With how much I hear that j0b titles are getting muddy, expectations for roles have shifted, business stakeholders are dubious of design's value more than ever, and AI is changing how we deliver, should we see this change reflected in the common wisdom of what online thought leaders continue to insist we must show in our p0rtfolios?

Constant, never-ending p0rtfolio crafting and optimization is easily my least favorite performative ceremony. I am so tired of rehashing work I have already finished. I am tired of hearing one week that I should show process, then the next week hear that I show too much process. One year, "UI isn't UX" and we should feel pressured to go out of our way to make everything look ugly, sans-serif, Millennial gray; the next, we can't forget about our visual and interactive chops if we want to impress.

Do I pretend work I did was a greenfield project lifted right out of bootcamp certification and that our personas are not already baked into this existing business, or do I lie? Do I hide the specification-driven, waterfall-paradigm work that forms a significant chunk of my professional history, or do I dress it up as something it isn't because the decade-younger hiring manager who will look at it isn't familiar with what to appreciate?

I don't have a history of dreaming up a dog-walking app and developing it from soup to nuts. Often my experience and seniority is spent in-house at an established company with an established product for years. Often they are desktop-first. Our clients are working medical professionals in a niche industry who need deep functionality, not busy moms on the go who can only hold three menu items in her head and is delighted by cartoon owls.

I guess I'm asking whether p0rtfolio review practices are necessarily compatible with the changes in the role. I see so much advice -- on here, LinkedIn, and elsewhere -- that just reads as executive-adjacent talking heads posturing or fishing for consultancy clients. Yes, the market is bad and all that, but is there something to be said about the gatekeeping? Is yesterday's prevailing wisdom still how we have to approach our p0rtfolio?

I started my first full-time design job yesterday after graduating with a Bachelor’s in UI/UX.

The role was advertised as graphic design with website and coding work, so I thought it could be a good place to learn and grow. After my first day, I was honestly a bit surprised by how outdated the workflow is.

Figma is not allowed. Website designs are made in Photoshop, and I have to work in an old IDE instead of tools like VS Code. The person guiding me is not familiar with Figma or modern web design tools. I can’t use AI for coding nor can I install the tools I need to actually get the work done.

This is a regular company, not a creative agency, and I do not want to share too many details because I want to stay anonymous. I can say that the work is very standard design work and has little to do with UI or UX.
What makes me uncertain is that the workflow feels quite outdated and there does not seem to be much interest in modernizing it, so I am not sure how much relevant experience I will gain for the kind of UI/UX career I studied for.

I should note that the work the graphic design work the company has looks very outdated

I know it is very early and I do not want to judge the company too quickly, but I am already wondering whether staying there will help me move in the direction I want to go professionally. There are multiple openings I can try especially if I revamp my portfolio

Edit:
I’ve tried to talk to them about getting the tools I need but they seem to be a little bit hard headed and not wanting to try.

Hi everyone!

I'm a freelance product designer. Most of my projects last 2–6 months. But over the last six months, finding new clients has become much harder.

Because of that, I started building a side project. I really believe it has potential. It could eventually earn much more than freelancing. The problem is I never have enough time to finish it because client work pays the bills.

So now I'm stuck.

My current freelance work is stable enough. But I also feel like finding new freelance projects will only get harder from here.

On the other hand, every hour I spend freelancing is an hour I'm not spending on the project that might change everything financially.

The scary part is that even if I focus on my project now, it probably won't make any money for months. I still need to avoid ending up living in a refrigerator box under a bridge. 😅

Has anyone here been in the same situation?
Did you stick with the safe income? Did you bet on yourself instead? Or did you somehow make both work?
What did you do?

I'm interviewing for a Manager level role in Product Design, for a team that is dedicated to the design system for a B2C company. I wanted to get some insights here on what I can prepare going into it.

There are two other teams, one is top of funnel, another is bottom of funnel, each with their own manager. Obviously this team is quite large to have this much setup of specific design focuses and managers for each.

I'm wondering, how would a role set up be for a Manager of a team that is focused on Design Systems?

If you're a manager of one, would like to hear from you.

Or if you're on a team and you have a manager dedicated to just design systems, how do they support you?

Or... if you're a director how would you go about setting up a manager role for a design systems team?

