A new phase as a designer
And the learnings that came with it
In December 2019, a design recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn. We talked about the challenges the company was tackling, its culture, and how those things might suit the moment I was living concerning my career. That was the first of many conversations we had that brought me to where I am now: at the retail industry, as a product designer crafting experiences for the worldwide retail community.
Six months ago I took a leap of faith and found myself joining an amazing team and facing the most complex challenges I’ve ever had to deal with. It has been a journey filled with joy, surprises, and, above all, learning. I’ve reflected a lot during this period and decided to register these reflections here so they might encourage other designers to share similar experiences. I also hope this can help other people going through this kind of process with ease and a bit more tranquility.
Changing jobs might be overwhelming, and that’s alright
Especially when we’re not only changing companies but changing the industry we work on — from media to retail, in my case. Companies have different hierarchy models, cultures, rituals, and many other different characteristics when compared to one another. All of that already challenges us to change how we used to work. Beyond that, the problems we address may be different — from designing news portals to e-commerce platforms, for instance. This requires us not only to adapt our routines, but to learn (a lot) about new users, behaviors, technologies, and many other contextual factors. This may even end up influencing how we see design as a discipline. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed, and there’s an expected period of adaptation for a professional to actually start delivering valuable experiences. Which brings us to our next point.
Focus on the context
I’ve once heard that the more experienced a professional is, the more she/he listens, and the less she/he talks. It took me changing teams (and jobs) to learn that was all about gaining context. When facing a new challenge, it’s normal to feel insecure and decision-making may turn out to be a harder task than we’ve imagined. Surrounding ourselves with context allows us to gain confidence in our work and to design the product we’re building more assertively. Talk to people that work on your company for longer than you have. Ask as many questions as you feel you need to. Talk to your users and aim to clarify the problem you’re solving, as well as the constraints you and your team might face along the journey of building things together.
You’re not alone
Trust your team to help you through the journey of gaining context. Work on building not only products but relationships based on trust and respect. Fuel these connections with co-creation and knowledge exchange. This type of approach will help you earn your team’s trust as well as improve yourself professionally, as we have a lot to learn from others. On the other hand, this doesn’t mean you don’t also have things to contribute with.
Contribute when it makes sense
Eventually, even after asking lots of questions and learning with our peers, the moment of trusting our guts arrives. Yes, we do have a lot to learn and a long way to go through the road of gaining context, but trusting our capacities and in how much we’ve grown through previous experiences is also important. This allows us to boldly address the problems we face and help ourselves — and our peers — to grow.
It’s OK to be wrong
Sometimes reaching for our peers, talking to our users, and surrounding ourselves with context is not enough. We go for it, put our MVPs to test and… our hypothesis proves to be wrong and results don't turn out as we expected. Yes, it can be frustrating, but what really matters is what we do to learn from the situation. Revisit the process with your team. Putting strengths together to reinvent an approach helps everyone grow and deliver a great experience in the end.
The road is still in front of me and of every colleague that is still arriving to help us on this amazing ride through building the future of e-commerce. Yes, we may be overwhelmed but we are also committed to gaining context nonstop, trusting our peers and, maybe the most important thing — we are confident in our capacity to learn whatever we need to deliver great experiences. Always learning with each other. Always together.
My thanks to the VTEX Team. Also Education’s team writer Juliana Meyer Arruda, my team’s PM Cristiane David, design partners Jonatas Guerci, Mateus Bolsoni, Eduardo Insaurriaga, Gabriel Galc, Davi Costa, and my dear friend Lena Sotto Mayor.
