In this first episode, I talk to Misook Ji, incoming Product Design Director @ LiveAuctioneers and Dmitry Nekrasovski, Senior Product Design Manager @ HashiCorp.
Since launching the On Deck Designer Fellowship a few weeks ago, I've realised that the cohort comprises fabulous designers, and I'd love to highlight some of your journeys in design and leadership.
The world likely does not need another podcast, but I think it's a great way to get some of these stories out there and dive deeper into the various career paths.
In this first episode, I'm talking to Misook & Dmitry where we touch on:
This will be a series of episodes where I get to talk to some of the incredible designers joining the Designer Fellowship and their journey in design so far. We'll also record a couple of episodes during the fellowship so you're able to hear first-hand experiences and how the program is helping designers uplevel.
I'm your host, Mindaugas Petrutis, the Program Director @ On Deck | Designer Fellowship
Welcome to the untold design stories. Episode one, this is fun. This is a complete experiment. I'm Mindaugas, I'm the host, and I'm the program director at On Deck for the recently launched Designer Fellowship. And I'm joined today by a couple of the actual early founding fellows for the program.
I don't think the world needs another podcast, but, having met some of the folks that are joining the program. I realized I had access to some incredible designers, who all have a wealth of knowledge. And I wanted to find a way to, to share some of those stories. So I'm joined by Misook Ji who recently accepted a role to join LiveAuctioneers as a director of product design. So congratulations.
And Dimitri Nekrasovsky, who's a senior product design manager at HashiCorp. Welcome both. I'd love for you to both just quickly introduce yourselves.
Thank you for inviting us on this, this is a really exciting opportunity, and I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Yeah. Thanks. Mindaugas. So I'm Dimitri, I currently lead a product design team at Hashi Corp, which is a cloud infrastructure management vendor. Have been doing product design for a little bit over a decade leading teams for the last five or six years and just very excited to be part of the incoming cohort of fellows of ODD.
Awesome. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this. A couple of learnings from doing a ton of interviews of the potential fellows, and why the fellowship exists, there seems to be this quite a big gap in terms of, when folks move from IC to management and leadership.
So I wanted to take this time and just hear some of your stories because to me it's clear, nobody ended up InDesign and then management and leadership the same way. There's the, everyone has a unique perspective and a story.
How did you both land your first role in design? That's a question I always love exploring in these conversations because no two parts tend to be the same. And I know, there's a big discussion. It's tough for, the kind of. Graduating or the incoming generations to learn their first role in design.
I'm curious what it was like for you. And if, if you feel like it was easier now or back then, yeah, I would love to dive into that a little bit. Yeah, I can go first. So I don't have a traditional design background. My background is in computer science and then, engineering for a little while in the industry, then going back to school to do a master's degree in human-computer interaction. , when I was about to graduate with my degree, there were really not a lot of opportunities out there,, for really anything that, related to what we now call a product design.
There were a few rules in, what was called usability engineering, a few roles in IAA, and then. Roles in, graphic design, and such in agencies, that, I was completely unqualified for. So it was a real slog to figure out how to find my first role, and even how to position myself for the marketplace.
And I was just lucky enough to. Have reached out to a few folks who are already doing the kind of work that I wanted to do and cool called and get some interviews as a result of that. And get my first role as what was called at the time and information architect at an agency that was a part of IBM.
It was challenging. I wouldn't say that it was more challenging than it is to break into a break-in as a junior right now in the industry. I think it is incredibly challenging for junior folks, and I have all kinds of empathy, for junior folks trying to land their first role right now in the industry because there, there is just so much supply.
There are so many people coming out of a variety of different backgrounds and programs, and really not a lot of organizations are willing to give these people their first break. I always try to push wherever I go for. The junior level, the recs to be open because I think it's just incumbent on us as design leaders to do our part in giving junior people, their first break in the industry.
Yeah. So I like under, under order then your imagery. So when I started, there were not that many people who even knew how to use Photoshop and I was very lucky. To be in that, to be in that generation. I was an artist, and I finished my master degree in fine arts. And, that's why I came to New York City from Korea.
And our original plan was going back to Korea and get a professor job somewhere and becoming an artist, continuing my life as an artist. And just the biggest problem. And I finished my score. The biggest problem was I was really like crazy in love with New York City. So someone like me, who's coming from a very homogeneous culture in this whole just New York, just like.