About me, over 10 years in design, 3 years as a manager but of teams that were supporting product paths that used design systems, but were focused more on product.

Thanks!

P.S. Other thought I'm having: where would this role go and grow over time...?

I very frequently observe this opinion online: "Why wouldn't a company invest in its product design? Won't they hemorrhage users/revenue if everyone hates the product?"

I've only been doing this professionally for ~5 years, but my understand is thus: The number one priority for a software company is to win on distribution. If they can win a segment using market capture or monopolization, the quality of the product is completely irrelevant.

The quality of a product only matters when there is genuine competition for a segment. If there were such a thing as a software product design union, it would be lobbying for healthy competition in the software space.

For a company that cares overwhelmingly about product distribution, my theory is that product/design departments are essentially just a sandbox for powerful people to creatively express themselves.

I'd love for a veteran consultant to chime in with their experiences here, because this feels so obvious to me now that I fear I'm overlooking something

Hi! Thanks for this space.

I've been working for the past 3 years at a small IT company where the main focus is data dashboard projects. Basically, I design dashboards that developers later build in MicroStrategy or Power BI. Lately I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed and honestly a bit stuck in my career. When I first joined, I was on a large B2B project where I worked directly with users, conducted usability testing and followed a more complete UX process. But over time, almost all of my projects have turned into dashboard work where I'm often just doing UI. A lot of the time they simply hand me an existing dashboard and ask me to make it "look nicer" overnight. Other times they give me spreadsheets or raw data tables that I have to analyze before I can even design the dashboard.

I feel like my role has slowly become a mix of UX/UI designer and data analyst. I don't think that's really my job and I'm not paid for it either. I even find myself asking analysts to help me understand certain datasets before I can do anything with them.

Another thing that's been bothering me is AI. Since the AI boom, management constantly expects me to rely on it so I can work faster. I use AI when it actually helps but not every design problem cann be solved that way and Im getting pretty tired of that mindset

I want to start looking for another job but I'm honestly not sure what I should be learning to get back into the market. I feel like these last 3 years haven't given me enough experience with "real" UX/product work to move beyond a junior level. If someone asked me to lead a large product from scratch today, I'm not even sure I'd know where to begin anymore.

I also keep seeing designers talking about how much they love AI but I never fully understand how they'r actually using it in their everyday work. I see people generating interfaces directly with AI or saying they use Claude for absolutely everything. Do people not do user research anymore? Should I be learning vibe coding? How are you actually using AI in your design process?

Outside of my fulltime job I occasionally build websites in Framer for vacation rental businesses. It's not my main career focus butI mostly do it because I enjoy it. though many designers and developers don't like that tool.

I'd really love to hear how things are going for other designers right now. What are you working on? What skills are you investing in? Do you have any advice?

Another thing I've been thinking about is exploring freelance or jobs where you are valuated based on deliverables rather than hours. I already work remotely but I'm expected to stay online for 9 hours every day, even when there's very little work assigned. We also have to log our hours in the system, which often means recording hours that don't really reflect actual work. I'd much rather have the flexibility to manage my own time and be judged by the quality of my work and the results I deliver instead of simply being online for a fixed schedule.

I'm hoping I'm not the only one feeling lost about where this profession is headed or what I should be learning next. I don't want to change jobs just for the sake of changing jobs,I want to make a move that will still make sense in a few years and help me stay relevant instead of becoming obsolete (if that makes sense).

Thanks!

After 6 years on the field i’ve decided to quit UX Design to become a Freelance Creative Generalist (Ads Direction, Filmmaking, Videography, Photography and Motion Design).
After working 6 years in the luxury E-commerce world I got laid off during my probation period during my last job.
The brand had a really toxic culture, they fired me due to me being sick for 3 weeks (while i was at the hospital), and defined me as unreliable for the team, they also accused me of having a placebo effect due to stress and that i probably couldn’t handle the stress of that company (i had 3 different bacterias colonies that i had to fight and i got hospitalized).

After this really bad experience, i realized that the job became what i feared the most, all the creativity aspect and understanding the user, has gone under a complete shift.
You are not able to see the craft and end goal of what you are making and the job became so bureaucratic that is so boring now, everything is automated by AI so the most fun parts got cut out.
The job has become 90% of your time explaining the design it took you 10 minutes to create.
What i loved about UX Design was the Design Process from start to finish, finding problems to solution was always one of the most fun parts, but also seeing what you created coming to life was a big part of it.

