I got off a webinar-lecture about design processes, done by a designer at a large, considerably design-mature company. It wasn’t particularly interesting for me because it was junior-focused, so a lot of the content I consider too elementary and a little bit misleading because of its over-simplification of the topic.

I’ve noticed that a lot of educational content available to junior designers today tend to condition them into believing that certain methods or processes are the correct answer to every design problem.

And that is a big issue in my opinion, but I won’t talk about that today. Or any other day in the near future.

But I will say this: When you are conditioned to think one company’s process is the ideal, you lose track of what other ways there is to develop a design process.

So today we’ll be exploring growth and design maturity. Because truly, how do we reach design maturity in the first place?

The Design-Mature Company

So many designers glow at working at a design-mature company. It’s understandable why they would to want to do so; design and product processes in these companies are clean and established. It’s yet another safe haven for designers, especially juniors, to practice design in the real world in a very controlled environment.

But when you keep working in a companies that has processes already set up, you don’t get first-hand knowledge and experience of how a company actually got there. You don’t gain the ability to understand what a company needs to do and mistakes they need to make in order to transition into their current process.

How would you actually know if your processes are correct if that’s the case? It all becomes a game of “Don’t bend what didn’t break”.

Design-mature or predictable management tactics?

A lot of design “mature” companies today fit into a cookie-cutter list of predictability. Many have rituals like brown-bag lunches, design presentations, design methodologies, design systems, documented policies regarding design hand-offs and all other quirks many green designers would consider perks in the job.

Sure, eventually when a company grows, having processes in place is required to ensure that the whole operations doesn’t go kaput, but does having all these actually mean you, the designer, are design-mature?

The two don’t always go hand-in-hand together. Working at a design-mature company doesn’t automatically mean you’re a mature designer.

Growth as a designer means contributing, not just doing work that’s handed to you.

A lot of design professionals come to me asking how to get unstuck from their stagnated careers, and a lot of them carry the same pattern: They only do what they’re told, and they don’t develop anything else outside their expected scope.

They don’t contribute to design processes, they don’t talk to engineers, they don’t debate with product teams and they don’t get themselves involved in the business.

Being in a process-mature company for too long might just sabotage your creative outputs. Because you’ll have everything handed to you on silver platters and fed to you with silver spoons.

Safety nets are actually gatekeeping you from growth

When I wrote “What it’s like designing at start-ups”, one of the main perks of being in a start-up (what I consider generally design-agnostic companies) is the freedom of practicing design however you see fit.

If you think doing a userflow works better, you do it. If you want to start directly with high-fidelity screens, no one will stop you. If you make mistakes, you are accountable for it.

And all that leads to growth as a professional. When you just follow a process and do as you are told, you are only learning one side of the coin and you’re honestly just going to end up a half-baked professional.

Benefits of a Design-Agnostic Company no one talks about enough

I know working in a design-mature company comes with its own benefits. For juniors especially, that initial mentorship, guidance, and solidified processes can help shape one’s perspective of what their design practice could be.

There is always two sides to a coin. I’m not saying working in a design-mature enterprise is bad, I’m simply advocating that design-agnostic companies can also be a decent choice for the following reasons:

A stronger track record

What sounds better? Having worked at an established design company or having worked at a company where you actually built a process and made an impact?

To most hiring managers, the latter is more attractive. ‘Nuff said.

Building accountability as a designer

A lack of processes means that you are going to make mistakes when you’re designing. And when you do make them, you just have to learn to move forward with it.

I have found that design-mature companies usually protect their designers too much from failure because processes are put in place to prevent mistakes. While this makes complete sense, it does skew a designer’s perspective and overall maturity as a professional.

No design is ever perfect, and there’s always mistakes that happen when you make the wrong hypotheses.

A successful professional is one that is not afraid to explore alternatives, fail while doing so, and be able to stand up to continue walking forward.

Lesser competition in the field

When you are less entitled, you open the door to more opportunities because you aren’t picky.

Everyone wants to work at a fancy company. Everyone wants some sort of perk and ideal scenario. But few actually wake up from that delusion and treat design as a job instead of a career-ego-booster.

What you’ll notice is that you’ll start applying to positions that aren’t exactly most people’s cups of tea, so applications are more likely to move forward when you approach your job hunt logically instead of emotionally.

Think about the impact you can make, and not just what the company can provide you.

