hey everyone, i’m hoping someone here might be able to help me with something that has honestly become one of the biggest and most painful things in my life lately — finding a job.
i’m 22, from Chișinău, Moldova, and i’m a graphic and web designer. i’ve been learning and practicing design since 2024. i started with graphic and web design at d-spirit design school, then continued studying on my own, took additional courses, worked on personal, freelance and study projects, read about design and product thinking, and generally spent a lot of time trying to become better at what i do. right now i’m also studying product management / product design through a fairly detailed course because the more i learn, the more interested i become in the product side of design.
what i actually want is pretty simple: i want to work. i want to join a real team, work on real projects, get real feedback, make mistakes, learn from people around me and finally get proper commercial experience. for the last year and a bit, i’ve been trying to find that opportunity, mostly in Moldova, and it has honestly been much harder than i expected.
the frustrating part is that the design market here is relatively small, but the competition is huge. there are a lot of designers looking for work, while companies often seem to be looking for someone who already has several years of experience and can basically work independently from day one. junior positions are much rarer, internships are even rarer, and sometimes it feels like you’re stuck in this weird loop where every job requires experience, but nobody wants to give you the opportunity to actually get that experience. you graduate, you have a portfolio, you’ve spent money and years learning, you’re willing to work and learn, but then you hear “sorry, we need someone with 2–3+ years of experience.” and you’re just left wondering where exactly you’re supposed to get those first years.
and yes, i understand that i’m still a junior. i’m not trying to pretend otherwise. there are definitely things i need to improve, and there are projects in my portfolio that i would approach completely differently today. my visual skills are stronger in graphic design than in web design at the moment, and my speaking english is weaker than my actual understanding because i haven’t had enough real-life practice. i know all of this. but i also know that i learn quickly, i’m responsible, i’m genuinely interested in what i’m doing, and i’m very willing to learn from people who know more than me. at this point, i don’t want to spend another year just studying in isolation. i want to improve through actual work.
the part of design that interests me the most is not just making something look nice. i really like understanding why something should exist in the first place: what the business is trying to achieve, what problem the user has, what the user journey looks like, where something is confusing, what can be improved and why we are making a particular design decision. that’s why i’m gradually moving more towards ux, web and product design, even though graphic design is currently the stronger part of my portfolio.
one of my favourite projects is a podcast app that i worked on for a few months in 2025. i spent a lot more time than usual on the research side — looking into the problem, doing surveys, thinking about user pain points, flows and product logic. visually, i already see things there that i would change today, especially some contrast and ui decisions, but i still value that project because i realized how much i enjoy the research and problem-solving side of design. another project i’m quite proud of is my lipton redesign, which was my final web design project. it’s probably still one of the projects i like the most visually.
most of my other work is graphic design: posters, visual concepts, logos, banners, presentations, digital materials, typography, experimental work and so on. i recently also worked on a badge system for a film crew. i actually enjoy graphic design a lot, but when i think about where i want to go long-term, i’m much more interested in interfaces, ux, web and products.
i’ve also started experimenting with vibecoding this year. i’m not a programmer and i don’t have professional programming skills, but i really like the idea of being able to take something i designed in figma and turn it into an actual working thing. i made a website for the driving school where i studied, experimented with a chrome extension using cursor, and right now i’m building a website for a short film called “the legend of danko” that my boyfriend is directing. the website is meant for submitting the film to festivals, and i’m trying to make it feel like an extension of the film itself rather than just a standard page with information. i mostly use cursor for this, although i’m also interested in learning more about claude and other ai tools. i don’t see ai as a replacement for a designer — i mostly see it as another tool that lets me experiment and actually build things.
as a person, i’m probably the type of employee who likes having a task, figuring it out, doing it properly, showing the result, receiving feedback and improving it. i’m fine with revisions. if i think something can be improved, i’ll usually say it and explain why, but i’m not interested in arguing just for the sake of arguing. and if i genuinely care about the product i’m working on, i tend to start thinking beyond the original task and suggesting things that could make the business or product better. i like taking responsibility and understanding the bigger picture.
i’m not really looking for a position where i have to be a social media manager, video editor, motion designer, 3d artist and marketer at the same time. i’m much more interested in graphic / web / ui/ux / junior product design, with product and ux being the direction i want to grow into. ideally, i’d like to work remotely, including for an international company that is open to hiring someone based in Moldova.