The diverse culture, the rich, the red of like just creativity teachers. I just didn't have to get it enough. So I made a decision to stay here for a couple of more years to get it out of my system. So I took to get a job. Otherwise, how could I survive here? So that's how I became a designer.
Very lucky. I was able to get a job very quickly. I only took a few computer graphic courses when I was in graduate school. And that led me to a job at a smaller company that produced like physical products actually. And they saw them at Urban Outfitters. Target. And I was able to start my career as a graphic designer doing like branding logo and product physical product design.
I was good at sketching ideas. That's how I started. And long to make the long story short. One thing I want to, I always try to emphasize when I talk to people who start their career is that This is something I had like several VIPs on my career, like a few years after I got picked up by a creative director who really loved my work and I was hired at Razorfish.
It was a really big well-known company at the time for doing digital stuff. And before I landed. That at that job, I was actually my, when people saw my resume, I was at a very small shop, and it was really like a work I did was there were pretty like low quality work. But what I did was I spent my own time to create real.
You really like good for you. I exercise typography. I. Made like personal projects and, and when I created something, someone in the market finally noticed my work and I was able to work at Razorfish without having them much website experience. And after that I had the like few other times, I had a similar experience, someone like GCD Samira.
So the work that I publish and the day. Like my work and they contacted me. So I think that's what I always try to recommend young designers, just, you gotta spend some time to make your work better. And when you continuously spend your app for, you get there, just don't think that your work from your job is gonna give you a better job in the future.
You need to spend your own time. Yeah, it's a great point. Is there anything you would do differently about your career path if you had the chance yeah, I think I would take more risks? I spent over seven years at the same organization at one point in my career; it was a great journey. I learned a lot there, met and got a chance to work with all kinds of great people. But arguably I could have grown faster by considering other options.
At a certain point after being there for a little while then I did, and I think that there was. There was definitely a little bit of insecurity, a little bit of an unwillingness to push my comfort zone at that time. It just felt comfortable, and it felt good.
But if I were to go back, I think I, I would definitely look for other opportunities at a certain point in time.
For me becoming a mother was like a really unbelievably challenging experience. And I was really not ready. I think I was; still, I think the problem was that I didn't really have other women leaders who had young kids where I was working like that's the first time. And I realize that a lot of women just disappear.
Around the age when they started having kids. I know there are a lot of women still stay at their jobs as well. But overall my industry at the time, just like I didn't have any woman managers, me managers who had kids, there were some, but they didn't have kids or they not married. And so I didn't clearly know that it's almost like I didn't really realize that I need to prepare for my job when I had a baby.
I was like preparing for raising a baby, but not really understanding what I had to do for my career. So when I had a kid who was it was a nightmare for several years because I stayed. I didn't want to leave my career. I really cared about my job. I really also wanted to succeed in my career.
So doing both, making sure that the baby's alive and also growing my cardio at the same time was the most difficult challenge I've ever had. And I have a great partner, like my husband. Does more than 50%, sometimes a lot of times, but still, that was the biggest challenge. So whenever I see a new one, who's about to have a baby in general.
Like I actually get a little bit nosy. I actually reach out to them as much as I can. And I'm more like really try to help them prepare. And at the same time, I took a choice to do both, which was really hard. And I think that's why I got sick and I had to leave IGA and take a year off.
But I think that people can take time off that's when I learned at the time I left my job. I left it because I was so sick. But after the experience, I realized that I'm the one who was not smart. I can actually, everybody can take some time off it's okay. You're not going to be behind.
You can come back. You're just like that. As long as you spend some time, just make sure you. Keep up with doing new things. So I wish I can. I knew I wish I was smarter manage a work-life balance and then also don't get so anxious about my career. It's okay to take some time off.
Yeah. That's what I would change if I could. Yeah, that's a really great point and actually tight ties in a little bit with, your point of taking risks.
I think there's still this thing. And it's not specific to the design industry when there are gaps on people's CVS or there's, somebody stayed somewhere for just a year. That's been frowned upon or questioned when, when, like hearing you both talk about that, like you never know.
The motivations and the kind of what's behind those things. And often. Those gaps can be times of huge personal growth for people. So yeah, I always in my days as a recruiter, I never used to look down on seeing gaps or people jumping around. I think asking the question and having a conversation, you learn, you hear those kinds of stories, like what you just shared.