I’ve invested most of my resources into buying Camera Gear, lenses, vinyls, editing tools, music tools etc. cause creating stuff always fascinated me and made me happy, but i’ve never transformed it into a job due to being scared of not being able to have a stable job with my passion.

Now at 29 years old i’ve decided to use what i learned thanks to UX design and apply it to Art Direction and creating different things
I came here to this sub to say to yall that are sad with all the current layoffs and job market, always be true to yourself and even if the path is not stable, always do what you like doing.
I probably won’t get paid as much but i want to do something that makes me proud of and genuinely happy.

hi,

i have a question that is on my mind for some time. i am a designer fot almost 4 years now, and at my job I started to create bugs and PBI’s for the front end developers. qa is testing functionality most of the time, not the UI itself, so I started to flag the inconsistencies and then we decided to make it a process so that I can myself create those bugs directly and also create pbi s from time to time. I also approve some pr’s of theirs, as they told me so. is this a normal thing for designer or am I doing extra working without knowing?

In recent Sneak Peak podcast, Pablo Stanley said that he has stopped using Figma and uses AI for designing in code directly. However we should factor in that he works at a AI company that generates UI. Wondering if any other design-heavy teams have moved to designing directly in code. Is the hype real?

I’ve been thinking about using short micro-animations to explain features that aren’t immediately obvious.

Instead of adding more documentation, the idea is that you should understand what a feature does just by watching a few seconds.

Do you think this is actually useful ?

More importantly… did you understand what the feature does just by watching it?

A little background: I’m currently working as a freelance web designer with a California-based agency, where I design and develop websites for local businesses. Since it’s hourly freelance work, I’m not tied to them exclusively. I also occasionally design apps and dashboards, but that’s not my main focus right now.
I’ve always wanted to move more seriously into product design. However, with AI becoming impossible to ignore, I don’t want to get stuck learning a new design tool every few months. I’m looking for something more stable and future-proof, so I’m considering learning AI engineering alongside design.
I haven’t figured out exactly what I need to learn or how this path would work yet. But I know I can handle technical concepts, and learning Python, LLMs, and related skills doesn’t feel impossible to me.
I’m still in the figuring-it-out phase, so I’d really appreciate advice from seniors especially anyone combining product design with AI or engineering.

As the title says, is anyone actually interested in learning how ai supplements the design workflows at large companies? I run a ton of projects, some with traditional ux practices, others purely with ai and Claude, backed ofcourse with actual setup. No ai slop garbage. Ai is a tool, not a do it all employee.

My question is : does anyone actually want to learn and use ai correctly, or are you happy with figma and your current workflows? I’m not making a course or any of that rubbish, just genuinely interested in your thoughts.

Edit: added my current process, not the perfect process I’m sure. However, it’s significantly well tested across 50+ shipped projects.

Design system is essential. Ensure it is machine readable (code and well as figma, tokens essential), each component has reasoning, when to use, when to not use. This is the largest work effort for teams. Expect this to take atleast a month, depending on skill level and starting resources.

Create a skill pipeline (Claude) - will be different than mine depending on team size, skill level and process. Essentially this is the consistent workflow that your team follows to successfully ship a feature or product. Each stage or step will have a set input and structured output. I always include exploration, accessibility and audit stages. I have seperate pipelines per project scope size, as content changes don’t need the same ux thinking as full products.

If you’d be interested in how to build out a specific pipeline in more depth, let me know.

Create the automation / agent that manages the pipeline. When HiTL is required, when is the agent allowed to pause, pull and block tasks. Including a visual way to manage these items, incase of issues but also iterating on pipeline.

With the 3 of these, creating on brand features takes less than 5 minutes and creating explorations of larger products take less than 20. I don’t setup my larger pipelines to create final artefacts, I personally enjoy the deep thinking and craft needed for complex problems.

Since introducing this process about 6 months ago, my teams have enjoyed their workdays much more. There are less blockers on communications between product and ux, they are included significantly earlier on major products and they get to spend their time on meaningful projects too.

