zain
Draft: Zain's voice pass pending. Adapted from a LinkedIn post; he reviews before this publishes.
DesignUp, Episode 2. As an IC, I've often wondered "what's next?" Alex Skougarevskaya's session gave one of the clearest answers I've heard: grounded and practical, not inspirational-poster material.
She frames design career growth as a change in currency: what you create value through, at each stage:
- IC → Craft. Value through making things better yourself: execution, precision, deep skill.
- Lead → Trust. Value through making others better: teaching, mentoring, relationships.
- Director/Head → Clarity. Value through bringing people together at scale: turning complexity into coherence.
She also talked about getting comfortable in the in-between, the undefined space where design meets engineering and strategy, and named that as a real skill: creating clarity when nothing is neatly defined.
One line reframed how I think about growth: "Instead of asking 'IC or manager?', ask: what am I willing to leave behind, and what am I ready to take on?" It's not about titles. It's readiness, timing, trade-offs.
Three questions before stepping up
- What am I good at?
- Where's the gap: in my team, my org, my skills?
- What don't I quite understand yet?
When those align, it's time to step in or up. And at each level the self-check changes: as an IC, am I more energized by doing the design or helping others do it better? As a lead, am I building trust beyond my immediate team? As a director, can I turn vision into execution and create clarity out of chaos?
The hardest lesson: some things don't scale at senior levels, like being the one who makes the thing, being close to every decision, being "the best designer in the room." Growth also means learning to let go.