For the past two decades, digital product design / UX has been shifting to become a more strategic discipline within organizations. Partially because business leaders have started to pay attention to how design-driven companies have seen tangible return over investment in design, going from tiny startups to successful global businesses. But partially because

designers have fought hard for it: one of the most heated debates in our industry in recent years touched on how designers needed to understand about business, learn to map design decisions to business KPIs, and ultimately secure a seat at the table where strategic decisions are made within an organization.

As companies continue to increase their investment in design, and digital teams continue to grow, the company leadership feels the need of assigning managers who can keep those different design teams up and running.

Senior individual contributors (ICs) are expected to become leaders.

Leaders are expected to become managers.

But designing and managing are two very different jobs.

在過去的二十年中，數字產品設計/ UX已經轉變為組織內更具戰略意義的學科。 部分原因是企業領導者已開始關注設計驅動型公司如何看到從設計初創公司到成功的全球企業的設計投資的有形回報。 但部分原因是

設計師為此進行了艱苦的努力 ：近年來，我們行業中最激烈的辯論之一涉及設計師如何需要了解業務 ，學會將設計決策映射到業務KPI并最終在戰略決策所占的位置上獲得一席之地。在組織內部進行的 。

隨著公司繼續增加對設計的投資，數字團隊也不斷增長，公司領導層感到需要指派可以保持這些不同的設計團隊正常運轉的經理。

預計高級個人貢獻者(IC)將成為領導者。

領導者有望成為管理者。

但是設計和管理是兩個非常不同的工作。

成為經理的(無形)壓力 (The (invisible) pressure of becoming a manager)

Designers love what they do, but at some point in their careers, they feel the pressure to become a manager. In some companies, shifting to a managerial position feels like the only path of growth. But “growth” can mean different things for different people. Why do designers want to be promoted to a more senior position in the first place?

設計師喜歡他們的工作，但是在職業生涯的某個時刻，他們感到成為經理的壓力。 在某些公司中，轉移到管理職位似乎是唯一的增長途徑。 但是“增長”對于不同的人可能意味著不同的事情。 為什么設計師首先要被提升到更高的職位？

• To have a broader impact on their organization. For a design idea to be implemented in larger companies, it has to get the buy-in from multiple stakeholders. In his article about the impact of product design, Josh Taylor, former Design Director of Evernote, reminds us that as designers grow and want their work to have a more significant impact in the team, organization, and society, they tend to naturally let go of the design craft and execution and move towards organization design and team management.

  對他們的組織產生更廣泛的影響。 為了使設計想法能夠在大型公司中實施，它必須獲得多個利益相關者的支持。 Evernote前設計總監Josh Taylor在關于產品設計影響的文章中提醒我們，隨著設計師的成長，并希望他們的工作對團隊，組織和社會產生更大的影響，他們自然會放手設計Craft.io和執行，并朝組織設計和團隊管理邁進。

• To continue to get salary increases. The reality of our industry is that the most obvious path to a higher salary is a managerial title. As an industry, we need to do a better job of treating senior individual contributors as equals with people managers. The status quo in most in-house teams is that if you have designers reporting to you, chances are you’ll make at least 20% more money than the most senior person you manage.

  繼續獲得加薪。 我們行業的現實是，獲得更高薪水的最明顯途徑是管理職位。 作為一個行業， 我們需要做得更好，將高級個人貢獻者與人員管理者一視同仁 。 大多數內部團隊的現狀是，如果您有設計師向您匯報，那么您賺到的錢可能比您管理的最高職位的人高出至少20％。

• For the prestige and clout of being a leader. Our industry turns the spotlight to directors, VPs, Heads of Design, and people with leadership-sounding titles. These people are given prime space in design conferences, blogs, press articles, and social networks, and in some cases, they become real celebrities of the corporate world.

  成為領導者的聲望和影響力。 我們的行業將目光投向了董事，副總裁，設計主管和具有領導才能的人。 在設計會議，博客，新聞文章和社交網絡上為這些人提供了主要的空間，在某些情況下，他們成為企業界的真正名人。

• For peer pressure. Linkedin has made everyone’s career trajectories easier to compare, and like any other social network, made the grass look deceivingly greener on the other side. If everyone that I went to school with is getting promoted, why not me? Am I lagging behind? Have I been stuck in the same position for too long? What story am I going to tell on my resumé?

  對于同伴壓力。 Linkedin使得每個人的職業軌跡都更易于比較，并且像其他任何社交網絡一樣，另一端的草坪看起來也更綠了。 如果和我一起上學的每個人都得到晉升，為什么不給我？ 我落后了嗎？ 我被困在同一位置太久了嗎？ 我要在履歷表上講什么故事？

Are designers prepared, though? According to the Bank of England’s chief economist, poor management is the principal cause of the U.K.’s stagnant productivity. Another analysis by job market analytics company Burning Glass states that “management skills represent one of the biggest skills gaps in the job market”, and that “management roles have larger skills gaps than those of the people they manage.”

設計師準備好了嗎？ 英格蘭銀行首席經濟學家認為 ，管理不善是導致英國生產力停滯的主要原因。 就業市場分析公司Burning Glass進行的另一項分析指出，“管理技能代表了就業市場上最大的技能缺口之一”，并且“管理職位比他們所管理人員的技能缺口更大。”

Prepared or not, most designers decide to take that new position they’ve been offered.

無論是否準備好，大多數設計師都決定采用他們提供的新職位。

Gradually, their day is taken over by activities that have very little to do with the ones that made them be recognized as great, senior designers in the first place.

逐漸地，他們的一天被那些與使他們最初被認為是偉大的，高級設計師的活動無關的活動所取代。

我們成長時會去哪里？ (Where do we go when we grow?)

