The case for hiring junior designers and how to do it

Two years ago, while I was interviewing at different companies, multiple hiring managers candidly admitted to me that their job post intentionally featured a senior or lead designer position, even though they were willing to consider a mid-weight designer should they locate a promising one. They feared that if they outright lowered the level, they would attract an influx of candidates who they considered “too green.”

“You need a job to gain experience, but you need experience to get a job” is an age-old catch-22, a trend that pervades all industries indiscriminately. Yet, within the confines of the “boot camp economy,” this reluctance escalates dramatically, especially in the tech sector. Novice designers find themselves under pressure to portray themselves as more seasoned than they truly are, a facade that is not without its pitfalls. A trend that many of us who have been entrenched in this industry for some time have observed is that, regardless of their titles and levels, designers are frequently deployed in product development “pods,” working solo amidst an entire team of engineers. This arrangement is primarily due to the ubiquitous adoption of scrum practices, which often leave little to no room for design, at least in the absence of strong design leadership who can help create that space for it. More often than not, designers are left to their own devices, navigating the messy product development process independently. A misstep could have far-reaching consequences, impacting not just the design team but also the product, customers, and business at large. The ripple effect of working with inexperienced designers is deeply ingrained in the psyche of teams that are either ill-prepared for the challenges or have recruited junior designers for the wrong reasons.

Research

Many would agree that most companies lack a clear, basic leveling plan for their design teams, such as the one Figma uses. Without realistic expectations for designers at each career level, even seasoned designers may not know what type of work to delegate to a junior designer, and by extension, how to hire for it and manage new team members. (They also get stuck with work beneath their pay grade.) However, to stop educating designers or limit opportunities for others would be a pessimistic and unsustainable approach for the industry.

One night, after reading another negative article on Medium about how design aspirants should just give up, I decided to take a survey on a few Slack channels to measure the situation. Is it true that no one wants to hire juniors? Furthermore, even if they did, do they know how to hire, coach, and integrate inexperienced designers into their teams? And is gatekeeping the answer?

The 17 survey result responses I did receive gave me glimpses of hope. For example, glancing through the responses to this question:

Did the lack of professional experience in junior UX designers affect their ability to contribute to your team and projects? How so?

Among the 11 people who had experience hiring juniors in the recent past:

• 7 responded with “no”,
• 1 responded with “yes”,
• 3 said yes but they were prepared for it and took steps to grow the new hire.

What’s more: all of them said that given the opportunity they would hire a junior designer again.

Among the respondents, I managed to get hold of five who were willing to engage in deep-dive, one-on-one conversations with me on the topic, which I then used as material to compose the rest of this article.

A guide to hiring junior designers

In an industry often hesitant to embrace inexperience, I hope to make a compelling case for the untapped potential of junior designers. While acknowledging the pervasive apprehension towards hiring those with limited track records, it is my opinion the integration of junior designers is critical for the health of in everyone’s individual career growth, the tech industry, and the design discipline, and a radical change in collective mindset can help us get there. By referencing conversations with five design leaders, I outline practical strategies for hiring and managing junior designers, in hopes of setting the stage for a new narrative that recognizes the value of nurturing nascent talent.

In this article, I will summarize our conversations through a more journalistic approach. This article aims to cover the following topics:

Part 1: Why should you hire junior designers?

Part 2: When is your company ready to take on juniors?

Part 3: Whom should your team hire?

Part 4: Strategies for managing and nurturing junior designers

I would like to thank the following design leaders who have so kindly and generously offered their time and insights for this project:

• Shawna Jacoby (Product Design Manager at real estate tech company Outer Labs);
• Alex Brovkin (Head of Product at a prop tech startup, ex-product designer at Shopify);
• Jackie Smith (Product Design Manager at Omnicell);
• Glen Lipka (VP of Product Design at Crowdstrike); and
• Brian Mizrahi (UX Manager at Skechers).

This article has two objectives: to provide a useful perspective for companies and design teams seeking to expand their talent pool, and to assist early-career designers by revealing what hiring managers look for, potentially aiding their job search strategy.

A note on self-selection bias

I am keenly aware of the self-selection bias involved: the research likely drew those already inclined towards hiring junior talent. Nonetheless, having collected so many ideas, I felt these perspectives were compelling enough to share with the world in case they are helpful in some way.

Part 1: Why should you hire junior designers?

