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Get a seat at the table and build the design career you want. This podcast is for designers looking to break in, level up, and take control of their careers—whether you're freelancing, climbing the corporate ladder, or just trying to get noticed. Every two weeks, we dive into career fundamentals, design best practices, and the hottest topics in the design community.
And I already hear some people in the audience saying, well, like, if you do both roles, then you'll lose some of that creativity. So part of, like, having these roles separate is that the the designer can go to the moon with their concepts, and then the developer kind of keeps them accountable and brings them back. So you might because you understand the constraints, maybe you'll design within those constraints. You Do have a bit of pushback on that on someone kind of with that mindset?
Nick:It's it's something I've I've heard and and read about in, you know, the current we are kind of live now. This is what I always wanted to say. We are live. And we're officially live. We are officially live.
Nick:Exactly. I mean, this is just an experiment.
Tyler:Last year, there was a lot of change. I think this year is gonna be quite shocking. I think I'm gonna call it the year of the builder. Just a lot of changes are gonna be happening at the title level. A lot of consuming of of different titles into one or merging is gonna be probably the theme of this year.
Tyler:Think I'm calling that. AI is gonna be another theme this year, and I think I'm seeing a lot of change. And a lot of people are uneasy at the moment. I don't know if you're you're feeling the same, a lot of tension, especially in the design community.
Nick:Mhmm. Oh, yeah. For sure. I think we're all we we all want to do everything with AI, you know, even if it doesn't have to be AI. You know?
Nick:We we're looking at things that are perfectly fine. Like, maybe we can just replace it with something that's, you know, equally fast or equally good, but then just because it's AI, it's better. And that's that's an uneasy feeling that I think many designers have. Like, I I should use AI all the time for for everything, but I don't know how. I don't know where.
Nick:And that's a feeling, I think, that we all have, but also something that we should see if we can take away. You know?
Tyler:I think so. I think I think it all starts if we think let's focus on design here. So I think the for the longest time, I think we've done ourselves a bit of a disservice. So if you look at, like, the org or, like, if you're doing freelance or if you're in house, there's usually a lot of collaboration with the internal team. So we have typically, you have the project manager, you have the designer, and then you have the engineer.
Tyler:And then we're doing this top potato dance of, like, moving something out the door. And we're all playing this pretend dance of keeping ourselves accountable. Mhmm. So product managers usually have, like, the business in mind, like, what keeping the scope clean. Design is trying to make sure we're empathizing and pushing for the user, and developers are just trying to get their backlog cleaned.
Tyler:I mean, there's nuance there. They're trying to get perfect code, trying to build scalable systems, etcetera. But what designers always I think what their strategy is because the the the feeling is, like, we people don't see the value in what we do. It's like this this we make pretty pixels thing. So, like, we we've marketed it on a probably, an incorrect way.
Tyler:And the strategy that we deployed was being more empathetic. Like, everyone could be a designer. We're creating these whiteboarding sticky board sessions, like, ever keeping everyone involved, doing collaboration, making it cool to be a designer. But in doing that, we've kind of lost lost the mark there. I think what we should have been doing is pushing for the value that design brings to the table versus, hey.
Tyler:It's fun to be a designer. I think we've lost a bit of that. And the consequence is that I think at either end, project management and leadership, they're adopting some of those design thinking methodologies, some of those tools. So they're encroaching on our space. And I feel like if we don't put up a standard show, like, the true value of design, eventually, design is gonna lose its kind of footing at the table in the end.
Nick:Are you saying that that should be the main focus for a, you know, product designer looking to survive 2026?
Tyler:Yeah. I think you should there are two paths. It's either you take the project management or leadership route or you take up development.
Nick:Mhmm.
Tyler:There's these tools are excel accelerating the need for things to be shipped out of the door quickly, and the less people in the room kind of keeping doing this pretend to keep each other accountable game, the better. So if Yeah. If you're a designer who knows how to write code and ship things, like, you have the context of, like, the user and the constraints of the code, that that marriage, I think, is really powerful.
