So you want to be a product designer?
A field guide to building skill, confidence, and a portfolio that lands you jobs.
May 20, 2025
The birth of a product designer
I stumbled into design without knowing what the hell I was doing.
My career began in growth marketing at a startup in Mumbai, where I joined as employee #5 with nothing but decent writing skills. Over four years, we scaled monthly revenue 25x, brought in 2,000+ paying customers (mostly through inbound), hit 50K blog visitors without spending on ads, and I built a team of six marketeers. I learnt everything on the job—by doing, failing, asking questions, and googling like my life depended on it.
In 2017, I switched to product design. I had no formal design education. My “portfolio” was a few landing pages. But someone took a chance on me, and I took it seriously. I learnt the craft the same way I learnt marketing: by watching, asking, imitating, and slowly getting better.
So if you’re just getting started in design—or switching from something else—this post is for you. It’s the advice I would give to my self in hindsight, and have been giving to designers over the years. Hard-earned, field-tested, and shaped by learning two entire careers from scratch.
If you’re just starting out
Skip the design courses
Let's be real: most design courses are expensive and largely ineffective. They can't simulate what actually consumes 80% of a designer's job: driving alignment, gathering feedback, and convincing stakeholders of your design's business value.
According to Nielsen Norman Group's 2023 UX Career study, designers spend only 22% of their time actually designing—the rest goes to meetings, documentation, and stakeholder management. No course teaches you how to navigate the messy reality of design politics.
Degrees or certifications don't really matter. Most designers I've worked with had neither, including me. As Julie Zhuo, former VP of Design at Facebook, puts it: "The best designers I know didn't get that way because they had the best technical skills. They got that way because they were constantly curious about people and business."
Do this instead
Redesign apps you already use. You're a user—get in your own shoes and redesign based on your own frustrations. Take one screen from Instagram, Goodreads, or DoorDash and reimagine it.
I'm obsessed with Goodreads but hate their book discovery experience. It's search-forward when it should be exploratory. What if you redesigned it around serendipitous discovery instead?
Research from the learning sciences shows that contextualised practice creates stronger neural connections than theoretical learning. You'll retain more when solving problems you genuinely care about than completing hypothetical exercises from a course.
Case studies over a Dribbble portfolio
I've never seen a designer hired for a full-time role solely on the basis of their Dribbble profile. If you were a freelancer or design agency, then absolutely. But if your goal is to be hired at a product company, you need more than just pretty screens.
The hiring manager needs to see your design thinking. They don't care if the product you built failed or scaled—those outcomes are often consequences of factors beyond design. What matters is the solidity of your process.
Even failed products make excellent portfolio pieces if your thinking was sound. One of my best portfolio projects was a service we launched and sunset within a year. I was the lead designer, building both B2C and B2B experiences. The product failed for operational reasons, but my design process was excellent, and I learned more from that project than any
Do this instead
Write case studies of your design projects that clearly articulate your process, not just the outcome. Frame the problem statement, describe your team setup, show your explorations, and explain why the final design won out. Tell your hiring manager about the impact of the design, but more importantly, what you learned—how it made you a better designer, what you'd do differently, and what lessons you took away.
Even Google's design interview prep guide emphasises process over pixels:
Screenshot from Google’s design interview prep
If you are switching from other design fields
Design a portfolio with real-world examples
Design managers review 10-15 portfolios daily - be worth their time. Most don't care about your certification from an online course, instead they want evidence you can solve real problems in messy environments.
Think of your portfolio in terms of case studies. Design is important, but so is your design process. Most times we've hired people based on a portfolio presentation because it was succinct and showed clear thinking.
As Jared Spool noted: "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works in the real world, with real constraints and real users."
Do this instead
Create 3-5 concise case studies that immediately communicate:
Your specific role in the project
The business context and constraints
Your design process
Measurable impact
What you learned
Skip Behance or Dribbble as your portfolio host. They are not ideal for text-heavy case studies. Use Notion, a simple website, or even Google Slides if you must.
Learn on the job
I have seen a lot of UX design enthusiasts taking courses and building certifications even before they have applied for a job. The biggest myth in design education is that you need to be "ready" before applying for jobs. That's backwards.
I've reviewed hundreds of designer portfolios. Not once have I hired someone because they completed some Google UX certificate. Real-world experience trumps theoretical knowledge every time.
