When I think about building design teams, I lean on my experience playing on hockey teams for inspiration. The number one quality that hockey scouts look for in a player is that they have heart.
Having heart is a combination of passion, tenacity, fearlessness and care for one’s teammates. The best talent scouts look deeper than skating and scoring ability to understand the person underneath the shoulder pads. Do they have heart? Will they persevere when it gets rough? Will they go the distance? Will they hold up their teammates? Will they put in the work to win? Are they open-minded to alternate perspectives and ways of doing things? When I assemble teams, I look for the same things.
my approach
I have built a proven, highly structured and repeatable hiring process for each role on my team. I include evaluation criteria for the interview panel and briefs for the candidates so that they know exactly what I am looking for. My hiring process continuously evaluates the candidate for “heart.”
Throughout the process, I treat every candidate as if they are already a team member and managed by me. That means they can reach out to me directly to ask questions, get feedback, and even get coaching. I believe the interview process must be as close to daily working realities as possible so the candidate and the hiring team can experience what working together might look like. My experience has been that candidates who take advantage of my access (and later on, senior designers) have been hired.
the first hire
Usually, the first hire is a principal-level UX architect around whom I will build the rest of the team. I typically start sourcing candidates to fill this role on my second day at the company (they are very hard to find and usually are passive job seekers). This person starts as my partner, and as the team scales, they take over the core UX architecture responsibilities, and I reduce the amount of IC work I perform. Here is the “player” part of my role that this person will co-lead with me, then eventually take over:
Lead cross-platform design initiatives, ensuring optimal workflow, usability, accessibility and defining interaction design patterns.
Co-own the product UX vision and lead its ongoing iterations. This means working cross-functionally to understand user needs, define use cases, conduct competitive analysis, model user journeys and design concept prototypes for new features and ongoing UX improvements.
Actively propose and drive new initiatives aligned to UX, product, and business goals.
Lead and mentor new design hires
Define UX metrics and telemetry needs so that we may evaluate success
Take over leading the twice-weekly design critique sessions
Actively advocate for user needs throughout the organization and drive achievement of product and business goals through the delivery of an excellent user experience
subsequent hires
Usually, the second hire is a senior to principal-level UI/Visual designer. This person will take over and improve all UI/Visual design responsibilities. Most UX architects (myself included) have passable visual design skills that will suffice for early versions of the product. As sales activities ramp, the product must be more “sellable,” and a polished, consistent UI design (visuals, artwork, interactions) becomes increasingly critical to the product's success.
hiring ratios
I fill in design needs as engineering scales. My approach is to ensure that design stays lean so that a) designs are always going to production and few, if any, go up on the shelf to wait for eng resources, and b) developers always have approved designs to implement and never “go hungry.”
At Sigma, I used a 5:1 (frontend engineer to product designer) ratio. I aligned with the VP of Engineering on this ratio based on two factors:
Engineering hiring plan (which was very aggressive) and the anticipated velocity
X-Factor: extremely productive co-founder who was developing the front-end full-time (he needed a dedicated designer!)
More UX & Design hiring ratios:
Eng to Product Design: 5:1
Product Design to Visual Design: 3:1
PM to UX Research: 3:1
Every company is different, so this hiring approach and subsequent ratios must be tailored to company needs.
©️ 2024, Julie Lynn Lemieux