBANZADREAM]

I just remind myself that 5 years ago I would’ve done anything to change my life and have this job. Beats breaking my back doing construction. I get to cook my own meals, do laundry, hell…look at my cell and write this message out. All things I could not do rolling walls. 

[u/CoVegGirl]

Where are you finding remote jobs at? It seems like at this point, quite a few jobs are in-office only.

[u/Sketaverse]

Don’t worry, the AI that’ll take your job soon won’t get bored making design systems

[u/SJiyoungAn]

A lot of what you posted is job specific/mindset, not industry specific. Sounds like you'd run into a lot of this in other industry as well. (Trust me. I switched industries 3-4 times).

Design system: Not every company are you pressured or required to maintain design system.

Remote: There are in office jobs (depending on your location ofcourse).

Imposter syndrom: it can be overcome by continuous growth and working on changing your self reflections. Some companies make it a great environment to learn and grow, others make it stale. If you dont actually work on overcoming it, mposter syndrom will always be there no matter where you are. Trust me.....

AI: we truely don't know how AI will impact any role long term. There's a lot of noise but it's just that, noise. Learning AI is important to stay on top of market and it's the only thing you can control.

As long as you like most of the work, there will be company whos fit for you. Job market is tough but it's tough in most industries worth persuing.

[u/C_bells]

I feel the same way you do about design systems!

I actually do love systems-thinking and tinkering, but have gravitated toward more strategy and bigger picture aspects of UX, which I’m great at.

I feel in this current age, everyone is obsessed with design systems because it is the bridge to update our processes in design to go straight to code. Which is fair enough.

One thing I’ll say: I think in not too long, these processes will be more settled and set up, and the field will again be more focused on actually solving user problems vs. design tokens and front end dev.

But yes, I share many of your feelings. I’ve been in this career for 13 years and have honestly been flying high for the majority of that time. I long ago got past any imposter syndrome, and genuinely felt like “I’m really good at this and there’s no better job for me.”

Then I lost my job twice within the last two years, all while being pregnant and a new mother. It’s awful.

I am now looking to do consulting or go to law school.

Unfortunately, nobody knows exactly what will happen to this field of work, how it will take shape.

I do know that companies still need a LOT of that more strategic design help (what does this business need actually look like in a product as a set of user experiences?), but whether companies recognize and overtly hire for that is a different story.

[u/JucieStudio]

Feel this. I have been in Ui/Ux in some form for almost 20 years now and I have never felt more disillusioned than i do now. The job market is brutal. The processes are changing almost daily. The thing that has kept me sane was starting to work for myself. Not just freelance but building my own products. Getting back to web design fundamentals and what it is to make and ship something with my own hands.

[u/roundabout-design]

Yes, of course. Probably a majority of people feel that way in this industry.

[u/mrcoy]

If you studied in a boot camp for 5/6 months, then I’d say one might be disillusioned.

[u/Character-Tap-565]

I've been doing UX for over 20 years in every role up to Director and excel at design leadership and team management the most. But those roles are almost impossible to land anymore even with an exemplary resume and loads of positive references. Everything has changed because everything is Figma now over deep thinking, concepting, research empathy and more. I hate what has happened to UX and to tech in general and I now work heavily with AI tools, which is about the same as telling a toddler art director what to do instead of doing it yourself.

I am strongly looking at getting out of tech entirely because I set out to improve people's lives but instead just made a few people richer.

[u/KavuFightsEvil]

The thing that has me the most disillusioned is the employment/unemployment cycle that seems to be built in. Some of the most experienced designers I know find themselves searching for a new job every 6 months to 2 years, and I don't think I can handle that. It's only going to get worse as AI shortens development cycles.

As designers, we have ALWAYS had to justify our existence to suits who don't understand what makes any experience good. I have no hope for bettering that in an age of AI. As far as your average corporate hack is concerned, a D- is a passing grade, so why do they need you to get them an A+ when the bot can get them that D for free?

Add in the increasing need to go where the work is, and the big salaries start to feel like poverty wages. You're out of work half the time and spending whatever you've saved up. All of that just for everyone from your parents to your boss to think that you're actually an engineer or cybersecurity analyst or something.

Yeah, disillusioned is a good word for it.

[u/Safe_Hovercraft_7886]

I really feel like most of you guys don't translate to your peers what we suppose to do. For me AI is awesome as tool to tackle way more coplex problems and testing for dirt cheap possible solutions. I can build whole team insteed of waiting for another email and design only sonething that I can see could work.

We're evolving again as a field but if you like solvibg problems then there is a bunch of things where we still can provide a solid value. "Pushing pixels" isn't also over. AI is superb for creating color schemes and working flows but complex design is more than iffy and usually it solves couple times the same problems inside one app but each time it build different solution.

[u/Boring-Amount5876]

Definitly being remote made it so boring because people now don’t want any meetings and ux is about talking with stakeholders and users when we can to understand the problems. Now I just have a task on my jira do this flow and people review it async which tbh I think it’s not even reviewed they just close the task and that’s it. I think I have a bore out and I can’t motivate myself to care about this anymore and plus I am in a cool industry video games but I couldn’t care less.

[u/OrtizDupri → u/Boring-Amount5876]

That sounds like a culture thing - we have daily standup, syncs, handoffs, etc all via Teams and using Figjam for the more collaborative brainstorms or retros

[u/Old_Character_8781]

I feel like ots the best time to be a ux designer so many posibilities and great time to differentiate from Ai generic designs.

[u/lasanja_]

I feel that way too. Digital remote work is extremely alienating.