For someone who hasn’t had a corporate job since indie sleaze was popular the first time around, I think about career ladders kind of a lot. They come up constantly with coaching clients:
I’m trying to get promoted to the next level, but my boss says I’m not ready.
My coworker has less experience than me, but got promoted before me. What gives?!
I’m hitting a decision point in our career framework: Do I want to stay on the IC track, or aim for management?
But there’s one flavor of career ladder conversation that comes up more than any of the others. And honestly, it’s the one that hurts my heart the most. It sounds something like this:
I thought I’d finally be happy once I hit director / made the senior leadership team / became department head. I worked so hard for this. But now that I’m actually here… I’m miserable. I don’t have the power I expected, I don’t fit in with my peers, and I don’t even like the work I’m doing. What now?
I’ve had dozens of conversations like these—conversations with smart, ambitious people who spent years so driven to succeed that they never stopped to ask themselves whether they actually wanted what was on the other side of success.
Or if they’d even like the person they’d need to become to get there.
This is why I spend so much time encouraging people to do some real self-reflection before getting caught up in their company’s career ladders. Sure, more money is nice. And sometimes more autonomy and opportunity come with it. But if you’re chasing titles and promotions primarily because you feel like you “should”—or because it’s the only way you know to feel like you’re valuable as a human being—maybe it’s time to slow down and ask yourself, what do I really want here? And how do I make sure that wherever I land on the official career ladder, I’m shaping my role in a way that actually serves me?
So I’m delighted that on October 30, I get to facilitate a conversation about career ladders—both what we can do to make them more useful and equitable as roles shift rapidly… and when we should ignore them altogether, and rely on our own goals and motivations to guide our career paths forward. And I’ll be joined by three panelists with a lot to say about the state of design/UX career paths right now.
Meet the panelists
Desirée García is a principal product designer at Medium, where she’s currently in the thick of redesigning their design career ladder.
Shelby Bower is a design leader who wants to help designers think bigger than their job descriptions—and start bending career ladders to better fit who they are instead.
Shani Jayant is the head of design at Be My Eyes—a role she created once she threw out the career ladder, and started following her intuition instead
Like all our Loose Threads events, this discussion is totally free, and will be recorded. All you have to do is register. All the event details are below—see you there!
—Sara
Featuring Desirée García, Shelby Bower, and Shani Jayant
Friday, October 30 • 12-1pm ET • FREE
Designers’ roles and responsibilities are shifting faster than orgs’ formal career ladders can keep up. But this is nothing new—career ladders have always been challenging to document. Clearly defined standards are essential for fair evaluation, and yet… they don’t easily capture the special qualities and strengths that only you can bring to a role.
In this session, we’ll unpack the complications and contradictions of creating and following design career ladders right now. We’ll explore questions like:
What’s the right balance of equity and flexibility?
What should be locked down? What should be up for interpretation?
What checks and balances ensure standards are being applied fairly?
How much energy should you, as a designer, put into checking the boxes vs. exploring work that’s meaningful to you?
And we’ll protect plenty of time for our panelists to answer your questions about career ladders: how to design them, maintain them, and when to adhere to them—or not.