Nick:What would you say to someone who's against designers who should code and that someone is a designer themselves? Like, you know, I'm a designer. They are developers. They should do their thing. I should do my thing.
Nick:So they're hesitant to make that change.
Tyler:I don't think you have like, you can draw that line in the sand, but I don't think it's gonna cost you in the end. I think tool the developer tools are getting so accessible that, like, it takes less effort than it did before to get. You don't have to have a 100% understanding. Some of these, like, code editors or IDs are getting accessible enough to, like, facilitate someone with a low level, like, development knowledge to create a thing. Now I'm not saying the designers are replacing developers because, like, they have a specific skill set, but the overlap is getting really it's really getting there.
Tyler:So if you can design and create prototypes and and and produce a thing rather than, like, a pretty picture Figma slide, like, prototype that has hotspots, create a an actual thing that works that you can actually prototype test with with clients, and then it's it's fed with actual data. That's a real that's a really good tool to, like, get the data that you need. And, also, it removes this whole idea of design system manager management. We're, like, we're we're hoping that developers implement this pretty picture design system that we have. If you can actually design and implement it one to one, the parity is there.
Tyler:And then there's a lot of work that's removed in the process.
Nick:Yeah. So, I mean, if I understand you correctly, what I'm think what I think I'm hearing is that you're really focusing on, like, the starting points. You know, you mentioned getting data. So if you can code, you can get the data. And then what happens once you do?
Nick:Like, do you then still hand it over to a developer, or do you think a designer can code in on a production code level? So can they make something that goes live, basically, like a real feature, or is there still a wall there between discovery and deliver deliverability?
Tyler:I think think we're getting close to having designers ship their work. I think they're within limits. I think there are, like, super complex features that required a lot of back end work and and a lot of logic that may be out of the scope of what a designer can do currently, but that's the gap that I think we should eventually close.
Nick:Right. Right. Because, you know, interesting thing is is, you know, for for one of my biggest and and also favorite clients, I do, you you know, certain features I work on from start to finish, you know, design Yeah. And then also putting it live. Like, there's still, like, a a review process, but that same process is there for the the very seasoned developer as well.
Nick:You know? So that's that's I wouldn't consider that to be a wall. You know? It's just me being part of the discussion and and working and contributing to the actual live products. I think that's been a a massive breakthrough for me as a designer, but also for the value I I bring, but also for the, you know, quote, unquote, respect, basically, for the role.
Nick:Not for me personally. I I don't really mind, but this designer can build what he's designing. I think that's a wow factor for a designer. And last year, 2025, I felt like that was, you know, being ahead of the curve. I feel like this year, it will be on the curve.
Nick:You know? So it's not going to be as novel as it was last year. You know? It's I think
Tyler:Exactly.
Nick:More more people are expecting it to be the case. I still think you would you'll be, like, a top 10% designer if you if you do it that way. Yep. But not the top 1% designer anymore that you were Yeah. Last year.
Tyler:Yeah. I think we're moving the goalposts the goalposts here. I think that will become the new norm, so, like, the merging of that role. And the unicorn is now the person who can do the triad, so, like, product management and design. And so that'll be the new goalpost of, like, where we see that unicorn designer kind of live.
Tyler:Mhmm. Yeah. But, like, to your point, like, you're already doing this already. And, like, the value to me is clear, but maybe you can kind of delve into, like, the value of understanding the code base that you're working on. And then there's the removal of a process where there's that there's that communication between design and dev just trying to understand the constraints.
Tyler:Yeah. The things that you have to keep in mind, like, what is, like, what is that like when you're, you know, when you're the person designing and knows how it can be implemented?
Nick:Mhmm. I think whenever you communicate between two people from different roles, so designer developer in this case, there's noise on the communication line. You know, this, you know, misunderstanding. A designer, a very cliche designer, a stereotypical designer, creates beautiful things. Yep.
Nick:Goes way overboard compared to the thing being asked from the designer. You know? I exaggerate, of course, a little bit, but, you know, redesign this button, and then you get a whole new page. Not keeping in mind the constraints of the frameworks being used, timelines, and how long it will take for developer to build something. So that's the the cliche designer on one end, and then the cliche developer on the other end looks at your design and then builds something that's about 60% there.
