Ask HN: I don't want to be a product designer anymore. What is my path forward? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I don't want to be a product designer anymore. What is my path forward?

8 pointsnbzso3 comments

A colleague of mine asks this question. He is a very capable Product Designer (16 years of practice), with HTML/CSS/JS knowledge and some Product Management roles behind him.

He is frustrated with the current state of Design Systems complexity and mismanagement, has no interest in conducting interviews or any form of UX research.

In his words: I don't understand why we have to spend our time polishing Figma components, conduct useless meetings and component reviews instead of building real products trough code and UI libraries.

What are his options, according to the audience of HN. What front end dev resources and experiences you can share for him?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Correction. I have made a mistake, not to include JS in his skill set.

I am in a somewhat similar situation. After closing my web company recently (2019), I have focused purely on DS and the hand-off process.

In my case, I have an interest in front-end development (React), refreshed my JS knowledge (https://eloquentjavascript.net/), and moving forward with this course (https://designcode.io/react).

Frustration can come from different angles, company, team, or personal.

Working long years as a PM and business owner, I found that sometimes the changes are inevitable. Some vacation and personal time can help for future adjustment. Good luck to your friend.

What he’s describing he would rather be doing is someone else’s job.

Someone has to speak to customers, or at least decide _what_ to build if you’re in the “if we build it they will come” camp.

If he doesn’t want to do UX work then he can move away from product design / UI / UX research and do front end dev instead.

They will need to learn js beyond the html and css they already know.

Honestly in 2022 I find it hard to believe anyone is just doing html/css without also building functionality with js+ And getting away without doing any user engagement work alongside.

My mistake. He has some JS skills, logically. I have not included it in the description.

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