Reason 1: So that you can grow too

Before I moved into tech, my background was in architecture. In architecture, leveling is straightforward because everyone shares a rigorous five-year education that’s rarely questioned the way tech bootcamps are. The modern architecture profession, which is at least a century old, has a few things figured out. In architecture, junior designers handle models and drawings, the so-called “grunt work.” As they progress, they become involved in setting direction, dealing with clients, and managing reports. Since an entire architecture team shares the same background and profession, the configuration is fairly straightforward.

New product designers often expect a similar team-based structure when they start, imagining themselves as apprentices. However, those with industry experience know that, in reality, we are often acting as a “design-team-of-one” or the only “embedded” designer in a feature team, and are quick to disabuse new designers of their faulty expectations. However, rarely do we stop and ask if such significant difference between expectation and reality is beneficial or harmful to our industry. While there are clear reasons for this setup, it could obstruct our professional growth by limiting our ability to develop key skills such as mentoring, managing, and strategizing. Senior designers often become overly focused on details such as pixel-pushing and layer-naming, leaving little opportunity to develop the vital skills needed for advancement. This situation contributes to what is known as “the senior designer purgatory.”

But what if things could be different? What if senior designers and design leaders could gradually offload projects with lower-stakes, focusing instead on high-level strategy and research? A whole world of possibilities open up for everyone’s career growths.

Reason 2: To discover diamonds in the rough

For some leaders, hiring early-stage designers is to scout promising and talented individuals early and help them grow comes with several long-term benefits. This perspective is enthusiastically upheld by Glen, design leader at CrowdStrike. From the start of our conversation, he shared his belief that someone with more experience does not automatically qualify them as a better or more talented designer. Moreover, you get to mold them before bad habits are formed. In Glen’s view, “curiosity” — the most critical ingredient as a creative — peaks early for the majority of designers, and then plateaus the longer they are in the field. Unfortunately, for some, it even falls. But salary expectations? That keeps rising over time.

“So what am I missing here? By the time the cream-of-the-crop designers become recognized and work at a FAANG, you’re late to the hiring competition,” Glen remarks.

You may scoff at the notion that newer designers can beat more experienced designers in terms of craft. Yet, that’s not exactly what Glen means. The the point here is to “find diamonds in the rough.” Work is required to obtain polish, and in this metaphor it means providing coaching and support. Glen believes that it is worth it if you’ve found the right junior hire, and failure can usually be attributed to poor hiring processes.

To echo Glen, an anonymous survey respondent wrote that in their experience, “molding and mentoring a junior designer has provided more longevity in their employment than any other designer we’ve hired.”

Reason 3: A “junior designer” might be an expert in something else

“I’ve noticed a difference between candidate with 2 years of UX experience vs 2 years of professional experience period. Candidates who have worked in a professional setting before got up and running much faster.”
— Anonymous survey response

It is worth bearing in mind that many new entrants to the product design career are equipped with domain expertise beyond software and tech skills. These aspiring designers hail from diverse fields such as medicine, healthcare, law, civil, business, engineering, and architecture. Arguably, these disciplines require an intellectual rigor surpassing that of software design.

Drawing from personal experience, three years of undergraduate studies in architecture were needed just to grasp the multifaceted design and construction processes. Interestingly, these processes have their parallel patterns in product design and guided me as I charted the known unknowns of a new field. Coupled with a strong work ethic, hailing from architecture, overcoming challenges in the new field was feasible.

This perspective is not lost on hiring managers. For instance, Alex, who heads a team at a prop tech startup, strategically scouted out product designers with an architectural background. His rationale? It’s easier to teach a real estate expert user experience design than to school a product designer in the intricacies of the real estate sector.

Similar sentiments were echoed by other hiring managers like Jackie and Brian. They agreed that a candidate with a deeper understanding of the product or customer can bring equal, if not more, value to the team than someone with extensive UX experience but no other domain expertise.

This insight suggests that job-seeking candidates might find it beneficial to underscore their background and expertise. Doing so could help them carve out a niche in the crowded marketplace, thus reducing competition.

Part 4: When should you hire junior designers?

Ideally, your organization has reached design maturity

When Jackie joined Omnicell’s design team, the department was nascent with just three members. Now, the team has grown to a dozen-strong unit. What prompted this growth?

After a short pause, Jackie reflected — “when design’s absence at the table was felt by the rest.”

Omnicell, a company with three decades under its belt, initially viewed design as a peripheral function. It wasn’t unusual for project teams to lack a designated designer. However, this dynamic has shifted.

For Jackie, the catalyst for this change was the organization’s recognition of the business value of design. It’s a case that she, as a design leader, had to make convincingly. An effective strategy was to show success through tangible outcomes and metrics, rather than mere deliverables like wireframe counts. This approach helped secure the necessary funding and resources to expand the design team and develop a leveling plan.

