Why The Valley Wants Designers That Can Code | Hacker News Reader

Why The Valley Wants Designers That Can Code

konigi.com

35 pointsrobin_reala16 comments

It's all about cost versus benefit.

Of course every startup wants designers who can code. And architect. And grill a perfect panini. And work for minimum wage. And, and, and.

The list of wants is miles long.

But finding someone with the exact specialties you want, for the price you can pay, is hard.

Finding someone with a single specialty for your price is a lot easier. Especially if they are relatively inexperienced so far.

If you find a jack-of-all-trades willing to work cheap, of course you should take them. But don't start thinking you -need- that. Work with what you can get.

Along with perfect visual and coding skills, "The Valley" wants designers in-house and under control. If companies want to hire talent, they need to be more willing to hire remotely. What's holding them back is the irrational fear of losing control. "How can I make sure he's working a full eight hours a day?" "What if he drops off the face the earth?"

Interface design can be done from anywhere on the globe. It's silly to restrict your hires only to locals or those desperate enough to relocate.

The anachronism that is http://hoveringartdirectors.tumblr.com offers a glimpse at the absurdity (and unintentional hilarity) of working in-house. How is hovering more efficient than viewing the design on your own monitor? Which is a more realistic use-case of your application? Actually using the app yourself, or standing by someone and having them show you?

There is a fine line between feedback and hovering/control. It all boils down to the inter personal relation and the respect you have for the other person (professionally and as a human being).

I have worked with both extremes. People who even after being far off want to control and are able to control every aspect of your work till you get frustrated enough and people who even after sitting right next to you know how to "lose control".

Currently I am working with people from the "Valley" who also happen to know how to give great feedback while also giving complete artistic freedom. At the same time they also know when to cut my ideas short when they do not align with the product. Win win for all and at the end of the day a great experience for the person using the product (hate the word user).

As far as the opinion to the article, I believe much before looking for a technical acumen, companies especially startups should look for the right product sense in the designers. A designer who does not understand the how to program can create great design but a designer who fails to understand the core values and strategy of the product is a ticking time bomb.

> Along with perfect visual and coding skills, "The Valley" wants designers in-house and under control. If companies want to hire talent, they need to be more willing to hire remotely.

This is a brash condemnation. In my experience startups are just as willing to hire remote as any other business, with the possible exception of those who have no local talent at all.

> Interface design can be done from anywhere on the globe. It's silly to restrict your hires only to locals or those desperate enough to relocate.

For the past 3 years, I've worked for possibly the most distributed startup in history. At one point I think we were averaging something like 1.8 people per country, with the largest time zone gap being 8 hours between Sydney and Palo Alto. I've telecommuted for several other jobs and a ton of contract work as well.

I know how to be effective remotely, and certainly running a startup this way gives you a hiring advantage, but it's not without significant downsides. The idea that it's about hovering or butts-in-seats is a strawman to the extreme; that type of attitude is a sign of failing before you started anyway.

The reason to all be together is that the collaboration is better. You will share ideas better, iterate faster, experience less friction in communication, and feed directly off the communal energy. You can take steps to narrow the gap with technology, but even a full-time video conference link is not the same as physical presence. I don't blame any founder for keeping everyone in one place.

From a web development perspective... I like designers who can code because they're going to know how difficult it is to make the thing they design. They'll also likely know what the tradeoffs that can be made for support in different browsers are.

Designers who can't code can still understand all these things, of course. But in my experience they're less likely to.

Well, 37signals talked about that some years ago.. I am a front-end developer with some UI skills but no design skill at all so I maybe a bit flawed but..

It all comes down to what you are looking for, I never saw a designer as good as a front-end developer doing html/css + js in real life (of course there are a couple of rockstars on the web).

They always have more a trial/error style than good code by design. Plus with web apps going more and more front-end side, you need people that do great html/css/js if you want a great working app.

Some UI skills, but not design? I'm not sure if I understand here. If you are making up UI, you are designing.

As a designer, there is definitely a great benefit being able to take your ideas and build them. What's more is that you have full control over your ideas and how they're implemented. That being said, though, there's a lot of back and forth. At one point your design may be top notch, but your code may suffer and vice versa. It's just how it is. However in a startup environment, the goal is quick and functional as opposed to being perfect. It really depends on your priority, but knowing how to code as well as design is extremely liberating.

I keep hearing that companies are looking for these kind of hybrid designers/developers, but I'm one of those people and struggle to find a job that allows that freedom. In fact, I recently moved to SF thinking it would be easier to find that kind of role at startups. I happen to be in the job market right now, so shoot me a message if you need someone that can wear many hats.

You should post a link to portfolio/resume/github account to better market yourself on this thread

one of the highest priorities, especially for bootstrapped startups, is to ship while lean on resources.

In other words, exploit the human resource as much as possible while paying them as little as possible? Makes sound business sense to me.

"If you can't do some kind of code, at least learn HTML5, CSS and a little Javascript, and maybe some other server-side scripting languages"

But take 5 years of solid work/practice with this to actually know what your doing...

Aside from myself, most of my friends are creatives and through that I have found it EXTREMELY rare to find stellar designers who can also code just as quickly and proficiently as front-end developers who have dedicated themselves to the craft.

Another explanation that I derive from the last time I saw flashy UI take a front seat in tech (1999-2002): we are in Yet Another Bubble, and Sizzle Sells (overvalued companies to sucker VCs.)

_ducks_

I am a coder that can design. Maybe I should move to the valley

This seems like a no-brainer to me. As the integration between back and front end vision becomes tighter, the better the product will be.

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