Hey Reader,

Q: Do I continue to leave my job including future ones until I have found a company that is design mature and values design?

A great question from one of our community members, and one I relate to given I recently left a job due to a lack of design maturity (watch my video on this topic here).

As the design industry is maturing, our standards for how design operates and is treated in the company are increasing, and rightly so, it’s about time. Companies have had years to evolve and fine-tune their design discipline. It’s not rocket science – there is no shortage of resources, training, mentors, and more to help turn an ineffective design organization into a thriving one.

So why are many companies still behind?

Jeff Jean-Baptiste @JeffTheSigma A design org at the maturity level for you to be successful > twitter.com/leeloowrites/s… Lisa is… @leeloowrites Designers, stop being grateful for the opportunity to do the job you were hired to do. Despite what many will tell you, fighting to get to do your job isn't the job. It's a sign that the org isn't ready. You may be able to help them get there, but not without leadership support. November 19th 2022 1 Retweets 6 Likes

The importance of this tweet by Jeff is that he’s not saying a design org needs to be mature for you to be successful, but that it needs to be at a maturity level right for you. That means it could be anywhere on the scale from immature to mature.

Opportunity exists in the immature (for example, a startup). You may have more room to introduce a design system or implement a new process. Meanwhile, opportunities in a mature company differ. You’re more likely to find yourself in an autonomous role where you can have more impact, but potentially less opportunity to lead new initiatives.

Both of these organizations provide their own opportunities to those who seek them.

Before you make any big decisions, reflect and ask yourself “What does success look like to me? What do I need in order to be successful?” The answer may be different than what you expected!

- Femke

Reader, do you have a question for Femke? Leave it in the #questions thread in Discord (community-members only) and it may be answered in the next newsletter!

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How much does a senior product designer earn? Real numbers.

It’s true! In this video, I will walk you through my salary history for the past three years. I touch on salary bands, signing bonuses, and my interviewing experience, all with real and accurate numbers!

I left Wealthsimple - What's next?

I left Wealthsimple - but what’s next? In this video, I'm uncovering the reasons behind my decision and sharing what's in my next career chapter!

New Job Alert! ✨

Looking to move up in your career, or perhaps looking for something new? We have two job opportunities for you at awesome companies.

​Senior Product Designer, Reporting @ Gusto​

• Ideal for: those who want to take full ownership of product features, from early research and concepts all the way to design refinement and launch.
• Location: Remote (US & Canada)

​Head of Dasher Design, Sr Design Director​

• Ideal for: those who want to make a massive impact on the millions of drivers’ experience throughout the full end-to-end lifecycle.
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🙌 A/B testing matters

Ali Abouelatta @abouelatta_ali This is one of the 🤯🤯🤯 experiments we ran on the Duolingo Retention team : pic.twitter.com/Dv9Wp377vT November 21st 2022 1,859 Retweets 21,611 Likes

​Ali Abouelatta, PM @ Duolingo shared some interesting insights on “good friction” A/B testing, which is a term I was unfamiliar with and was fascinated by the test results! What do you think?

Have a topic you'd like us to chat about? Reply to this email and let me know!

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