Of course, proving the value of design is much easier said than done, and warrants a whole other article if not a book, particularly when product releases hinge on various external factors and demand cross-team collaboration. Often the struggle often ends before it even begins.

This dilemma presents an interesting contrast to the saturated market of junior designers. Perhaps, the issue here could be viewed not merely an overproduction of junior designers but also the tepid demand for design within organizations. Instead of grumbling about an excess of junior designers, perhaps it might be more constructive to focus on cultivating an organizational appetite for design. This would pave the way for more resources allocated to training, mentorship, and continued education for junior designers. After all, a rising tide lifts all boats.

Maybe a junior is what you can afford right now, and that’s okay

In the business world, hiring junior talent often stems from budget constraints, especially in the current economy. Teams might prefer a senior, but difficulties in finding the right candidate or financial limitations may prevent this.

However, this isn’t necessarily a problem, provided that there is strong willingness to set realistic expectations and invest time in training the new hire. We will discuss this further in the final section: “Strategies for managing and nurturing junior designers.”

Whom should you hire?

Traditional hiring methods often involve portfolio presentations and behavioral interviews. Glen, a design leader, finds these methods to be somewhat inadequate in capturing a candidate’s full potential. He points out that interviews can create a pressurized environment causing even good candidates to falter. Meanwhile, portfolios often fail to provide a clear understanding of the candidate’s specific role in a project.

Glen proposes a radically different approach — the take-home exercises in lieu of portfolio presentations. He believes that these exercises, if designed thoughtfully, can serve as a better yardstick of a candidate’s skills. Visitors to Glen’s website can discover examples of these exercises, such as “use material design to redesign Gmail’s settings page.”

After a candidate completes the take-home task, Glen conducts an interview session to review the work. To quote him, it doesn’t have to be laborious, because “you can probably tell if someone knew how to play a piano within the first few notes.” Similarly, a candidate’s command over Figma, product thinking, as well as their design sense, can be quickly assessed.

This was, in fact, how I landed my current role. The take-home project allowed me to demonstrate my design skills on a strategic and tactical level. It was indeed time-consuming, but it saved time on portfolio presentations or white-boarding exercises. Plus, it eliminated lingering concerns about non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).

Take-home exercises are just one of many possible alternative interview methods. Fundamentally, hiring managers are on the lookout for designers with:

• a growth mindset
• a solid understanding of design fundamentals
• systems thinking
• the ability to handle complexity
• visual acumen / taste

This last one turned out to be more important that I had expected, because it is an ability that is the most challenging to teach. Several hiring managers noted that superior visual acumen was the tie-breaker when judging two otherwise equal candidates. Current job seekers could benefit from this insight by brushing up on their visual design craft, which is often overlooked in a typical boot camp curricula that can over index on UX interactions or research.

A successful hire will entice you to do it again

In my surveys and interviews, a clear sentiment emerged: positive experience with hiring a junior designer has inspired teams to duplicate that success. But what was the key to this success? The overwhelmingly popular answer was “a growth mindset,” and at the heart of that was “self-awareness.” Let’s turn to Shawna and Alex, two managers who specifically sought designers with architecture backgrounds due to the nature of their products.

Shawna, who hired a junior designer from an architectural background, found that despite the designer’s limited product design experience, she was able to effectively “deconstruct a complex design into manageable sections, lead discussions with senior designers to gather feedback, and make steady improvements.”

Alex agreed. In his view, designers with architectural training were adept at “engaging with a problem, breaking down the design process, identifying gaps in their knowledge, and seeking solutions.”

By facilitating team discussions, demonstrating adaptability, collaborating with others, and using sound judgment, even inexperienced designers were capable of driving a project forward independently. Shawna added that designers with an architectural background can pose relevant questions and land a solution, even without extensive product design experience, likely due to the universal applicability of design methodologies and principles.

Of course, studying architecture isn’t the prerequisite for effective reasoning and team collaboration. Graduates of diverse disciplines are more than capable of doing so as well, on top of bringing in their own unique perspectives and experiences. Glen highlighted the need for designers to be not just data-driven, but also judgment-driven. Brian stressed the importance of “providing solid reasoning for design decisions,” arguing that the focus should be “less on the final design and more on the decision-making process.” Finally, the ability to effectively communicate with cross-functional stakeholders and an understanding that designers have to balance user needs with business objectives are two key success ingredients.

