The work of a designer is diverse. I’m not just talking about the different roles a designer can have, such as researcher, designer, UI designer, layout artist, handling interactions, or conducting workshops. What a designer’s work is like also depends on the specifics of their workplace.

In my professional life, I’ve gone through several types of places and it’s been a great experience. You experience their advantages and disadvantages by trying out different workplaces. This allows you to form an opinion on where you really want to work and which path is good for you and your development. The most important thing is to be aware of the value that working as a designer in different places brings: from a software house/agency, to working on a product, to ending up in a corporation.

Product Company

A designer working in a product company usually works on only one or two features. This means you can spend time getting to know and understanding the product or solution from a more holistic perspective. Often in product companies, there is a deeper understanding of your industry and the design process.

Responsibilities/Designer Role

If you work in a product company, you most likely work on a specific area of the product or service offered by the company. You have the opportunity to feel true ownership of what you’re working on.

Often, you become an advocate for improving the product. This can be really satisfying because you have a direct impact on the success of the product. You really feel responsible for the potential growth that the product can achieve.

By working on a product, you establish a long-term relationship with it, which lasts throughout your time in that particular company. This can make you an expert in the industry.

Design Process

Depending on the maturity of the company, it can vary. It can be like the image attached that I found on Twitter. However, typically in a product, as a designer, you have a big influence on how the design processes should look like and you can streamline them. With a product, you constantly work to improve and perfect it, sometimes the process takes a back seat.

resource: https://twitter.com/mitch_ux/status/1584545391441231872/photo/1

Structure and Team

Product designers in such a place usually work with the same team of product managers, business analysts, engineers, etc. There is not as much attachment to hierarchical structures as in a corporation, but it is not that there are no structures at all.

The team works towards the same goal and gains a lot of knowledge about the product as well as the industry. From my experience, I worked in a team of designers, of which I was a part, but each designer worked on separate features or product verticals (areas).

Project teams included multifunctional roles, such as product owners, product managers, researchers, engineers, and even copywriters. Depending on the project, we occasionally worked with a representative from sales, marketing, or customer service, but the main team remained the same.

An additional benefit of working with the same people is creating bonds and relationships with coworkers. You can learn how they work best and develop your own collaborative style.

This job is for you if:

• You want to become familiar with the product domain and work within it, rather than working on many projects in different domains.
• You are looking for a slower-paced environment compared to software houses/agencies.
• You want to develop design patterns or a design system that can significantly speed up the team’s work process.
• The product you are working on aligns with your worldview and values.

And think three times if:

• You are going to be the only designer (common in small product companies/startups), and you may have to take on different roles that you didn’t initially consider.
• You think working on an identical product can be monotonous.

Software House/Agencies

In such places, the type of work you will do often relies on projects and may vary depending on the client. In one week, it may be working on UI in a fintech mobile app, and the next week it may be workshop work on a lead from a completely different industry. Projects, teams, and clients are constantly changing. Given this, a designer can quickly gain a lot of experience thanks to the sheer number of projects they are involved in. Often, knowledge of the actual product or industry is only superficial because the next week you may be working on something in a completely different sector. Things develop and change quickly.

Responsibilities/Designer Role

Here, as in a product company, you can wear several hats simultaneously. This mainly depends on the awareness and maturity of the organization. However, let’s not deceive ourselves, versatility is often expected. In your design role, optimization for the client’s needs is often more important than optimization for the user’s needs. That’s how this business model works.

Finding a balance is a challenge. In SH, designers most often present their work directly to the client. Meetings such as kick-offs or regular reviews and working with the client are commonplace. There are significantly more opportunities to present and share your work here than in product companies, where you usually operate within a team. In SH, your design work is more geared towards helping the client with their product. Your role is less about the client’s long-term success and more about how you can help improve or achieve what you were assigned to do for a given client.

Design Process

Those who work in SH/agencies are much more focused on working on the process and its development. They have less connection to the actual product they collaborate with the client on.

