All designers want to move off the ladder, but spoiler alert, it isn’t a defined checklist.

Realistically, the difference between a junior designer and a middleweight designer and a senior designer is that one of the main differences is experience, and moving up the ladder takes a little bit of time, and it’s not something you can do overnight one to two years.

It is something that can take roughly five to ten years to make your way up the ladder to reach a senior level.

But let’s say you’re ready to have a conversation with your boss, and you want to move up the ladder. How do you know when you’re ready. But before we do that, let’s look at the differences between the responsibilities of a junior designer, a middleweight designer, and a senior designer.

The Newbie Junior

So, a junior designer tends to have fewer obligations. This is just due to a lack of experience and the fact that they still find in their feet and they don’t know what they want to do yet within the UX field. Juniors tend to solve particular problems: usually set tasks by their seniors.

Not required to do the whole process, they typically concentrate on a specific problem at one time. They usually get assigned tasks that are a lower priority, and this is so they can get a feel for the product and come up with a singular solution.

This is mainly because they don’t have the experience to see the overall picture. They usually concentrate on a particular problem other than the whole project as a whole. Juniors are allowed to make mistakes. Maybe a fundamental problem wasn’t solved correctly, or they missed a requirement, but this is expected because that’s okay they are still learning. In their process, juniors are usually shielded from harsh feedback, and they’re really involved in client meetings and.

Maybe they are not ready to take criticism and assertive feedback and cannot determine the difference between feedback for the product they created and not reflect on them.

Separating your work from you as a person is something that comes with experience.

Something which isn’t very easy to do usually comes with a lot of experience and just time in general. Deadlines are generally a little bit longer. As a junior, you’re not expected to develop a solution in a couple of hours. You usually get a couple of days or maybe a couple of weeks. But this doesn’t mean you get to sit around and do nothing and then try and meet the deadline in a couple of hours, take all the time you’re given and ask questions and gain feedback as much as possible. You’ll be a better designer for it.

Trying to learn everything on your job during nine to five it’s just not feasible. You need to know some resources outside of your working hours that could be reading that could be watching some YouTube videos, or deep-diving into the project and just learning more.

Create wireframes create prototypes.

Do all these things while you’re still learning because you will benefit from it in the future. Spend time understanding the difference between UX and UI. Some designers don’t know which path they want to take if they wish to take an optical path or go down the research path.

Don’t jump straight into visual design and spend time pushing pixels. This will not benefit you, and you need to start from the very beginning, which is usually the research side of it. And then the wireframes, and then you move on to visual. Instead, spend time on UX talk to your users, create wireframes and solve the problems.

And last but not least, patience.

You should enjoy your time as a junior.

This is the time when you get to learn as much as possible you get to make as many mistakes as possible. It is beneficial when you want to move up the ladder. You need to understand what it’s like to be junior to start from the bottom and work your way up and try not to focus on the ladder. Trying to think well I should be at a senior level by now.

It takes time. It’s all about experience, and it is going to take you a while to jump that ladder from a junior to a senior. Now let’s take a look at middleweight prioritization at this point in your career.

The Middleweight Designer

You should be well underway and understand that you can prioritize your workload on your own. Time management at this point in your career is something you need to understand, and you need to do yourself. You need to manage your time effectively and meet the deadlines that have been set at this point.

You may be asked to attend client meetings, and you may also have to present some of your ideas. This is usually to help you transition from a junior level up to middleweight and then eventually a senior.

You sit down with clients, discuss your ideas, show them your prototypes, and talk through your designs as clear and straightforward as possible. But don’t worry, you won’t be on your own you will usually have a senior with you, a project manager, or a business analysis to be there with you to deflect all the awkward questions that may come from a client.

Whether that’s to do with budgets, or maybe it was just a point you didn’t make clear. But again, that’s okay. You’re not at the senior level yet, and you’re allowed to make mistakes. But the senior project manager or business analysis can jump in and help you out along the way. At this point, you should be able to practice your path, and you should know precisely what you want to do as a designer. Whether that’s UX research, visual design, UX design, it’s really up to you.