Nick:Like, it's all over the place layout. It's off. It doesn't look like what you designed, and then they they ask you, like, is right. Right? You know?
Nick:So there's annoyance there. Like, the designer is like, this is this developer, he'll get it wrong, and I have to pinpoint everything that's going wrong. And then we go back and forth. It takes a while, and then the developer's thinking, ugh. This silly designer is going to create way too much and gradients and animations, and it's just too much.
Nick:So both parties are annoyed. When you are a designer who can also build and you have saw you're familiar with your code base, with your client's code base, you know, like, oh, it's Tailwind or it's Bootstrap or it's React. Like, you you know what's possible. You can actually look inside of the code base. You know what you'll encounter there, so you can look what's already been done, see if you can reuse a bit of it.
Nick:So the package you send over to a developer is way closer to being a realistic and finished product compared to what you would normally do if you do not know how a developer wants to receive it. And so that just saves a lot of time, a lot of frustration, and headache, and I think that's that's a big time saver. And then AI is not even mentioned yet. You know, it's just you knowing about code. Mhmm.
Nick:That is a massive time saver, and you will be a good friend to all your colleagues. AI just helps you learn and and do things you wouldn't be able to do before. You know? So it's it's it's one of my biggest AI principles is to become better first and faster second. Like, I think that's the the big goal for me at least.
Nick:And I'll stop there because I know I I noticed I'm starting to ramble a little bit, but I'm sure I have more to say. But
Tyler:No. I mean I mean, that's And I and I and I already hear some people in the audience saying, well, like, if you do both roles, then you'll lose some of that creativity. So part of, like, having these roles separate is that the the designer can go to the moon with their concepts, and then the developer kind of keeps them accountable and brings them back. So you might because you understand the constraints, maybe you'll design within those constraints. Do you have a bit of pushback on that on someone kind of with that mindset?
Nick:Yeah. It's it's something I've I've heard and and read about in, you know, the current design community discussion on that topic. So, yes, you know, that shooting for the stars versus pushback. What I always say then in that case is just let me build it. You know?
Nick:If the developer's like, well, that's too much work. You know, I'm I'm like, well, I I enjoy the work. Just let me do it. It's a win win. We get a better product.
Nick:You don't have to do it. I'll do it. And you all you have to do is review it in the end. So that's one way. Second way is, you know, the the triple goalpost that you talked about.
Nick:The third one, I think, you know, the the project management management one, it applies here. Like, you know, because you are a designer and a developer, you know what the over the top long shot is. You also know what the exact thing is you are allowed to design. Then if if you go one step beyond and you know you can build it because you're also a developer, that's a much easier sell compared to you just designing something and not knowing how much work it is. Yeah.
Nick:You know? You don't know if it's a moonshot or something in between. But now I do. So it's I have more insight and control over the cars that I'm holding and the ones I'm going to play.
Tyler:And and I think that that's true. I think you're for the person who wants the code and design, like, that that's something you should be aware of. And then, like, if we were to reach on the other side of the field, so the product manager, the person who has, like, the business knowledge, I think that same that same dance is true. So, like, having one one issue I think design has is that they don't have the full business context. So, like, they're not in all of the client meetings.
Tyler:They're not in some of those strategy sessions. So, like, there's a bit of context that's missed for you as a designer. Can you you're kind of piecing thing like, you're getting a bit of the constraints from what the development's doing. You're getting a bit of the information from from product. And you're doing your research, but there's, like, the business strategy that's kind of missing.
Tyler:But I feel like if you have that full context, that makes you a better designer because you have understanding of, like, the market, not just this user specifically, so you can help the business a bit more if you have that business context. So, like, we're our goal for this year is to hit these business KPIs. How does when I'm thinking of, like, new features or road map, how does that shape what we're going to be building so that we know that we're building the right thing versus what I think based on the limited knowledge that I'm being fed from both from both angles.