The false expectations juniors commonly have

Look, I was once junior. I was also once naive and had dreams with grass patches too green, skies too blue, and clouds too fluffy. The first mistake anyone can make when it comes to their first job search in a new career path is focusing too much on the “perfect first job”.

It doesn’t exist.

Seriously, it doesn’t exist. Even if the perfect first job does appear (likely from Big Tech or some other famed company), it is reserved for the top 1% of junior talents, and you’re likely not part of that 1%.

From a logical perspective, most junior roles are not going to come with great perks, for a reason.

Junior roles are designed mostly to train someone to get mundane tasks done. Employers usually do not expect much from juniors, and hence, would not put too great of a budget or an effort to make a junior’s hiring and working experience great.

When you are a junior, you really have to earn your privileges.

Remember you are here to learn

Just like how we build MVPs for long-term sustainability, our career are marathons that also start with baby steps.

If you are not employed, you’re not even taking your baby steps; you’re just a fetus in the womb of the industry, at the very real risk of abortion.

It’s perfectly okay if your first job out in the wild is not an ideal one. I went through more than 5 gigs before I landed on a ‘decent’ role. Just because you don’t see it on my resume or LinkedIn doesn’t mean it wasn’t the case.

Remember that you’re THE designer

Be proud of the career path you’ve embarked on. While I’m usually ‘pessimistic’ about the industry now, there is actually a lot of impact to be made in the design industry as a whole.

Alternative design applications and design education is one of them. Your role as a designer is to not only design, but be the advocate for proper design practice that a company does not currently have.

Your unspoken job scope is to leave the company’s design practice in a better state than it was before.

You can level-up later

Even in the dreadful, competitive and nerve-wrecking hiring market today, you can still look for another job when you’re no longer satisfied with your first and current. A design career, like any other career, is build on multiple stepping stones.

You are unlikely to stay at one company your entire life, and opportunities will come by even if the market continues being over-saturated. Your main focuses should be in this priority: being employed, being the best designer you can for the company, building a better working environment, then being in the best working environment you can be.

Too many designers got the order of priorities wrong, and end up miserable because they expect too much and got too little.

The approach to finding Design-Agnostic Companies to work for

It’s actually not that straightforward to look for design-agnostic companies that are hiring. Many junior mentees lament about a restricted job hunt, where their employment feeds are filled with companies who are already somewhat design-mature (or appear to be), have expectations they won’t budge upon, and have loads of competition applying to the same listed positions.

I don’t have a great set of strategies myself regarding this topic, but this is what I’ve found to have worked for me.

Look for start-ups

The easiest group of companies to look at are start-ups, because they likely don’t know exactly what a designer should do but would still employ one and give them the freedom to practice design as they see fit.

Of course, start-ups in general would prefer someone with some experience, so they are not always junior-friendly. However, it never hurts to take a look because it’s a place where you can really make an impact and get to work on cool stuff many people won’t.

I’ve mentioned Wellfound in my start-up article, and really no other platform comes close when we’re talking about start-ups specifically. Just try them out, and good luck!

Try your luck at companies with any design openings

With the over-saturation of UX practitioners, trust me when I say there are plenty of other design roles that really need more love more than ever.

I’ve seen so many mentees make the really dumb mistake of not accepting a design role because it’s not UX, only to regret it deeply because they could have transferred to the company’s UX department later or set up their own.

Career mobility within companies exist. It’s okay if the initial role wasn’t what you wanted, once you perform, you can advocate for the role that you’ll like to take on.

Branding, graphic design, marketing design are all great areas to start with, because you can eventually branch out to do UX when the company trusts you enough to let you advocate for things.

Like I mentioned before, your unspoken job scope is to leave the design practice in a better state than it was before.

When you’re employed, you will gain power and control over your career. If you choose to stay unemployed because the job is not what you wanted, you don’t have the power to do anything.

Don’t sabotage yourself like this.

Closing thoughts

I know some people will come at me for “talking out of my ass” when it comes to alternative career strategies. But look, the economy isn’t that different from before. If you really want to thrive in this space, you just gotta do things a little differently.

While not shown in my resume, I also dabbled in a lot of other design work before UX became my main thing and I was proficient enough to get a steady stream of UX jobs to work on.

I’ve been hired at companies that do not know what UX is, and needed to do pitch decks, marketing collaterals, video editing and etc. before I was given a chance to start a UX practice from scratch. So it is possible, you just have to take the chance and try.

Just because your journey didn’t start out perfect, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t start at all. I hope you’ll take this wisdom and move forward with getting a job in design that you can use to shape your career.