It is fair to say that the success of a junior designer lies in their growth mindset, adaptability, strong reasoning skills, and their ability to balance user needs with business objectives. A successful designer should act as “the glue of the company,” and it applies to promising juniors.

Strategies for managing and nurturing junior designers

So you’re interested in investing in juniors, what are some tips for going about this?

1. Make sure your team has the bandwidth to support your new designer

As you gear up your team, Jackie and Brian highlighted the need for consensus and robust communication within the ranks. Start by having an open conversation about the volume of time and energy each individual is ready to invest in mentoring and guiding new designers.

2. There’s no shame in focusing on tooling and craft

In conversations with various design team leaders, a consensus emerged that it is not only acceptable, but encouraged, for junior designers to invest significant time in refining their proficiency with industry tools, such as Figma. A focus on mastering production or tactical tasks rather than strategic elements can and should be acceptable in the nascent stages of their design careers.

3. Start with a smaller scope of work

“Avoid giving new designers super open-ended green-field projects, but instead projects with well-scoped out solutions that product managers may have previously been able to push forward even in the absence of a designer until the designer gets used to the companies’ practices and processes.”
— Anonymous survey response

Product owners and design managers have the opportunity to assign tasks that are smaller in scale, such as forgotten edge cases from the original project scope, or features that could have proceeded to engineering development without a designer’s insight. These tasks present excellent starting points for junior designers to begin contributing to the product’s quality and lighten the workload of more senior team members.

4. Hands-on teaching time

As dedicated design managers with fewer individual contributors’ responsibilities, Brian and Glen were able to support their new team members in a more hands-on manner. Two identical actions stood out from their approach. Firstly, they both made a point of sitting with a junior designer to coach them on specific hard skills, such as iconography or layer organization in Figma. Secondly, they organized book clubs for their teams to study UX design classics, such as Alan Cooper’s About Face. This guided mentorship allowed their junior team members to accelerate their learning and improve their skills.

5. Set up rituals

On the other hand, consider the scenario of Shawna, a design manager with hefty individual contributor responsibilities. Due to her limited bandwidth, she opted to rely on effective team rituals to guide her more junior reports. Her team uses design review sessions as a platform for designers to discuss ongoing work. With one person facilitating and another taking notes, the sessions are structured yet informal. These rituals ensure that each designer consistently receives the necessary assistance and feedback to advance their projects.

6. Build a wiki, and scale knowledge and documentation

As the head of design at a bustling startup, Alex discovered the immense value of maintaining a knowledge repository or team wiki. This resource allowed new team members to independently access vital information, reducing their reliance on direct inquiries to him. This approach was inspired by his tenure at Shopify, which employed a team of knowledge management experts to document organizational knowledge.

In his current “scrappier” startup environment, Alex implemented a streamlined version of a wiki, utilizing platforms like Notion and GitHub Repos. He quickly recognized the importance of user experience in encouraging team contribution to the wiki. The user-friendly interface of Notion not only democratized access to the knowledge vault but also motivated everyone on the team to contribute, significantly aiding in team scalability.

In addition, Alex found that establishing an onboarding process incorporating elements such as product strategy presentation, a service blueprint workshop, a product tour, and roadmap planning significantly expedited the integration of new hires.

7. Set realistic expectations

Establishing realistic expectations is crucial for junior designers to kickstart their journey. Be mindful that they might need guidance in areas such as requirements gathering and stakeholder management. Brian shared his experiences of attending meetings and presentations alongside junior designers, assisting them in asserting themselves when necessary.

As these designers mature, they will gradually shoulder more of these responsibilities autonomously. Once they demonstrate this level of independence, it’s a clear indication that they are prepared to progress further in their career.

Conclusion

“As with all hiring, you are taking a risk on someone. So I wouldn’t consider the level of experience to be more/less a risk.”
— Anonymous survey response

The surge of junior designers in the market calls for a strategic response: the enhancement of design and hiring practices. This includes creating clear growth paths within design teams to facilitate the development of designers at all levels.

Hiring entry-level designers brings fresh perspectives and a positive energy to teams. It’s a conscious decision that comes with its own set of challenges, such as managing a high volume of applications and mentoring emerging talent. Yet, the hiring managers I spoke with remain dedicated to this cause, consistently sharing their insights, philosophies, and creative strategies.

It’s important to remember that each of us started our careers with someone giving us our first opportunity. As we navigate the complexities of the tech industry and contribute to the construction a relatively new discipline, it’s essential to extend the same opportunities to the next generation of designers. This not only contributes to the continuous cycle of growth and innovation in the industry, but it’s also a way of paying forward the chance that was once given to you.