How Designers Grow Beyond the “Ladder”
I’ve worked on a few career ladders in my life. I’ll also admit that I helped create one or two that were far more complicated than they had any right to be. They were supposed to help people grow, but somehow turned into elaborate systems for sorting humans into numbers. So I wanted to talk about growth the way I’ve actually seen it happen when it is through intrinsic motivation, where people develop capabilities that let them take on work that feels more meaningful and less like a robot needing to earn the checkmarks to move from PD1.3 to PD2.1.
Craft: Where Good Design Actually Begins
Craft is where everything starts. We sometimes dismiss it as “execution,” but it’s taste, aesthetics, simplicity, emotion, and usability all rolled together into something that looks obvious only after someone has done the hard work of getting it there.
Designers who have strong craft make products feel intuitive without a tutorial and delightful without trying too hard. It’s a mix of repetition, muscle memory, and that mysterious thing we call taste. And it is far rarer than I understood early in my career. I used to believe the “real” value of design was in the earlier thinking. But after managing many designers, I realized just how much value comes from someone who can consistently create interfaces that are simply good. Strategy can wait. Bad output cannot.
Product Thinking: Seeing the Paths Inside a Problem
At some point, designers who want to grow hit a transition. The work begins to ask for a different kind of thinking, one where you influence what gets built rather than perfecting how it functions. This requires connecting the dots between customer behavior, business goals, the product’s direction, and a general understanding of what is even feasible.
This is when a designer can see different paths within a messy problem. Some are worth exploring deeply, some are detours, and some can wait their turn. It becomes a more intentional, hypothesis-driven way of building. And since none of this happens alone, designers often find themselves creating the space for this kind of thinking. A well-timed workshop can rescue more than one doomed idea (and act as team building as a bonus).
This same structure fuels strategic imagination: The Vision. But when done right, the future vision stops being a pretty poster and turns into something grounded: a direction that makes sense for users, the business, and the team. And because designers can visualize ideas, they can make that future feel real and exciting going beyond stories and words.
Influence: Because Big Projects Don’t Approve Themselves
Influence becomes important especially when designers want to take on work that changes the product on a grander scale. Larger projects simply cannot move forward alone, so growth starts to rely less on individual output and more on getting others to see the value in a direction.
Influence does not require charisma or dramatic presentations. If it did, my career would have ended early. More often, it looks like having a clear POV, talking to the right people, sharing early drafts, writing clearly, listening, revising, and slowly building alignment. Influence without authority requires both conviction and the willingness to let go of certain ideas so others can come along.
The reward is real. Helping a team see a future they could not see on their own is some of the most satisfying work a designer can do if impact is what drives them.
Why I Wrote All This
Craft, structured thinking, and influence are not stages to complete but rather what comes naturally if one wants to increase impact in an organization. Not every designer has to take this path though. Some stay close to execution. Some lean into craft excellence and specialty. All of these paths are valid.
For anyone curious about developing these capabilities, I’ll continue sharing what I’ve learned, what I’ve seen work, and what has helped me in my career. There is plenty of scaffolding one can use to practice and hone in on these skills over time.