Career Framework Revisions 

The reason for this amendment is to ensure there is opportunity for growth in both an individual contributor and management career trajectories. This new structure also is more in line with other companies and their leveling. We are proposing the addition of an Associate level and a Lead position. The general structure is junior or associate, mid-level, senior level, lead, principal for individual contributor track (IC). At the Lead point, the designer could choose to manage or not, but if they chose to, they would move from Lead to Director, etc. 

A few new competencies will be highlighted by level in our leveling guide include: 

  • Product Thinking 

  • System Thinking 

  • Visual Design 

  • Intentionality 

  • Drive

  • Self-awareness 

These callouts will help to focus on both the hard skills and the soft skills required for the Product Design position.

  • Hard skills: They’re techniques and knowledge you learn while in design school or on the job. They’re used to performing the “act of design.” For example, the skills related to using design tools, design software, pencil-and-paper, etc. If you can touch it, it’s a hard skill.

  • Soft skills: They’re more ambiguous and challenging to master. These are related to your personality, people skills, and work ethic. You’re life experiences shape these skills and contribute to your overall emotional intelligence and self-awareness.

What changes as I move from junior to more senior positions? 

  • Project scope: Junior designers will work on smaller in scope and more self-contained. Senior will work on many variables. 

  • Influence: The more senior you get, the more influence you have on the product and the ability to influence others. 

Feedback: Senior designers filter out the noise. Not all feedback is equal, and more senior designers understand that. 

  • Resilience: Senior designers build up resilience again failures and feedback. 

  • Ambiguous problem space: Senior level designers are able to make sense out of more nebulous problems, chunk out the work appropriately. 

Autonomy: Junior designers need more collaboration, whereas Sr designers are not shy about leading others to success.