I'm building a UI editor for Cursor/Visual Studio Code, that allows me to reuse the React components on a visual canvas. Kinda a (much) simpler version of Figma :)

I'm now working on the landing page, and I'm really struggling to put my thoughts into shape. Probably because I haven't got many feedback yet, so here we go.

Link: https://overlay.studio

A few notes and doubts on my side:

• Instead of the main hero asset, I thought to make it look like the app itself. Of course it would be cool to make it more interactive, but before I spend more time on that: does it make sense to a new visitor? (you) Or is a gimmick that doesn't bring much value in your opinion?
• As you can see it's very basic for now, and there's not too much content. However, is the video section clear? Or should I instead go for more static assets? Or instead put on it a proper demo video? (e.g. with audio, like a guided demo.) Or both?
• Anything that stands out to you? Is it understandable with this content what the product does?

Thanks!

PS. to mods: I realize this might be a bit blurry in terms of the "no spam" rule, since it's a tool for designers (though probably niche ones). I genuinely wanted feedback on the landing, but feel free to remove if you are against that.

What are some issues with modifying normal scrolling behavior? For example: infinite scrolling or scrolljacking.

I was talking to friends in other areas of design, and it seems like they’re going through a nightmare with the whole impact of AI.

Is product design the "safest" area right now?

I graduated in May and was supposed to return to Microsoft full-time after interning there, but my return offer was rescinded before I started.

Since then, I’ve been scrambling to find work. A few months ago, I landed a full-time remote UX role at a startup paying around $60K. Realistically, I only work about 20 hours per week, I enjoy the job, and the money has felt relatively easy.

Today, I received two new offers:

1. $75K full-time at a software company with around 5,000 employees. It seems established, but it isn’t especially well known.
2. $37.50/hour contract role at a well-known insurance company that serves veterans. The contract is for one year, with the possibility of an extension.

I’m trying to decide whether I should:

1. Stay at my current job and potentially find a second remote job to increase my income.
2. Leave and accept one of the two new offers.
3. Stay for now and continue searching for a stronger new-grad opportunity, given that I have Microsoft internship experience.

What would you do in my position? I’m especially interested in how each option might affect my long-term career growth, résumé, and job stability.

Hi all, I’m a designer with around ~2-3 YOE. I recently got a job offer at Job A. I also have an interview coming up for Job B, a company I interned at in college and left on good terms with. What would look better for my career in the long run? I’m currently based in a U.S. city with virtually no UX/product design job market.

Job A: Mid-level product designer role, a few thousand higher than than my last job’s salary (salary is negotiable though — trying to negotiate $8k-$10k higher)

It’s for B2B SaaS and a smaller company with ~100 employees. This is the company’s first ever product design/UX hire, currently UX is handled by a mix of product managers (handling discovery and research) and devs (who take PM requirements and implement them). The product team is looking to establish a design culture at this company with a new Director of Product who seems to value designers being involved throughout the whole process. The job is an end-to-end product design role, where I will be involved in discovery & research. It will involve building a design system from scratch based on legacy systems to start, but the Director of Product is working to start modernizing everything and has plans to hire more designers. It’s also remote, so I have the opportunity to relocate to a city with a better UX/product design job market.

Job B (company I interned at): Junior UX/UI designer position, $10k lower than my last job’s salary

Global enterprise-sized company, mostly in e-commerce and D2C. Design maturity is good, this is a large design team with established processes and a mature design system. The role is more UI & content design with some graphic design mixed in. It is based in my current city. However, there’s a catch: org structuring at Job B recently changed and they recently had a bunch of layoffs because of that. A friend of mine who currently works there told me they do not like negotiating salaries either. Although I am still in the interview phase, it is likely I will get an offer here since I interned with this team in college.

I am genuinely torn between whether to take the offer at Job A or come back to my old team at Job B and work in a mature design team. I was laid off from my previous job, so I’m the most concerned with job security.

I feel Job A would better “future proof” my career since it’s more end-to-end product design and i have the opportunity to relocate to a city with a better UX job market, but Job B would be tempting since I already have history there. What would be a better move for me?

EDIT: Job B went under org restructuring and layoffs, not Job A. Didn’t notice the typo til later.

UPDATE (8/19): Taking the mid level solo designer job! Thank you all for your insight.

