My path to a Principal Product Designer role and what you can learn from it

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y title.</p><p id="d57f" type="7">So the best advice I can give to you: don't wait till someone tells you what to do.</p><p id="7b40">Plan your personal product roadmap, be proactive as there is no one there, but you to do the job.</p><p id="dac9">On a practical level that means that you might start to occasionally facilitate meetings in your team. Or help your product managers with their day-to-day job, helping them with product briefs and roadmaps. Or iterate on your your team rituals. Or do other things you would normally expect from your design lead. The opportunities are numerous, even if you have a lead right now, I never saw a team where all problem areas were covered.</p><h1 id="d579">#2. Question the Status Quo</h1><p id="6de6">As a millennial I grew up without any digital products that we are accustomed to now. I witnessed how every bit of the internet was built from the ground up. That made me realise that our products aren't rock solid, they are code lines and guiding principles which can be modernised. Sounds obvious, but I see many designers aren't questioning the status quo after the first dropping of the "can't do it due to technical limitations" mantra. Meanwhile, the ability to look at the product critically and bring important changes beyond a feature level is what differentiate Principals from Seniors.</p><p id="61a2">Recall all the things that you ever thought as "would be nice to have". Then think how you can match your ideas and passions with current strate

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gic areas of your product.</p><p id="70a8" type="7">Ride the tide of ongoing initiatives at all times.</p><h1 id="370d">#3. Be persistent</h1><p id="aaa6">Good principals respect the legacy, but form a strategic vision for the product. And keep being focused on it. To bring significant changes takes time. Sometimes years. So every future-principal should develop patience and persistence as their main trait.</p><p id="e320" type="7">“Follow-up” should become your middle name.</p><p id="dadf">Apart from following-up emails and recurrent meetings another key to success here is meticulously updated documents. Sounds boring, I know. But oftentimes strategic initiatives tend to frizz or your attention might be driven away by operational topics, by having a document to refer in order to keep track of past thoughts and alignments helps not to start from the scratch every time.</p><h2 id="a5f6">Would you be interested in more topics like this? If so, let me know!</h2><p id="8cf3">I have more tips and action items to share for you if you are going to become a principal product designer. Comment which topic you would be interested in next.</p><p id="ccc4">Reach out to me on <a href="https://instagram.com/ines_mir">Instagram</a>, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@innermir">TikTok</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mirinessa/">Facebook</a> for more stories like this.</p><p id="9b84">👏 Don’t forget to clap and share!</p><h2 id="7cf4">Thank you for your time, Inessa.</h2></article></body>

My path to a Principal Product Designer role and what you can learn from it

Hi there, for those of you that don't know me, I am a Principal Product Designer at Zalando right now. That means that I have been a principal for a good 4 years already. I've had a long journey to that point in my career and I might have one or two tips for you, if you are interested in reaching the principal level in your organisation.

👏 Clamps if you are interested in becoming a principal product designer!

Just kidding ;)

For the background, I started my design career 13 years ago. Uber was founded that year, Airbnb was only 1 year old. At that time I was forced to figure out how the industry works on my own, as the classical education wasn't keeping up with the rapid changes that UX design was going through.

And thanks to that, I wasn't aware of certain boundaries and expectations that might stop designers from advancing to a principal role right now. Here are this boundaries:

#1. Be your own lead

For a significant period of time I didn't have an experienced lead or CEO by my side. We were all pioneers, no one knew what a good digital product should look like. That taught me to be a team lead even before it is reflected in my title.

So the best advice I can give to you: don't wait till someone tells you what to do.

Plan your personal product roadmap, be proactive as there is no one there, but you to do the job.

On a practical level that means that you might start to occasionally facilitate meetings in your team. Or help your product managers with their day-to-day job, helping them with product briefs and roadmaps. Or iterate on your your team rituals. Or do other things you would normally expect from your design lead. The opportunities are numerous, even if you have a lead right now, I never saw a team where all problem areas were covered.

#2. Question the Status Quo

As a millennial I grew up without any digital products that we are accustomed to now. I witnessed how every bit of the internet was built from the ground up. That made me realise that our products aren't rock solid, they are code lines and guiding principles which can be modernised. Sounds obvious, but I see many designers aren't questioning the status quo after the first dropping of the "can't do it due to technical limitations" mantra. Meanwhile, the ability to look at the product critically and bring important changes beyond a feature level is what differentiate Principals from Seniors.

Recall all the things that you ever thought as "would be nice to have". Then think how you can match your ideas and passions with current strategic areas of your product.

Ride the tide of ongoing initiatives at all times.

#3. Be persistent

Good principals respect the legacy, but form a strategic vision for the product. And keep being focused on it. To bring significant changes takes time. Sometimes years. So every future-principal should develop patience and persistence as their main trait.

“Follow-up” should become your middle name.

Apart from following-up emails and recurrent meetings another key to success here is meticulously updated documents. Sounds boring, I know. But oftentimes strategic initiatives tend to frizz or your attention might be driven away by operational topics, by having a document to refer in order to keep track of past thoughts and alignments helps not to start from the scratch every time.