According to Tanner Christensen, head of design at Gem and a designer with nearly 20 years of experience, the answer is often: to an entirely different role. In his brilliantly written article “Where do IC designers go once they peak?”, Tanner highlights that after a few years as an Individual Contributor (IC), designers in product companies today find themselves seemingly stuck.

寶石設計總監兼擁有近20年經驗的設計師Tanner Christensen認為 ，答案通常是： 扮演一個完全不同的角色 。 在他寫的精彩文章“ IC設計師達到頂峰之后該去哪里？ ”，Tanner強調說，作為個人貢獻者(IC)幾年后，如今產品公司中的設計師似乎陷入困境。

“Today we lose many remarkable individual contributors (IC) product designers to the management track because it doesn’t feel like there’s any other way to grow and do meaningful work at-scale. We continuously teach others that people managers have more influence and impact on the world than ICs, partially because the inherent power dynamic of someone who makes design decisions vs someone who makes decisions that directly impact the career of the other person.” — Tanner Christensen

“今天，我們失去了許多杰出的個人貢獻者(IC)產品設計師，成為管理者，因為這似乎并沒有其他方法可以大規模發展并開展有意義的工作。 我們不斷地告訴其他人，人事管理人員比IC對世界有更大的影響力和影響力，部分原因是做出設計決策的人與做出決策的人的內在動力動態直接影響到他人的職業。” —坦納·克里斯滕森(Tanner Christensen)

另一條路是可能的 (Another path is possible)

Some companies have started to pay attention to this trend, and offer career paths that give equal opportunities for managers and individual contributors. The model has proven to be successful in tech positions and has recently started to be applied to design career tracks as well.

一些公司已經開始關注這一趨勢，并提供了職業發展道路，為管理人員和個人貢獻者提供了平等的機會。 該模型已經證明在技術職位上是成功的，并且最近也開始應用于設計職業生涯。

Zendesk Creative, for example, has an entire growth path for individual contributors that doesn’t stop at the “senior” level. Figma has been thinking about their career paths in a pretty fluid way, focusing on skills as “superpowers” that people can bring to the team. Intercom defines their career paths based on Results and Behaviors, stating that “leadership can be practiced by those on both the management and the IC path”. And plenty of other companies have been more transparent and open about how they define their career paths internally.

例如， Zendesk Creative 為個人貢獻者提供了一條完整的增長之路，而這并不止于“高級”水平。 Figma一直在以一種非常流暢的方式思考他們的職業道路 ，專注于人們可以帶給團隊的“超級大國”技能。 對講機 根據結果??和行為定義他們的職業道路，并指出“領導者可以由管理層和IC道路上的人來實踐”。 許多其他公司在內部定義職業道路方面也更加透明和開放。

These companies understand a designer’s career progression should be less about where they sit in the company org chart, but more about how much value they can bring to the company.

這些公司了解設計師的職業發展應該與其在公司組織結構圖中的位置有關，而不是與他們可以為公司帶來多少價值有關。

你無法成為看不見的東西 (You can’t become what you can’t see)

As we’re editing and publishing articles here at the UX Collective, we have noticed an abundance of resources for designers who want to become leaders/managers, but a gap for those who want to continue to focus on their craft. If you’re looking to pursue the leadership or management track, books like Julie Zhuo’s The Making of a Manager, or articles like José Torre’s How can a designer become a leader are great starting points.

當我們在UX集體中編輯和發布文章時，我們注意到，想要成為領導者/經理的設計師有很多資源，但是對于那些想要繼續專注于自己的手藝的設計師來說，差距很大。 如果您想追求領導力或管理能力，那么朱莉·卓(Julie Zhuo)的《經理的形成》( The Making of a Manager )之類的書或何塞·托雷(JoséTorre)的《 如何成為設計師的領導者》等文章都是不錯的起點。

So we decided to start a new series.

因此，我們決定開始一個新系列。

‘Leading with craft’ is a limited series of articles where we shed a light on stories of designers with successful careers and who continue to grow as individual contributors.

“以Craft.io引領”是一系列有限的文章，在這些文章中，我們闡明了具有成功職業生涯并且不斷作為個人貢獻者成長的設計師的故事。

We’ll be talking to information architects, graphic designers, researchers, product designers; people from different disciplines who share one thing in common: they have never let their seniority move them away from their craft, their practice, and their passion for what made them great in the first place.

我們將與信息架構師，圖形設計師，研究人員，產品設計師進行交流； 來自不同學科的人們有一個共同點：他們從未讓自己的資歷使他們脫離自己的技藝，實踐和對使他們變得偉大的激情。

Hopefully, this series will show to young designers that they don’t have to abandon their craft as they grow in their careers. And for senior designers who are at a point where they need to make a decision whether to pursue a managerial path, we hope this series will inspire them to have ‘the talk’ with their managers about revisiting what growth looks like for them.

希望這個系列能夠向年輕設計師表明，隨著他們職業的發展，他們不必放棄自己的Craft.io。 對于需要決定是否要走管理道路的高級設計師，我們希望本系列能夠激發他們與經理進行“對話”，以重新審視他們的成長情況。

If you have any suggestions of people we should be talking to, send us an email: hello@uxdesign.cc. We’re looking for designers with more than 10 years of experience who have been successful in their careers and who haven’t really stopped being hands-on because of their seniority/level.

如果您對我們應該與之交談的人有任何建議，請給我們發送電子郵件：hello@uxdesign.cc。 我們正在尋找具有10多年經驗的設計師，這些設計師在自己的職業生涯中取得了成功，并且由于他們的資歷/水平而沒有真正停止動手。

Start here:

從這里開始：