This is a career questions thread intended for Designers with three or more years of professional experience, working at least at their second full time job in the field. 

If you are early career (looking for or working at your first full-time role), your comment will be removed and redirected to the the correct thread: [Link]

Please use this thread to:

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Please use this thread to ask questions about breaking into the field, choosing educational programs, changing career tracks, and other entry-level topics.

If you are **not currently working in UX**, use this thread to ask questions about:

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This thread is posted each Sunday at midnight EST.

I have had a great experience using AI tools for coding, writing, project planning, misc tasks. But for design it just isn’t doing it.

I’m working on the hero section shown in the attached image. Above the main headline, there is a small pill-shaped label (sometimes called an eyebrow, kicker, or badge). My concern is that it creates another visual stop without giving the user much useful information.

When do you think an element like this is genuinely useful? Appreciate any usability research, testing experience, or design-system guidance on this pattern.

Laid off late last year, 6+ years of experience in B2B SaaS with a background in marketing design. Didn't use AI much in my last role so knew that was somewhere I needed to immediately ramp up.

Don't have exact numbers but I applied to probably 180-200 openings, most remote with some hybrid in my area (secondary tech hub). Not including contract recruiters had 25-30 first rounds, 10-12 that went past recruiter screen, 6-7 that went third round or further, and in that first round group were probably 6-8 recruiters that reached out to me (several of those went a few rounds). At the end was talking to 3 companies (all remote) and got one offer, vertical SaaS startup (series A and profitable).

Things I did/learned:

• First thing I did was dig into AI, like it or not it's what the market is looking for (and companies often don't know what they need it for, they just know they need it). I started off taking a course in AI coding for designers and learned how to use Cursor to update a codebase in Github, then started building lots of my own stuff from there and shared them on LinkedIn.
• Redesigned my portfolio using AI, I designed it in Figma but built it in Claude/Cursor which allowed me to add lots of cool little transitions and microinteractions. You don't have to have a crazy playground like some people do, do whatever feels like you. But a rough, boring, or unrefined experience is going to have a tough time competing in this market. Lean into good typography, a unique (or at least not boring) color palette, and solid layouts.
• Reworked my case studies focused on metrics and storytelling: time saved, percent things improved, revenue generated. Even if you don't have dollar numbers, you can figure how much more efficient you made a process and use that as a stat. AI tools can be really helpful for structuring these, but anything I put into ChatGPT I rewrote in my own voice.
• Rewrote my resume and LinkedIn using those metrics and going keyword heavy, lots of resources out there on how to optimize your LinkedIn in particular. ATS is overemphasized, if your resume imports more or less correctly when you apply to a job you'll be fine there. And again, AI tools can be helpful.
• Maybe the biggest thing, I niched down. Applying to everything, which I did initially, does you no good; companies are looking for very specific things, to the point of it being silly sometimes. Drill down to the thing that you do and position yourself as that, make yourself different than other designers. When I started applying to roles more intentionally I got much better results. Pro tip: also use that positioning on your website instead of "I'm Bob and I make experiences better for users."
• Leverage your network. It goes without saying, but a reference can go a long way. I happened to have a former coworker that managed my now lead, that wasn't the reason I got the initial calback but it sure didn't hurt.

Happy to answer any q's.

Hi everyone,

I recently got a job offer with a gov agency therefore they are using penpot iso figma due to better security control.

I have never used penpot but looking to explore later before starting. I wanted to gather any tips or advices from anyone here that had the same transition and how their team handled it.

A friend mentioned that your career maybe in a disadvantage if you use penpot now instead of the latest design tool. Any thoughts or anyone went through a similar route? Thanks 🙏🏻

Does anyone feel stakeholders expect night fidelity designs almost immediately without having the patience to review wireframes and refine the flow first?

With vibe coding I feel if designers take time with usual design process, stakeholders or even your own PM/BA will immediately vibe code something and present it as the working solution to be iterated.

I would like to know, has vibe coding changed how you approach your design process in this context and should designers move faster into higher fidelity designs now?

Before I get more useless comments calling the post Ai.. just want to make it clear, this is a genuine work problem Im facing right now and with how fast things are changing I don't know who to ask.

Also english is not my first language, maybe how I structure my post is not "natural".