The initial phase of the process usually involves:

• collecting and understanding the brief
• defining the project budget
• working out the scope of work within the budget
• defining deadlines

Then, the creative process phase begins, working on delivering the so-called deliverables to the client to finish the design work at the handoff stage to the dev team.

However, you often don’t have the comfort of working on just one project, usually being involved with several clients simultaneously. Working on multiple projects can be difficult and result in non-optimal solutions. However, from project to project, you can start fresh and improve your process or methods.

“To work at a product company, you have to love the product. To work at an agency you have to love the process.”

Structure and Team

When it comes to the topic of structure, it usually depends on the agency and the client. You can come across flat structures, or those supported by a leadership team around specific client teams: leader — XYZ client team. You can also come across places with much more elaborate and unclear hierarchical structures.

As for project teams, a centralized team of designers usually embeds its members with specific clients. This causes a kind of duality of being in two teams at the same time: the client team and the general design team. It has its pros and cons. Most of the time, you will work directly with people from the internal client teams. Other times, you may review or pitch solutions you have developed internally. Regardless of the scenario, the teams and people you work with directly in the agency/SH will change.

This job is for you if:

• You are looking for a place where you can gain experience working on various projects in different domains quickly.
• You want to establish contacts with many different colleagues and clients. You can establish professional contacts for a lifetime.
• You like to refine the process, and educating yourself on the essence of a designer’s work does not bore you.

Think three times if:

• You want in-depth knowledge of the project and like to have context in your work. In SH, you may not see the big picture of the project because you provide the client with a specific scope in a certain amount of time. You may only see a carved-out part of the project.
• You do not like dynamic and variable work. As SH/agency acquires more clients, your workload increases…
• You may have to work for clients and projects that do not interest you or align with your values.
• You do not like to change context and multitask, and this is rather unavoidable in such places.

Corporation

Responsibility/Role of a Designer

Working in a corporation often helps to specialize in a particular area such as research, UX design, interaction design, or brand design. You have the opportunity to delve into the intricacies of a given industry and design area. Your role is also to understand the complex structure of stakeholders and work with them.

There is often more politics and management in this work than actual design, but it also depends on the type of industry.

Design Process

It depends on the team.

Often, thanks to clearly defined project roles and responsibilities, it is easier to find your place in the team. There is not always room for agile processes, often working in a waterfall and under time and stakeholder pressure.

Decisions made in corporations, even those related to design, must go through several approval levels, and it is often a tedious, time-consuming process. Depending on the maturity of the design process, you may end up in highly specialized teams and focus on developing your niche. Often, it is corporations that have the money to conduct textbook processes.

Structure and Team

A corporation's design team and structure can vary depending on the industry and company. Generally, a corporation's design team may include designers with specialized roles, such as research, UX design, interaction design, or brand design. These designers may work under a design manager or director who oversees the design process and ensures the team meets project goals and objectives.

The design team may also work closely with stakeholders, such as product managers, engineers, or executives, to understand project requirements and ensure the design meets business objectives. The team may collaborate with other departments, such as marketing or customer support, to ensure a cohesive brand experience across all touchpoints.

The design structure in a corporation may be hierarchical, with designers working under managers and directors at various levels. The team may also be organized by project, with designers working together on specific initiatives. The design team may work in-house or with external agencies or contractors, depending on the company.

Overall, a corporation's design team and structure aim to deliver high-quality design solutions that align with business objectives and meet customer needs.

This job is for you if

• you are looking for something stable
• you care about development in a specific design niche and/or the industry in which the corporation operates
• you want to experience international cooperation
• you are good at navigating complex corporate communication structures or want to learn and test yourself

Think three times if

• you are an individualist and struggle with work dependent on so many structures
• you are looking for a job in a less “concrete” environment
• you care about working with new methodologies — in a corporation; you often have to adhere to outdated processes, and the process of changing them is quite lengthy
• you have the patience for prolonged decision-making processes

Summary

Acquiring diverse experience, especially in the role of a designer, is not a bad thing. Remember that none of the described places is better than the other and everything depends on the people you will finally meet and what relationships will prevail in a given place. It all depends on work preferences and where you want to be in your career.