At this point, you should know your path, and you should be on your way to completing it. You will now be expected to collaborate with the development team, and that could be checking that the work has been implemented correctly. Come up with solutions if something has been missed and liaison with them throughout the project to ensure everything meets the correct standards.

And last but not least, for the middleweight, continue to learn you still don’t know everything yet, and that’s okay. Everything is constantly changing, and you need to keep up with everything. Continue to learn, and at this point, you’re creating. You’re still allowed to make mistakes. So still pick up projects in your spare time, still do your reading, still do your tubing, do everything that you possibly can to make yourself the best designer you can.

Now let’s take a look at senior when you’re finally at the senior level.

The Senior

The roles are drastically different from a junior and middleweight, and seniors tend to map out the whole process, so they get to see the bigger picture. They don’t just concentrate on a particular problem. They get to look at everything, and they are responsible for everything.

So, you are no longer the one who can go to somebody if you need help. You are now the help. You are now able to see the bigger picture and map out the whole project.

You do this to delegate some tasks to your middleweights and your juniors and make sure they have everything they can to get on with what they need. You will now be the point of contact to the client, so they will email you they may call you.

But you are now the point of contact where you didn’t usually liaison with clients when you were to middleweight or junior. That’s usually down to the senior level. Your role is to be the communicator between the UX process and the client’s expectations. You now can take criticism and make it into something productive.

Dealing with harsh clients

Sometimes clients can be extremely harsh, and it may sound like something is being directed at you. But it’s not.

It’s usually required at work, and you can now remove yourself from the situation and look at it from the bigger picture. See that the criticism is towards the product that you’ve created and not towards you. But then you can take the criticism that has been given and turned into something extraordinary.

At this point in your career, you’re an expert at managing your own time. Sometimes project managers or business analysts are just not on the project. You control the time and hit the deadline for the project. Managing your own time can be stressful, but it is something that comes with the job.

You’re now required to work on multiple projects at once, and yes, I mean various projects at once, and you bounce between tasks.

You could be working on a client project, and then you could be working on an internal project; you could be a liaison with the developers, be in a workshop, be writing tenders. You are all around the business at this point. You are now a point of contact for everyone, which comes with being a senior. This brings me on to my next point. You are usually involved in the tender process with the sales team. Sometimes you need to be involved. Sometimes you need to give a precise estimation of how long something will take within a project.

And this is so the sales team can accurately add a number to the project and the tenders that will be going out into the world. You will also understand the development process, and you will be able to develop alternative solutions.

If the first solution couldn’t be implemented, you are responsible for issues in the designs. If the development team can’t implement what has been proposed, this could be due to tech or time restraints, and you need to offer an impromptu solution not to hold up the development process.

You are also responsible for the overall solution, so you need to set some timers to go for the junior’s work the middleweight’s work to make sure it meets the expectations and standards. The deadlines at the senior level are pretty short, a few hours a day at most.

Depending on the requirements, you don’t get months and weeks anymore, unfortunately. You have to be able to deliver your work faster, but this actually does come with experience, and you usually do get a lot quicker at your job if you do it over and over again.

It’s really about a repetitive process, and the more you do it, the faster you become.

You are initially responsible for the junior’s and the middleweight’s work.

You are the role model, and you are the mentor. So, please make sure these guys are happy they’re learning and have plenty of work to do. And that’s it that’s the difference between a junior designer, a middleweight designer, and a senior designer.

General Advice for all

Senior is a very different role from a junior, and it is something which does come with experience, and it is something that you need to work towards, and you will build up eventually.

It is not unknown, but it is rare for a junior to start at one company and then progress to a senior at the same company. You usually move around. You typically jump between agency to agency or in-house to in-house, and yeah, that’s the way I would suggest doing it.

Don’t get stuck in one place. Jump around your entire also get experience elsewhere working under different people. You’ll gain a lot more experience than we would be in one place, and the process could be highly different from one agency to the next. So again, if you jump around, you’re forever learning, so don’t be afraid to apply for that job ad and, yeah, get a job elsewhere. It’s up to you. It’s your role, it’s your career, and do what’s best for you.