Research from psychologist Anders Ericsson shows that deliberate practice in real-world scenarios is what creates expertise, not passive learning. You need to be in the game to improve your game.
Do this instead
Master the basic tools (Figma, etc.), build 3-5 case studies, then start applying. The interview process itself will teach you more about what companies actually value than any course.
Get a job—any design job—as quickly as possible. Be hungry. Reach out to connections. Apply everywhere. The real learning starts when you're solving problems with actual constraints and consequences.
Don’t be picky
Early in your career, try to get exposure to different types of work. I've often learned more from side gigs than from my day-to-day responsibilities.
Some of my biggest growth moments came from projects outside my primary focus. At Grab, when another team was short-handed and I had bandwidth to spare, my manager asked if I'd like to spend 2-3 months working with them. I jumped at the chance. Getting to work on a web communications platform became my most interesting project that quarter. Those three months expanded my thinking and rejuvenated my perspective when I returned to my primary role.
Do this instead
Say yes to every new challenge, project, or feedback request at least once. You'll learn something new about yourself, improve your craft, and add to your experience. The best designers can tackle any problem, platform and industry agnostic.
Design is a way of thinking, and the only way to sharpen your thinking is to exercise and challenge it constantly.
As legendary graphic designer Paula Scher wisely put it: "It's through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good."
If you want to do it better
With thoughtful input from two design minds I deeply admire: Hyunh Nhat Tuyen and Steffi Lee.
Design for both users and business
As Tuyen so selflessly shared, "I used to focus almost exclusively on user needs and sometimes viewed business requirements as constraints that compromised 'good design.' That was shortsighted."
Great products happen at the intersection of user needs and business goals. If your beautiful solution doesn't serve the business model, it won't survive long enough to help users anyway.
A 2023 McKinsey report found that design-led companies that balance user needs with business objectives outperformed industry-benchmark growth by as much as two to one.
Do this instead
For every design decision, ask yourself two questions: "How does this serve the user?" and "How does this serve the business?" The best solutions answer both convincingly.
Get comfortable with metrics, revenue models, and business strategy—they're as crucial to your success as your Figma skills. As Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia noted, "Design needs a seat at the table, but designers need to speak the language of business to keep it."
Think beyond the MVP
Many designers pour all their energy into the initial launch and treat everything after as maintenance mode. But the MVP launch is just the beginning of your product's journey.
According to product data from Mixpanel, products that iterate based on user feedback in the first three months post-launch see 32% higher retention rates than those that don't.
Do this instead
Design with evolution in mind. Create systems that can grow and adapt based on real user feedback. Document not just what you built, but why you built it that way—and what you'd explore next with more time and data.
The best designers think in versions, not endpoints. As design leader John Maeda said, "Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful." That subtraction and addition happens over time, not all at once.
Master the edge cases
Steffi’s two cents when you’re designing happy flows: "Always design the best case (simplest) scenario, then the worst case (most complex) scenario."
For example, if you are designing a shopping cart, start with what it looks like with just one item. Then design for 25 items with varying modifiers—sizes, quantities, suggested items, etc.
Similarly, when I designed for Grab, we supported over 8 languages and Bahasa Indonesia is infamous for it’s character length. Whenever I designed my screens I always used Bahasa Indonesia as my primary language, because if I could fit “Pengemudi terlambat karena kemacetan lalu lintas. Mohon tunggu 5 menit lagi untuk menyelesaikan pengiriman Anda.” into my design, “Driver is delayed due to traffic. Please allow us another 5 minutes to complete your delivery.” would most certainly fit.
This approach prepares you for tough questions in design reviews and builds more robust solutions from the start. Research by the Software Engineering Institute shows that 80% of defects emerge from unconsidered edge cases.
Do this instead
Identify the extremes for each feature you design. What happens when the data is minimal? What breaks when it's excessive?
By addressing these boundaries first, the middle cases often solve themselves, and you'll earn trust by demonstrating thorough thinking. As architect Charles Eames said, "The details are not the details. They make the design."
Absorb knowledge across disciplines
The strongest designers I know are secret polymaths. They've cultivated knowledge beyond design—they understand enough code to collaborate effectively with engineers, enough research to ask smart questions, enough data analysis to find insights themselves.