Nick:Yeah. I I think that's true, and I think it becomes worse the bigger a company is, you know, different departments and departments containing different teams. And I think that's a crucial skill for a designer to have, you know, 2026, but also in in all the years before. Curious to think about if if AI is helpful there or if it's just a matter of soft skills and something that needs practice talking to stakeholders and playing the politics game.
Tyler:Yeah. I think AI can facilitate some of the research that's needed. So, like, some of the desk research, AI can do some of that. Nothing replace, like, an actual user review, but AI can help in that area. But, like, the the soft skills are very important because you're not because you understand what the business needs, you still need to communicate it.
Tyler:And then you have to be the voice of the user and the company that, like, strategy or your opinions will help shape the business for the better. Like, if you have good ideas, then they just live in Confluence or Notion, and you don't have anyone pitching for it. Like, they're just gonna die at the table. So those soft skills, like stakeholder management, convincing people that your ideas are are really important, I think that's that's a skill that you'll have to get if you're gonna lean towards that area.
Nick:Yeah. So do you think you can be all three, or is it like always, like before? You know, you have this group of three and you can only pick two.
Tyler:I think you can. If I'm talking about the startup world, I think, yes. Think Mhmm. I think you can. I'm not saying you should be a solar printer and you should build there's probably a a world where someone can build a product, like a $100,000,000 SaaS product by themselves, not anytime soon.
Tyler:But I think those the builder what I'm calling them is builders, they'll have one they'll have combination of the three. And then it's about leadership from that point is assembling a team that's complementary in terms of, like, what people excel at, but it won't just be designer, developer, product person. It's it's these people who are who have context of, like, the whole landscape of, like, product development, and you just kinda fit them together in a proper way.
Nick:Right. So so it's it's perhaps also building a team around you that complements or help you have a specialty in the places where you are kind of okay?
Tyler:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's really gonna shift the way, I think, job boards look. I think the title I think the title is gonna become irrelevant.
Tyler:I think the skill set is gonna become more important. Yeah. Like, can you do x and y? And it's it's gonna less it's gonna be less verticalized, like, looking for develop with these set of skills. Just like we need a builder who can who has strength in this area, who has this background, etcetera.
Tyler:And I also think domain knowledge is gonna be at the top of the list as well. So, yes, yes, you've worked in these different industries, but, like, I'm looking for someone who's really good at ecommerce, and they've had, like, eight plus years of experience in ecommerce, and that's what they do. Like, they're an ecommerce builder.
Nick:Right. Yes. I mean, so builder is going to be the new label then according to you. Right? Because people people like to label things.
Tyler:Yeah. You know?
Nick:Yeah. Nothing wrong with that, by the way.
Tyler:Yeah. I think I think that's what I'm gonna call it. I I just wanna skip the tradition that we've done in, like, we have designer, then UI designer, then UI UX designer, then it's product designer. Like, it's let's let's skip ahead to the the prefixes that we're adding to our title. I think we're just gonna be building stuff.
Nick:Right. I mean, that's that's basically what we're we're doing anyway. Like, a designer is is very likely to work in software. So you're you're designing software or you're part of the building process of software. Yeah.
Nick:So it's I mean, I I I think that's probably going to change, but it's also going to take a while still because, you know, looking at my corporate days, they had specialized people, you know, within the design team. They and we had a a design chapter of of 50 people. And then out of those 50, we had, like, a mini research team and a mini branding team. And then all the other people were generalists, you know, UX designer Yeah. In the full sense, like, you know, from first idea to validation and everything in between.
Nick:I haven't been there in a while, but I'm curious to see if they will dissolve the research team and just make everyone that, you know, more generic generalist title.
Tyler:Like, as tradition goes, I think they're gonna lag behind. But I think there's gonna be a signal to them, Like, the outside of that space is if they if they're really doing their research, they should see what works in the market. And even though they're they've been historically slow, I think they're gonna have to keep up.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, I've also worked in places where it took would take three years to get a simple plugin approved.
Tyler:That's another way to do shit fast and iterate.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I personally like the the this way of working of think big and act small in a sense that it's good to have vision and direction, but little steps to get feedback fast and iterate and adjust and improve along the way.