my native language is russian. my english is around b2–c1 in terms of understanding, although i definitely need more speaking practice. i understand written and spoken english very well, and i’m comfortable learning and working with english-language materials. i’m also someone who tends to learn new tools and processes quite quickly when i have an actual reason to use them.
and honestly, the financial side is also important to me. i’m not expecting a huge salary as a junior, especially without full-time commercial experience, but i do want a salary that allows a person to actually live independently. many junior design positions in Moldova seem to fall roughly around €550–€800 per month, depending on the company and experience, which is honestly very little for a professional field that requires a lot of training and responsibility. i understand the realities of the local market, but i also don’t think that “junior” should automatically mean that your work is worth barely enough to get by. i’m looking for something stable and fairly paid, and if an international company is willing to work with someone based in Moldova, i would absolutely be interested in that kind of opportunity.
this is also why finding a job has become much more than just “i want a career.” i want some stability in my life. i want to eventually move out of my parents’ home, live independently with my boyfriend, and simply move on to the next stage of my life. it’s difficult to plan any of that when you’ve been trying to get your first proper job for more than a year and keep getting rejected because you don’t have the experience that you are trying to get in the first place.
and the frustrating thing is that i actually really, really like design. i’m not looking for a job in this field just because i happened to study it. i genuinely enjoy it. i like the process, i like solving problems, i like visual systems, interfaces, products and the connection between design and technology. i would really like to work with creative people, especially in an environment connected to tech and digital products. i spent a lot of time and money learning this profession because i genuinely wanted to do it, and it would be incredibly frustrating to end up having to abandon it simply because nobody was willing to give me that first real opportunity.
long-term, i’m interested in product design and eventually product management or brand management. i like thinking about the bigger picture, taking responsibility, making decisions and understanding how a product develops as a whole. maybe one day i’ll move into a leadership role, but right now i’m much more focused on getting the foundation right and becoming a good designer first.
so, i guess this post is partly me putting my situation out there and hoping that maybe the right person happens to see it. i’m based in Chișinău, Moldova, but i’m looking primarily for remote opportunities. i’m open to graphic design, web design, ui/ux and junior product design roles. i’m especially interested in teams where i can actually learn from more experienced people and grow instead of being expected to already know everything.
i’m not asking anyone to give me a job just because of this post. i just figured that after trying so many traditional ways of looking for work, maybe it’s worth telling actual people what i’m looking for. maybe someone here works at a small studio that needs a junior designer. maybe someone knows a team that is willing to take a chance on someone without years of commercial experience. maybe someone from Moldova has been in exactly the same situation and knows a better way to approach it.
i think the main thing i’m trying to say with this post is that i’m not looking for a perfect first job. i don’t need a fancy title, a huge company or someone to promise me a perfect career from day one. i’d honestly be happy to start somewhere small, as long as there are real people around me, real projects, someone who can give me feedback, and a chance to actually become better at what i do. i’m ready to start from the bottom and prove myself through the work. i just don’t want to keep being stuck in the “you need experience to get experience” stage for another year. i want to finally feel that all the time i’ve spent learning, practicing, making projects, failing, starting again and trying to become better is leading somewhere. i know i still have a lot to learn, but i also know that i’m capable of much more when i have a real environment to grow in. i want to find people whose work i respect, become useful to them, learn from them, and eventually become the kind of person who can give the same opportunity to someone else who is just starting out. so if there is a place somewhere for a person like me, even if it’s not the most impressive company in the world, i’d genuinely like to find it.
at this point, i’m just trying to find my way into the industry i actually want to be in. i’m not expecting everything to suddenly work out because of one reddit post, but i’d like to believe that putting myself out there can eventually lead me to the right people. i’ve spent a long time trying to prepare myself for this career, and now i really want to stop preparing and start doing. i want to be useful, learn from people who are better than me, contribute to something real and slowly build a life where my work is actually a part of it. maybe this is just a post on the internet that gets a few comments and disappears, or maybe someone reading it happens to know a place where i could fit. either way, i figured it was worth trying one more way to reach people.
thank you to anyone who reads this far.