Do this instead
Learn a little from everyone you work with. Sit with engineers during code reviews. Join researchers for user interviews. Ask copywriters about their process. Understanding adjacent disciplines makes you a more strategic designer and a more valuable team member.
As designer Mike Monteiro puts it: "The sooner you start to code, the sooner you start to learn."
Design for the majority use case
When you're stuck between design options, look to the data. Which solution serves the most common user scenario?
The Pareto principle applies to user behavior too—80% of users typically use just 20% of features. Focus your energy on that critical 20%.
Do this instead
When torn between options, identify the scenario that will affect at least 50% of your users. Track down basic analytics to support your decision.
There's usually a clear winner when you focus on majority use cases. You can always iterate on edge cases later.
Embrace new tools fearlessly
The strongest designers I know are secret polymaths. They've cultivated knowledge beyond design—they understand enough code to collaborate effectively with engineers, enough research to ask smart questions, enough data analysis to find insights themselves.
“One day, if you come across the need to use a new program, download the free version and give it a whirl. I used to pass along certain tasks that required (learning) new tools to my teammates who were more comfortable using them, but eventually I learned that it’s quite easy to learn the basics of most programs. They’re fundamentally designed to be easy to use, and Youtube has a lot of tutorials. It’s useful to exercise the "software learning muscle", as there will be many more new softwares that cross your path during your career as a designer.”
Do this instead
Make it a habit to try a new tool every quarter. Even if you don't adopt it permanently, you'll exercise your "software learning muscle" and remain adaptable. This mindset prepares you for the inevitable shifts in design tools throughout your career. Which is a great segue into my last bit of advice.
Use AI in your design process
AI is no longer a "what if." Those who find ways to integrate AI into their workflows will have a distinct advantage.
Designers who use AI tools—for brainstorming, prototyping, or critique—can focus more time on the strategic aspects of design while automating repetitive tasks.
Do this
Keep yourself abreast of all AI developments in design. Have you watched the latest Figma Config keynote where they released a bunch of new features?
Experiment with AI-assisted brainstorming. Use generative tools to explore visual directions quickly. Have AI critique your designs and suggest alternatives.
Challenge yourself to integrate AI into your daily workflow at least once—not as a replacement, but as an enhancement to your process. As designer John Maeda noted, "Computers are to design as microwaves are to cooking." They speed things up but don't replace the chef.
Cultivate a creative life outside design
The last pearl of wisdom I'll leave you with comes from Tuyen: "Learn another skill that's completely different from your day job." Having other creative pursuits not only expands your creativity in your day job, it offers a different lens and teaches you to think differently about problems than just squares and circles.
Some of the most innovative designers I know have serious hobbies. One leads wilderness photography trips. Another is a proficient baker. I know a design director who plays in a jazz band and credits improvisation with improving her creative problem-solving.
The cross-pollination of skills creates cognitive connections that fuel innovation.
Do this instead
Pick up something that has nothing to do with screens. Learn woodworking, take a pottery class, study a language, play a musical instrument, or get into birdwatching.
The mental models you develop in these diverse activities will unconsciously influence your design thinking in profound ways. As designer and writer Jessica Hische puts it: "The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life."
At minimum, you'll have something interesting to talk about in interviews other than your Figma plugins.
Jump in—the water's fine
The design industry can sometimes feel full of "right ways" to break in, yet the best designers I know came in through unconventional paths. The journey is rarely linear.
If you've been uncertain about how to start or transition to design, remember that design is fundamentally about problem-solving. You don't learn to swim by reading about swimming techniques.
Let's talk about your own design journey. What unconventional paths did you take? What advice here resonates with you or challenges your thinking based on your experience?
Additional resources
Books worth your time:
"The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman
"Articulating Design Decisions" by Tom Greever
“The Design Thinking Playbook” by Michael Lewrick
“100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People” by Susan Weinschenk
"Change by Design" by Tim Brown
"Hooked" by Nir Eyal
"Atomic Design" by Brad Frost
Expand your reading:
Tools beyond Figma:
Lottielab or Jitter for animations
Miro for collaborative ideation
Framer for interactive prototypes
Maze for unmoderated user testing
Communities worth joining:
ADPList for mentorship
Dribbble (yes, I know—but for community, not portfolio)
Local design meetups (often the best networking happens over beer)
Until next week, ✌️