Nick:You know? So no big bang releases. You know, have something ready today. Let's see how the world reacts even if you know it's going to be a terrible version one. And I I really think that fits that builder mentality that you're talking about for 2026.
Tyler:Yeah. I think it's I'm gonna see a lot of pushback this year on, like, with no there's it's just too much. I already do so much. Well, guess what? We're about to do more, but it's I don't think it's gonna be as hard as we think.
Tyler:I think I talked about it a couple episodes earlier that we're just gonna become the the art directors that we've always wanted to be, and then these tools facilitate. So what that means is is that domain knowledge is super important. So, like Yeah. Having a foundation in product and design and development so you understand what happens. But, like, some of these like, I've been hanging out with some developers where they're like, AI is is just basically building some features on its own.
Tyler:Like, that's how things are like, the low hanging fruit. Like, AI is has been tasked to to complete whole features. Mhmm. I also saw another podcast where there's a I think the remember Team Treehouse back in the day? That's kind of where I
Nick:I think I do.
Tyler:Yeah. It was like an online university where you would teach you how to code.
Nick:Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah.
Tyler:Yeah. I think I watched an interview recently where, like, this that founder on GitHub or in an open source, he created something you pull into your project, which basically can create its own PRD and then tackle large projects like you would in the normal development cycle. So if it takes three sprints or two sprints to complete the feature, it's not gonna one shot it. What it's essentially gonna do is break down the task into mini tickets and then complete one ticket at a time. And then it'll send its own poll request, and then, obviously, a human will have to approve it.
Tyler:But, like, that's I think that's where we're going.
Nick:Yes. Something I've been seeing more recently are ancient loops. Yeah. And I I think that's what you're talking about more or less. Right?
Nick:To to have it loop and repeat and do things until it hits a goal. But that that kind of bumps with what I'm seeing in practices where you design something and then, you know, the developers and stakeholders, they're really thinking about, like, why do we do want to do something, and there are lots of security constraints that you have to keep in mind and quality levels you want to hit. Mhmm. I think that the downside of such an autonomous loop is that it's going to do something, and then it thinks it's done, and then turns out, you know, it's okay. If it's good enough, nice.
Nick:Next. But if it isn't, you're going into a loop on your own. You know, you have to fine tune this, have a different prompt or or, you know, correct it, and then sit back, do something else, wait for it to come back, and, you know, that might repeat itself a few times. And that's probably going to be a short term problem. You know, in in the midst to long term, it's going to be so good that you do not have that problem anymore.
Nick:But staying away from as annoying, no. I didn't mean this loop is going to be very important. And it also shows how important knowing what you want and being able to describe what you want is going to be or already is, basically. You know, you cannot have a prompt that ends with do not make mistakes, period. You know?
Tyler:Yes. You have to define what those mistakes are. That's I think prompting is at the first level. It just the guardrail portion is, like, the business logic or the architectural logic is also important as well. So, like Yeah.
Tyler:Don't just let it run wild and then turning it to Terminator two. You're gonna have to you're gonna have to put some logic behind to make sure that it's
Nick:Yeah.
Tyler:If it's going through its loops, it understands the constraint.
Nick:Yeah. And, I mean, that's very something you have to be aware of because, you know, by nature, we are time savers. You know, we want to take shortcuts, save energy, and survive as human beings. And I'm already noticing it within myself. Like, when AI was new, I was like, okay.
Nick:Well, I'm going to check everything. It's going to have a human in the loop, and we're not going to be lazy. Quality is important. What I'm noticing now already is that I'm more often, I'm getting into this mindset of, I don't want to do it. Just have I AI do it.
Nick:But then I really have to force myself to still check it in the end. You know? So you're you're moving your own baseline of how much you want to do. So keeping that laziness out the door is going to be very, very important to have a high level of output, I think.
Tyler:That's very important. Yeah. Because you can lose you can lose like, you can be building something and then lose what it's building. So, like Yeah. It is important.
