I have ~15 years in the industry, mostly in enterprise developer tooling. Have worked at agencies, startups, and some FAANG (Microsoft, Meta, Google). Was previously a hiring manager as well and can share my insights from interviews. Ask me anything about design systems, dev tools, career, climbing the ladder, work politics, remote, salaries, etc. L5 Interaction Designer @ $400k in Seattle
How did you navigate between hiring manager and the IC path? Did you cold apply and get interviews? Would you review my portfolio? Would you give a referral? :)
This has always been my biggest struggle because I’ve always enjoyed getting my hands dirty and making things (I’m a maker). And I’ve also been pretty decent at having high impact as an IC so I have a hesitation to jump into the management track even though I feel like it’s inevitable. For now I’m planning to see how far I can go as an IC. Happy to review your portfolio, send me a message and what type of roles your targeting. Unfortunately I can’t refer people whom I don’t know but happy to give you pointers.
Awesome, I’ll send you a DM!
15 years and l5? Why are you not at least an L6 or L7?
Price for staying employed. I was staff at previous companies but was laid off and couldn’t find another role anywhere else except Google (and they down leveled me). I don’t mind it, the money is good and less stress (better wlb).
Best company amongst the places you worked at for design?
Microsoft is a great place to get your foot in the door with big tech. Easy to move around and experience different types of work (consumer vs enterprise). Pay is significantly better than startups. Teams can be hit or miss and greatly affect your experience there. I was in 4 different teams there and each had different pros/cons. You just have to watch out for teams working on legacy stuff (though this is anywhere in tech) which can be boring as hell.
If I apply to 20+ roles with different teams at Microsoft and never hear anything back with ~6 your, what could that mean? Am I blacklisted?
How hard is it to get promoted at a company like Google? How would you compare the work politics to other places youve been? I also DMed you about reviewing my portfolio. Thanks for offering!
Google is probably the hardest place to get promoted. If Amazon is known for overworking their employees, Google is the equivalent for awarding promotions. You usually have to work on creating a “promo packet” which has all of your impact and feedback from peers. You’re rated based on your level and is a high bar. Your manager then brings it to a committee to decide to promote. The problem is there a lot of people in line for promo and you don’t always get it on your first few tries. I know people who are on their 4th attempt. Your org also has a promo budget so it depends how far you are on the list and how good your packet is. So it’s really challenging to get that promo. Politics will always play a factor the higher you get in your career. If you don’t learn to play politics your career will be stunted. Find out who are your allies and enemies, learn to to befriend your enemies and try to win them over someway, find other teams that you can align your work with for better visibility, figure out what’s important to your manager/skip and make sure your work aligns with that, avoid toxic coworkers, find teams working on impactful stuff. They’re all really the same but I would say the bigger the company the bigger the politics. I think Google and Meta would be tied for that in my experience.
Thanks for doing this AMA! I'm currently working on enterprise applications and I would like to work on dev tools in future. I have a good rapport working with developers because I understand coding a bit, tools like git and also good at functional prototyping. My question is what other skills do you think I might need to excel at working on deveoper tools applications? Do you think a portfolio with dev tools is valued more from a hiring perspective?
If you want to make it far in dev tools you'll need to be a lot more comfortable being technical. Knowing git/html/css/js is a good start but you can uplevel by learning a new language (react/vue/svelte/etc) and building apps on your own time to expand your knowledge. In my past roles I contributed to the team's source code and implemented a few features on my own. I am not a programmer by any means, I just know enough to be dangerous and break things 😉 learn enough that it works your brain to figure out how to solve certain problems, it's less about the language and more about problem solving. Beyond expanding your technical expertise, I'd suggest diving deep into your domain area and learning as much as you can so you can become a domain expert. All it takes is working in a certain space for a few years to get to that level. If it's dev tools, learn about the most popular tools and build apps in them. Also make sure you try dev tools from startups (warp, zedd, fig, etc). If you are targeting dev tools roles then, absolutely, a portfolio tailored towards that will make a big difference. If you are targeting technical roles (not specific to dev tools) then that also helps. Where it's less helpful is if you're applying to roles in the consumer space or where dev tools experience doesn't really matter. It's def a niche space.
I do fix some bugs and errors myself but totally agree with you on creating features myself, although sounds little intimidating. I like a healthy mix of UX strategy, architecture and code. Thanks for taking time to provide feedback, really appreciate it 🙂
Are the openings on the career site real? Is Google really hiring designers in the US?m right now?
Of course they’re real, why wouldn’t they be? It’s worth noting that Google will post a role open internally first posting externally because it’s faster. So if you see an opening it means they haven’t found someone yet.
I worked in design systems and UX. I appreciate the craft of design systems, but UX problem solving is much more fulfilling to me design-wise. Do you feel like one is a better investment career-wise in design?
It really depends on the person. I really enjoyed working on design systems but it did feel like a thankless job sometimes. But if I had to choose I’d pick product design or design systems because often times in PD you have define a system so I can still satisfy the “systems designer” inside of me and often times makes my designs stronger. I also enjoy working on highly visible projects and with design systems it can sometimes feel less visible.
What do you need to learn to get designer job?
Are you happy at Google, planning to stay awhile? You sound delightful so if you’re ever interested in Snowflake it would be great to chat. And L5 for the win, L6+ sucks and is not worth the money
Ha, that’s a nice recruitment strategy 😉 how’s design at Snowflake? How’s the new design director doing? I liked Joshua when I talked with him. It’s funny how much more fun I’m having as a L5 without the stress of an L6, way more chill but still keep it 💯 when you need to grind. I just switched teams at Google so no plans to leave anytime soon. I like the pay but politics suck extra here.
New design VP is outstanding, really thoughtful, already influencing strategy at the exec level and establishing more effective processes for design. It’s promising! Designers have a lot of influence here when they really understand the space and the users. And I hear you about the politics. We’re not as political but we probably will be, in all honesty. Sounds like you’re in a great place overall!
Do you own a lawnmower?
I do but it’s not a riding lawnmower 🥲