Product Design Levels

In many of the startups and scale-ups I’ve been involved with, there has often been a noticeable absence of detailed job descriptions and clear career progression paths. This can lead to frustration and uncertainty about future opportunities within the company. Navigating your career can feel like wandering in the dark if you don’t have a roadmap to guide your growth.

 

Over the past years, I’ve worked on this framework for designers at the associate, mid-level, and senior stages. While it’s possible to expand it further, I found this fitting as a starting point, especially in smaller companies.

 

The framework has proven to be a game-changer in streamlining promotions and fostering a healthy environment for further mentoring and coaching. It is a solid benchmark for assessing progress and offers clear visibility on what it takes to level up, empowering designers to create their career paths strategically.

 

This is has its origin in the framework made by Peter Merholz et al that can be found here: Design Team Levels Framework

  • Information Architecture
  • Visual Design
  • Interaction Design
  • Copy writing
  • User Testing
  • User Research
  • Analytics
  • Workshop facilitation
  • Communication
  • Critical Thinking
  • Business understanding
  • Service Design
  • Video and Photo Production

Concepting/Art Direction

Animation

Capable *
Someone capable of User Testing knows of its existence and might be able to use parts of the framework but would still require some guidance to fully utilize it.

 

Strong **
Someone strong in User Testing knows the framework in and out and can navigate and utilize it to achieve a satisfying result.

 

Killer ***
Someone who is a killer at User Testing defines and structures how we do user testing in our team and influence how we do it across the organization. You would bring your knowledge and experience to develop a framework for who, how, why, and when to do User Testing.

Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Associate Product Designer
Product Designer
Senior Product Designer
Description
Associate product designers may not have much experience applying their education and training in a commercial setting. They may be able to complete tasks and smaller projects with guidance and oversight from more experienced designers.
Product designers are skilled professionals who can contribute to one or more product teams and independently lead design projects. They collaborate with their teams and the product manager to plan and execute the design roadmap.

Senior product designers are experienced professionals who are able to think strategically and prioritize problem-solving. They work closely with other designers to ensure that design decisions align with the overall UX strategy and product vision. They also contribute to the development of these strategies and visions.

Achievements

Right out of school, quality portfolio, little to no shipped work

Have contributed to multiple successfully shipped products

Have contributed to multiple successfully shipped products

Core skills

Strong in 1, capable in 2 other

Strong in 2, capable in 2 others

Killer in 1, strong in 2, capable in 2 others

Product Leadership

Do not blindly accept requirements, but rather ensure that all solutions consider the human perspective and needs

Have a growing understanding of how design can support and align with both business goals and technical constraints in order to contribute to broader objectives

Is skilled at defining success metrics and aligning efforts with the delivery of business value. Have a strong understanding of the broader organizational context and goals, and use this knowledge to inform the work

Scope
  1. Support the team with delivery goals of the current sprint
  2. Delivery and production of flows/ui/interactions associated with a given solution
  3. Operates within a team under the supervision of a more experienced designer
  4. Focus on the specific implementation of a predetermined solution
  5. Demonstrate the ability to collaborate on solving problems within a predefined scope.
  1. Support the team’s current and near-term objectives and the planning of further activities.
  2. Use the current road map to determine how to execute a given idea
  3. Operates within a single product area/team
  4. Focus on end-user experience within the scope of a product area/team
  5. Demonstrate the ability to independently identify and solve problems within discovery, delivery, and refining solutions.
  1. Support the team’s current, near, and long-term objectives
  2. Informs the product roadmap with problems to solve and shapes a backlog of ideas to test
  3. May work across the scope of one or more product areas/teams
  4. Focus on the journeys and experience of users across multiple related touchpoints
  5. Demonstrate proficiency in one of the following aspects: Craft (problem-solving) or research (problem-finding).
Key accountabilities
  • Work under supervision to deliver UI assets that support the implementation of a solution.
  • Produce essential task flows to explore implementation requirements (with support)
  • Conduct regular rounds of usability testing necessary to improve existing solutions (with support)
  • Support evaluation of solutions by producing high-fi and interactive prototypes
  • Support the team in exploring and shaping new ideas.
  • Own design decisions on the story/feature level in accordance with the wider product experience
  • Use and conduct research and insights to inform/influence a given solution and design decisions.
  • Drives collaborative, customer-centric design activities to explore, test, and refine solutions.
  • Support the tactical needs of the team with prototypes, production, and testing.
  • Drives testing and iterations of solutions to surface issues with the current user experience
  • May contribute to broader improvement initiatives and/or mentor more junior team members.
  • Own design decisions on feature/epic level by the wider product experience
  • Use research and insights to inform/influence product direction and roadmap.
  • Partners with PM to drive a program of continuous discovery activities to validate and shape ideas
  • Facilitate team-wide exploration, testing, and delivery activities
  • Evangelise and advocate for great design and human-centric design internally and, if possible, externally
  • Contributes towards improvements of design process initiatives
  • Monitors the impact of a given solution/design and drives improvement and refining initiatives toward the desired outcomes
  • Provide mentoring/coaching for more junior product designers
Artefacts and deliverables
  • User journeys, user flows, and mapping
  • Mockups, wireframes, UI components, detailed interactions, hi and low-fidelity designs
  • Interactive prototypes
  • Usability reports and improvements
  • User journeys, user flows, and mapping
  • Mock-ups, wireframes, UI components, Interactive prototypes, detailed interactions, hi and low-fidelity designs
  • Interactive prototypes
  • Usability reports and improvements
  • Team OKRs and contribute to the product backlog and user stories
  • User journeys, design concepts, and design experiments
  • Mock-ups, wireframes, UI components,
  • Interactive prototypes, detailed interactions, hi and low-fidelity designs
  • Interactive prototypes
  • Usability reports and improvements
  • Team OKRs and contribute to the product backlog and user stories
  • Contribute to a product strategy roadmap.
Presentation

Have the ability to communicate a rationale for a solution to team members.

Confidently communicates decision-making rationale to team members and stakeholders.

Uses story telling to communicates rationale to PM, Designers and other stakeholders

Cross functional meetings

Attending meetings

Actively contributing to the meetings

Active planner of the meeting

Interface and interactions
  • Receives coaching and mentorship from more senior designers
  • Prioritize and execute tasks in close relationship with the team’s PM
  • Receives direction and support from more senior designers
  • 2nd designer on a product team
  • Receives coaching and mentorship from more senior designers
  • Prioritizes and executes tasks, and collaborates with PM on strategy and discovery
  • Provides direction and support to more junior designers
  • Embedded designer on a single product area/team.
  • Receives coaching and mentorship from more senior designers
  • Prioritize and execute tasks, and collaborate with PM on strategy and discovery
  • Provides direction and support to more junior designers
  • Embedded designer on a single product area/team