Tyler:Like, it does a really decent job of the output that you need, so of creating copy, creating a design, creating code piece of code. And you can get into that that's that flow state where, like, I trust that it's doing. But it it does hallucinate a lot. It's like, what what are the mechanisms or, like, the quality checks that you should be doing, like, as your like, just to kind of stop yourself, like, as you're building. Like, what should what should you be doing?
Tyler:Should you just be, like, being pragmatic, stop yourself? Okay. I'm actually gonna read what the output is or have some kind of other way to kind of have the context of, like, what it's what's been done.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. And and I I think that's going to be crucial because you have to know what you want, first of all. So that's going to take a lot of, potentially, going to take a lot of brainstorming workshops and meetings with stakeholders and alignment, you know, all the politics. And then in the end, you have to really sit down and verify that you get what you want.
Nick:And with what I think, like, the main discussion in design land and and AI land and all these these places is it's going to be so fast. You know? But I I I really think that's dangerous because if being faster is the goal, you are very likely to skip important steps just so you can say, well, I didn't use Sigma for this at at all. You know, it's just a one shot. Look how cool this is.
Nick:This this just took me fifteen minutes. You know? So perhaps a product designer can be a opposition to it this year. Like, yes, use AI, but also, yes, be slow almost on purpose. Mhmm.
Nick:You know, really take your time and check the quality because I perhaps when this whole hype surface is going to die down, you know, the ones with quality will will stand out.
Tyler:That's fair. Yeah. The one shot never works. It Mhmm. You think it works, but if you massage, like, in true design fashion, the more iterations, the better it gets.
Tyler:And you'll you'll notice, like, that old saying, like, no one knows the difference between what 90% and the difference between 90% and a 100%.
Nick:Mhmm.
Tyler:I think you'll I'll think because the bar has been set really high with all this automation, I think we'll be able to tell the difference between that that 10% there.
Nick:Yes. And there's also a difference between being able to tell and feeling the difference.
Tyler:Yep. You know, you want
Nick:to you want to as a user, you don't want to be here. Right? You don't want to have to interact with any tool. Like, you just want to have that goal and continue with your day, and they will notice how easy something is going to be or how annoying something is going to be even when the difference is just 10. But we will do an episode on on prompting.
Nick:Right? I I think it's coming up in in, like, two or three or four episodes. I don't know the exact number, but, you know, that's a little in between teaser. Mhmm. Because I don't think many people talk about it.
Nick:Like, it's really just, hey. Here's my super cool lead magnets, 100 plus prompts, and then that's just generic nonsense. But the rules behind it, it's like it's it's just like my my grandpa when she was alive, like, 91 years old. I taught her how to use a TV remote, you know, just how to turn it on, turn it off, and increase and lower the volume. And then I would have the default channel be the thing that she always watches watches, but she didn't get the logic behind the remote.
Nick:She just memorized the steps. Mhmm. And that's what you're going to get if you're going to use those prompt libraries. What I what I really want designers to focus on is the logic behind the remote, or in our case, the logic behind, you know, what's to prompt, what type of prompts to put in, and when. Like, should I go for a one shot here?
Nick:Should I have more of a conversation first? Let it build context, and then ask for the output. You know, there's pros and cons for both, and we as designers, we should really because we're about, you know, understanding users. We should really focus on the logic behind it.
Tyler:Yeah. Because the the prompt is it has to be crafted the right way. Like, the the right prompt for the right situation is super important. If it doesn't if your prompt doesn't include some of the logic that or the context that it needs, it's getting something that I wouldn't didn't ask it. Curious question to teaching your grandmother how to use the remote.
Tyler:Was masking tape involved?
Nick:No. There wasn't. Yeah. I did see the the pictures and the memes later on, and I was like, oh, that's interesting. But it's also error prone, you know, like when she grabs the thing and then the the the tape moves over or it gets dirty or whatever.
Nick:But I I did really like the idea. No. I I didn't use it, sadly. That
Tyler:was a great episode. So if you like this content and wanna hear more, please like and subscribe.
Nick:Yeah. And if you want to see more, please go to designtablepodcast.com, Spotify, Apple Music, all the big players, and more.