- I can not imagine how confusing it must be
to be a designer entering the tech industry right now,
and being confronted with all of the different
(beeps) job titles.
So many job titles.
It's made even more confusing
by the fact that different companies
might define a similarly title role differently,
and also that sometimes there are many different titles
for what is essentially the same role.
Very confusing, there's a lot to take in.
But in today's video, I wanna break down for you
the most common design roles in the tech industry,
tell you what they mean,
and what sort of skills they involve,
so that hopefully if you're entering the industry
or perhaps making a switch,
it can help you know where to start with your search.
Let's get into it.
(upbeat music)
First up, product designer.
This is a very common role at the moment
and probably the majority of the design job openings
that you see in the tech industry,
will be for a product design role.
Simply put a product designer works
on the design of a digital product.
This title has become the general term
for a UX/UI designer in the tech industry
and it's one of those titles
where like I was saying in the intro,
the actual scope of the role depends greatly
on the company team structure and the size of the company.
In smaller companies a product designer
is more likely to wear a lot of hats
and be across the UX design of the product,
as well as the visual design of the interface
and perhaps the design system too,
when the company and the design team gets larger though,
product designers get to focus more
on a perhaps a very specific area of the product
to very specific feature,
and perhaps a very specific skill set as well.
So perhaps instead of being across the UX,
the user research and the visuals,
they're just focused on the UX side of things.
So for this one, I really recommend
reading the job description carefully
so that you can get a better understanding
of the kinds of things you'll be doing in the role.
But, in general, this is a role that will suit you
if you're really interested in working on a product
in making design decisions, based on things
that users need to accomplish with the product,
learning from how they're using it currently
and making improvements to make things better for them.
I think you'll really thrive in this role,
if you love systems and paying attention
to all the small details that make up an experience.
Next up, UX designer.
So as I said, often, a UX designer in the company
is actually called a product designer these days,
it's hard to know, but this is a designer
who is focused specifically on the experience
a user has with the product.
So, they'll be figuring out the most efficient
and enjoyable ways for the user to get things done.
In practice this role looks like spending a lot of time
mapping out user journeys,
like the flow through the product,
creating wireframes, perhaps doing research as well,
making prototypes, you're figuring out the best
like information architecture and structure of the design
to help solve a problem for the user
and likely for the business as well.
And then usually you will hand off to a UI designer
or maybe use a design system of pre-designed components
to sort of put that visual layer on to your UX structure.
If you love the data and science side of design,
but don't really care for the art or like more creative,
visual expression side of it so much,
then UX design is probably a really good role for you
'cause you'll get to thrive in that area.
If this is the type of role that excites you
and that you're looking for, make sure you check out
product design job descriptions as well,
and read the details of what the role will entail,
because that's where you'll likely find
a lot of UX roles as well.
Next up, a UI designer.
This is a designer who designs the visuals
for a user interface.
And I found that it's not a super common role on its own
in the tech industry anymore.
Usually a designer is expected to be able to handle
both the UX and the UI side,
in that sort of like product designer packaging
we were talking about,
but in the companies where this role does exist,
they're probably either working hand in hand
with a UX designer, on that visual side
of bringing a design to life
or they're working perhaps on the design system,
in determining the right colors,
the right size and shape of buttons,
to feel easy together and to feel harmonious in a design
that perhaps other designers are working with that system
to pull in, to bring designs to life.
If you wanna focus on the visual side of design,
this role will suit you, but like I said,
these days it's usually a UX/UI designer package
or a product design role that people are looking for.
So, again, read those descriptions carefully.
Next let's talk about web design roles.
So a web designer in a tech company
will use similar skills to a product designer
UX, UI design, information architecture, user research,
but they'll be applying those skills and that knowledge
to a website, rather than a digital product.
Usually in a tech company this role falls
in the marketing or growth side of the organization
and the side you're working on
is the company's marketing website
so the thing that's selling users on using the product.
Sometimes the role is called web UI designer,
but even in those cases,
I've found that the role is still responsible
for the UX of the website,
as well as the visual look and feel of it.
So, that can be a little confusing.
There's often more like freedom and flexibility
and creativity available to you
in the design of a website compared to a product
to which it has to be a little more structured,
and there's a lot more like moving pieces
being put in place,
so if you enjoy both sides of the design,
like the UX and the visual side of things,
but you also wanna flex those creativity muscles
a little more, then a web design role
could be the one for you.
Lastly, let's talk about
my personal favorite role, marketing designer.
So this is a title that a web designer
in-house at a tech company might actually have
when they're responsible for not only the marketing website,
but also other marketing materials and assets,
as well as the design of the brand.
So this role is also called brand designer
a lot of the time in tech companies
tend to use it interchangeably.
You gotta watch out for that one
if you're applying for branding design roles,
this is not the one for you.
In marketing design, just like I was saying for web design
you use a lot of the same skills as product designer is,
UX, UI, information architecture, all that stuff,
but you're also probably using graphic design, illustration,
and those sorts of skills as well
for the wide range of assets that you're working on
and that you'll be designing.
Like with product design as well the scope of this role
depends greatly on the company that you're at,
because if it's a small team, if it's a large team,
depending on if their brand focuses heavily on illustration,
or if the marketing techniques they use
involve a lot of print stuff
maybe it's a little bit old school I don't know,
then the scope and the range of the projects
that you work on can be quite different.
In general though, the challenges that you'll solve
as a marketing designer are increase in conversion rates
to make the marketing materials perform better
and ensuring that users have all the information
and like easy access to the information that they need
to decide if the product is right for them,
if you like working on a range of projects,
and just like with web design,
if you enjoy both the art and the science side of design,
then this is a role that will suit you
especially if you have an interest
in marketing and branding as well.
I hope this breakdown gave you some pointers
or perhaps you got an idea of which one
might appeal to you most for where to start
in your search for a design job in tech.
If you wanna hear more about marketing design,
I am just gonna talk about it a little more
because it is my favorite, as I said.
I have a podcast called inside marketing design
where I interview other marketing designers
in the tech industry, so you can click the link down below
in the description to watch those
or head to InsideMarketingDesign.Co,
and there you'll learn a bit more about
that role in particular, in other tech companies.
I know it can be hard to figure out which role,
which career path to pursue,
but just go for whichever one
feels like it interests you the most
and has the skills that you most wanna work on developing
used within that role.
And keep in mind too, that once you pick one,
you're not stuck on that path forever.
You can definitely change around
and the skills you learn in any of these roles
will be able to apply to the others as well.
So yap, hope this video was useful,
give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it
and make sure you subscribe for more design videos.
I like to share my process on this channel,
show you real world design projects
that I'm working on as part of my job,
as creative director at ConvertKit,
yap, hope you'll stick around
and I'll see you in the next video, bye.
(upbeat music)