The Staff Designer
Grow, Influence, and Lead as an Individual Contributor
Staff design is a combination of team leadership and in-the-pixels design work, all without any direct people management. There are tons of management books, but very little help for senior designers who want to keep working with the pixels. Fret not: this handbook will guide you to success — whether you’re already navigating a Staff Design role, or you’re an Independent Contributor deciding whether or not to embark on the journey. You’ll learn methods to build influence as an individual contributor, improve your executive communication, and impact strategy at scale.
Take-aways
- Understand Staff Designer roles and responsibilities, including how they differ from Senior Designers, to set appropriate expectations with teams and executives.
- Enhance executive communication skills and cross-team collaboration to influence company vision and roadmap at a strategic level.
- Develop effective time management and boundary-setting strategies to sustainably focus on high-impact, strategic work.
Staff design is a combination of team leadership and in-the-pixels design work, all without any direct people management. There are tons of management books, but very little help for senior designers who want to keep working with the pixels. Fret not: this handbook will guide you to success — whether you’re already navigating a Staff Design role, or you’re an Independent Contributor deciding whether or not to embark on the journey. You’ll learn methods to build influence as an individual contributor, improve your executive communication, and impact strategy at scale.
Take-aways
- Understand Staff Designer roles and responsibilities, including how they differ from Senior Designers, to set appropriate expectations with teams and executives.
- Enhance executive communication skills and cross-team collaboration to influence company vision and roadmap at a strategic level.
- Develop effective time management and boundary-setting strategies to sustainably focus on high-impact, strategic work.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: What the heck is a Staff Designer?
Chapter 2: Get started
Chapter 3: Nurture your relationships
Chapter 4: Wrangle your time and capacity
Chapter 5: Drive product vision
Chapter 6: Build influence without authority
Chapter 7: Scale your impact
Chapter 8: Show your value
Chapter 9: What comes after Staff?
