Table of Contents
- Better questions. Bigger career.
- The right questions that change your UX career
- 1. Why am I doing design?
- 2. What's holding me back?
- 3. What are my non-negotiables?
- 4. What does success mean to me?
- 5. Who am I trying to please, and why?
- 6. When have I been the most fulfilled?
- 7. How meaningful is my current journey?
- Two frameworks for UX career growth
- Framework #1: Career How Might We's (asking the right questions)
- Traditional vs. Career HMW examples:
- How to apply Career HMWs:
- Framework #2: Hacking Career Growth (identify opportunities)
- The three pillars of compound career growth:
- 1. Skills that stack
- 2. Relationships that compound
- 3. Reputation that scales
- The uncomfortable truth about design career advice
- Growth isn't about getting ahead; it's about getting clear
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Better questions. Bigger career.
Most UX designers ask the wrong career questions. They chase titles, praise, and LinkedIn validation instead of building real value.
The result: A career that looks good on paper but feels empty.
Successful UX designers stopped playing the title game. They focus on two things:
- Asking better career questions (not "How do I get promoted?")
- Building compound growth (skills, relationships, and reputation that multiply over time)
Today, I'll show you exactly how they do it with two frameworks you can use immediately.
The right questions that change your UX career
If you want a career that’s resilient, fulfilling, and yours, you need better inputs. And better inputs start with better questions.
These questions aren’t sexy. They’re uncomfortable. They require honesty. They can expose things you’ve been avoiding.
But they’re the exact questions that top designers keep coming back to ↓
1. Why am I doing design?
Forget the portfolio-friendly answer. Be brutally honest.
- Is this a stepping stone to something else?
- Are you energized by making products more usable?
- Do you genuinely enjoy user research, iteration, and the messiness of the process?
- Did you get into UX because you love solving problems or because someone told you designers make good money?
There’s no wrong answer here. But knowing your “why” changes everything — from the jobs you take to the skills you invest in. Without it, you’re just drifting between opportunities that look good on paper.
2. What's holding me back?
Hint: it’s probably not your Figma skills.
- Do you struggle to sell your ideas to non-designers?
- Are you avoiding tough conversations with stakeholders?
- Are you waiting for permission instead of taking initiative?
- Do you second-guess yourself instead of trusting your expertise?
Most career plateaus happen because of mindset blocks, not skill gaps. If you’re too focused on being the “nice designer” to be taken seriously, you’re quietly capping your own influence.
3. What are my non-negotiables?
Knowing what you won’t trade is just as important as knowing what you want.
- Remote work vs. in-person collaboration?
- Work-life balance vs. high-growth startup intensity?
- Creative autonomy vs. clear direction and structure?
Jobs that look great on paper can still make you miserable if they cross your hard boundaries. Non-negotiables aren’t luxuries — they’re guardrails.
4. What does success mean to me?
Not your parents. Not your classmates. Not the designer with 50k followers. You.
- Running your own consultancy?
- Is it building products millions use daily?
- Working 30 hours a week and traveling often?
Neither answer is “better,” but confusing someone else’s definition of success for your own is career suicide.
5. Who am I trying to please, and why?
This one stings.
- Are you designing for users or for design awards?
- Are you optimizing for peer approval or business impact?
- Are you choosing projects for learning or for your resume?
Once you know who you’re really trying to impress, you can decide if they’re even worth impressing.
6. When have I been the most fulfilled?
The clues to your best career moves are hiding in your past work and even in your hobbies.
- Do you thrive when building new things or optimizing existing ones?
- Are you energized by solo deep work or collaborative brainstorming?
- Do you prefer ambiguous, open-ended challenges or structured, clear problems?
Your fulfillment patterns are the blueprint for your next role.
7. How meaningful is my current journey?
This is the gut-check question most designers avoid because it forces you to measure more than just metrics or milestones. It asks whether the direction you’re heading actually matters to you.
- Are you proud of the problems you’re solving?
- Do you believe in the product you’re building?
- Are you learning skills that will matter in five years?
Meaning doesn’t have to mean saving the planet. It’s about alignment: when your daily work pushes you toward your values, not away from them.
Two frameworks for UX career growth
Framework #1: Career How Might We's (asking the right questions)
Remember how we use "How Might We" statements in design workshops? Apply the same principle to your career. Instead of asking limiting questions, reframe them as opportunity-focused HMWs:
Traditional vs. Career HMW examples:
Traditional question: "How do I get my boss to notice me?"
Career HMW: "How might I create value that's impossible to ignore?"
- Moves you from reactive to proactive positioning
- Focus shifts from seeking attention to creating impact
- Changes the dynamic from begging for recognition to earning it
Traditional question: "What skills should I learn next?"
Career HMW: "How might I solve problems that no one else on my team can solve?"
- Identifies actual skill gaps rather than trendy tools
- Focuses on unique value creation vs. checkbox learning
- Makes you think strategically about differentiation
Traditional question: "How do I network with important people?"
Career HMW: "How might I become someone that others want to network with?"
