Fun Starters

Getting to know the human side.

Main Course

A quick deep dive into the day-to-day job.

Tell us about yourself and your job.

As a product designer, my primary job is to design things that have awesome user experiences (UX) while ensuring the business is continuing to prosper. Currently I focus on digital products, specifically the core learner experience on the Coursera platform. My goal is to ensure that our learners from all over the world have no trouble finding and taking courses.

How did you end up in your field? What do you like about it?

I stumbled upon User Experience (UX) Design on accident, thanks to a fellow mentor who noticed that I enjoyed technology and loved helping people. I went to a local San Diego meetup and met other designers who inspired me to continue pursuing the field, and the rest is history!

My favorite thing about being a product designer is that you are basically just a human problem-solver, so your job is never done. It also gives me the opportunity to make things easier for people, which is especially important as the world moves toward being more technologically centered.

What does a typical morning look like on the job?

A typical morning is filled with meetings - usually with either my design team or the product partners that I work with (engineers and product managers). If I don’t have meetings I’m catching up on emails or slack messages.

Cool, then what does a typical afternoon look like?

Hopefully, if there aren’t any meetings my afternoon is reserved for heads-down design time, which takes my forms! This includes, but is not limited to, research sessions with customers, sketching, playing around in the design tool Figma, and more.

What types of projects and meetings are you involved in?

As a product designer, you are traditionally a single pillar of a triad that includes design, engineering, and product management. Typically a product manager assigns yen a project or problem I need to design for, I design it, and I send those designs to our engineers to build it. Then the cycle repeats with other problems to solve!

Meetings take all shapes and sizes... From design reviews, research feedback sessions, presentations, and more. Some meetings I’ll be driving, others I’ll be just an observer.

Who do you collaborate with within meetings and projects?

Like I mentioned, traditionally collaboration as a designer is found with the triad of engineering, design, and product management. There’s even an opportunity to collaborate with other “types” of designers like visual designers, marketing designers, researchers, etc.

It’s always fun! Collaboration is one of my favorite parts of being a designer. It’s awesome to see a group of people work towards the same goal in different ways.

Dessert

Now for some juicy insights in the tea room.

What's the most challenging thing about your job?

I would say that one of the most challenging things about being a designer is embracing imperfection and the motto of “falling in love with the problem and not the solution”. There are times you design something that you pour your heart and soul into that don’t end up working out for whatever reason... and ultimately you need to be ok with that!

Humans are constantly evolving and adapting, and as a result... so will your designs!

What are some characteristics that can help someone succeed in your role?

Having empathy is probably the biggest one to call out. Beyond design skills, I think there are a lot of soft skills that are essential when you’re a day-to-day designer. Things like communication, presenting at different altitudes, etc.

Any advice on how to stand out and get hired for those just starting off?

Design stuff / solve problems that make your heart beat! This will lead to portfolio projects that are more compelling and will help highlight your passion.

NETWORK!!! Talk to other folks in the industry and pick their brains on why they design. It will not only help you define your why, but it could potentially lead to referrals that allow you to skip the initial part of the hiring process! I’ve only gotten interviews from jobs that I’ve gotten referred to.

What's something that surprised you about your job?

I think I am surprised every day because people are constantly doing things with our products that I don’t expect!

Any last thoughts, advice, or recommendations for someone who wants to do what you do?

If you love to solve human problems, you’ll love being a product designer! As you do more research on the field, focus on the problems and not the solutions. There are also many different subcategories of design - visual, content, research, etc. Definitely look up all those subsets and experiment!

The two biggest things - get your portfolio done sooner than later and NETWORK!

Drinks

Chat more over coffee or tea?