- Flips the script from taking value to creating value
- Makes you focus on what you bring to relationships
- Shifts from transactional to transformational networking
Traditional question: "How can I get promoted faster?"
Career HMW: "How might I take on responsibility before I'm given the title?"
- Shows initiative rather than entitlement
- Builds the skills needed for the next level
- Demonstrates leadership potential through action
Traditional question: "What should I include in my portfolio?"
Career HMW: "How might I demonstrate the specific value I bring to business problems?"
- Connects design work to business impact
- Focuses on outcomes rather than just process
- Helps you think beyond aesthetics to strategy
How to apply Career HMWs:
- Step 1: Write down a limiting career question you're asking
- Step 2: Identify what assumption is built into that question
- Step 3: Reframe it as "How might I..." focusing on what you can control
- Step 4: Brainstorm multiple approaches to that reframed question
- Step 5: Pick one approach to experiment with this week
See the difference? The first set puts you in a position of neediness. The second set puts you in a position of power.
Framework #2: Hacking Career Growth (identify opportunities)
Most designers think career growth is linear: Junior → Mid → Senior → Lead → Principal.
But the designers who build incredible careers understand that growth is exponential. They focus on activities that compound over time.
The three pillars of compound career growth:
1. Skills that stack
Don't just learn random tools. Learn skills that multiply each other's value. High-impact skill combinations:
- Design + Data analysis = Product intuition that's backed by evidence
- You can validate design decisions with user behavior data
- You speak the language of product managers and executives
- Your recommendations carry more weight because they're measurable
- UX + Business strategy = Designs that move company metrics
- You can translate user needs into business opportunities
- You understand how design decisions impact revenue and growth
- You can prioritize features based on business impact, not just user feedback
- Design + Writing = The ability to sell your ideas through documentation
- Your ideas spread because they're well-articulated
- You can create compelling design rationales that get buy-in
- You can communicate complex concepts to non-designers clearly
- UX + Psychology = Deep understanding of user motivation and behavior
- You become the user advocate that executives trust
- You can predict user behavior patterns before testing
- Your research insights go deeper than surface-level feedback
2. Relationships that compound
Your network isn't just about who you know; it's about who knows the quality of your work. Relationship investment strategies:
- Cross-functional partnerships:
- Teach engineers about design system thinking
- Help your PM understand user research methodologies
- Show data analysts how to make insights more actionable
- Mentorship (both directions):
- Document and share your mentorship learnings
- Mentor junior designers to build your teaching skills
- Find mentors in adjacent disciplines (product, engineering, business)
- Knowledge sharing:
- Share failure stories and lessons learned
- Run internal workshops on design topics
- Create documentation that makes others' jobs easier
- Long-term relationship building:
- The startup colleague you support becomes a hiring manager at a unicorn
- The junior developer you mentor becomes a senior engineer who champions design
- The designer who helps their PM today becomes an advocate when that PM becomes a Director
3. Reputation that scales
Build a reputation for something specific. Not "good designer"—everyone's a good designer. Reputation categories to consider:
- The clarity creator:
- Known for asking the right questions that others miss
- Creates frameworks that help teams think more clearly
- Simplifies complex technical concepts for stakeholders
- The velocity driver:
- Balances speed with quality consistently
- Eliminates unnecessary process and friction
- Ships products faster than anyone thought possible
- The bridge builder:
- Creates alignment between design, product, and engineering
- Translates business requirements into user-centered solutions
- Makes complex technical concepts understandable to executives
- The system architect:
- Creates processes that improve team efficiency long-term
- Establishes design standards that maintain quality at scale
- Thinks in systems and frameworks, not just individual features
The uncomfortable truth about design career advice
Most career advice is garbage because it's written by people who want to sell you something.
The design influencer telling you to "build your personal brand" is actually selling a course on how to do just that. The career coach promising you'll land a FAANG job is selling their coaching program.
But here's what works: Be so good at solving problems that your career becomes other people's problem to figure out.
When you're the designer who consistently ships products that users love and businesses profit from, you don't chase opportunities—they chase you.
When you're known for turning impossible timelines into successful launches, companies create roles specifically for you.
When executives trust your design judgment because you've proven you understand both users and business, you don't need to network your way into senior roles—you get recruited into them.
Instead of following design influencers, follow designers who are actually building products you admire. Look at their work, not their LinkedIn posts. Study their process, not their personal brand.
Growth isn't about getting ahead; it's about getting clear
Stop chasing someone else's definition of success.
The career game everyone plays—title hunting, validation seeking, LinkedIn optimisation—is designed to keep you running in circles.
Real UX career growth comes from answering uncomfortable questions and building compound value that multiplies over time.
Now start with one framework from this article. Pick the questions that make you most uncomfortable—those are the ones you need to answer most urgently.
And revisit this article in three months. The questions that matter to you will evolve as you grow.
Your future self depends on the decisions you make today. Make them based on what you actually want, not what you think you're supposed to want.
Good luck! 🍀
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