Just yeah, wanting to make that point because it's definitely a conversation that, that keeps. Happening and curious what do you think makes a great manager? So two parts to this question, what do you think makes a great manager and a leader and who was a great manager for you and why?
so that's a very good question because I actually think about that a lot. And I think about a lot of my managers, my bosses, who I worked for worked with in the past, and one thing that's been like one thing that I've been realizing recently is that. There are no best of managers or leaders, I think because we're all human beings.
And I think that when I think about my managers when I was younger, complained about how not great, they are like, complained about them not doing things that I wish they could have done. And what I'm realizing is that that's something that I started seeing nobody's perfect back and even, your leaders, as long as they are tougher and they understand they are open to hearing what others are dealing with and.
As long as they have that, like that ability to reflect and if they need to change, if they have our ability to change and adjust, I think that's a great quality. And also not every manager is good at every situation and I. Definitely experienced that. I was very good at one organization.
And then when I went to another organization, certain things didn't work out very well. And sometimes, I was like hard on myself, but when I left, when I got a clear view of what was going on, I realized that my. There was a misalignment like I was not the right fit for that companies are future on or whatever.
So from that experience, I really look at my own managers and leaders, and I'm like seeing this and realizing that we all try or try to do the best and we learn a lot and we all make mistakes and we're all human beings. And. As long as we really just try to improve more talk for analysts, understand how much you are aligned to the organizations or not.
Because if you are not aligned, you should make a decision to leave or do other things. As long as you have the ability to see that and ability to adjust your stipend change and help others, then I think that's a great leadership quality in my opinion.
Yeah, I think I would agree with Misook it's a hundred per cent in terms of good leadership. Certainly, there are commonalities, but so much of good leadership is contextual. It's contextual to the organization. It's contextual to the team that the leader leads. Some approaches are more effective with some team members.
So approaches are less effective with some team members and their personalities and their working styles. And I think it is a lot about doing your best about being flexible, being willing to learn as a manager, as a leader. Having a growth mindset and for myself, I was very influenced by a former manager in the sense that I'm someone who has a personality that's pretty Reactive, shall we say?
I like to respond to things quickly. I like to move quickly. I like to see progress happening. And if it's not happening, I tend to start wondering why it's not happening and get concerns. And working for this person was extremely influential on me because. He really showed me the value of time as a tool in a manager's toolkit and the value of taking the time to make decisions, the value of taking the time to reflect on the right approach for dealing with managers, managerial challenges, and the value of giving team members time.
To work on things, whether it's performance challenges or stretch goals or whatever it may be, so that really helped me become a better, less reactive leader. Yeah. And actually both of, you mentioned very similar things, in one of the qualities, one of the main qualities is the ability to recognize the need to keep learning and growing.
That's one of the things that I really love, but I don't know what it's specific to designers or not. Maybe it's because design is still such a relatively new industry. I don't know. But I've noticed that as a quality in design leaders. I don't think I've had one conversation where somebody said, I know everything, I'm a great leader.
I'm a great manager. I hear the opposite where people say, I, I still have a lot to learn and a lot to improve, even though folks that have been doing it for 15, 20 years. And they have the VP titles. I really liked that.
Curious for each of you, what was the transition from IC to management?
What was your path? Did you have this as like a clear goal as when you were, say mid-level senior designer or was it something you just happened to fall into and then, had to figure it out?
Yeah, that's a great question. I. I think I fell into it as a senior designer and I realized that I could make more of an impact leading teams of designers than just being an IC. And I shouldn't say just it's perfectly fine of course, to be an IC and lots of people choose to progress down that path, but For me, I really saw that as a way to be an impact multiplier.
And I started off just by leading small teams of designers in a very informal way at the organization that I was at. I then started looking at the possibility of formalizing that into a management role. Unfortunately at that particular organization, that was not an option at the time.
So then I ended up changing organizations and going to a smaller one that allowed me to actually take on the formal ma design management role. Yeah, for me, it was a big core that I set up way before I actually became an associate creative director. I was in big agencies and it was like before people started having different titles, like creative directors or product.
Oh, design directors, just, we were all called creative directors. The ones that you become a manager. So I was a senior art director for a long time and transitioning from that position to associate creative. Director took a long time for me. Makes sense because I was also a little bit scared at the time, even though I was ambitious because I w I wasn't from here, I'm from Korea and I've lived here for a long time, but just like I had to make sure that if I were ready at the time, because, ambition didn't speak.
Then much of my ability to present work to people. And also I had to make sure that I was very confident about what I was doing and I was IC for a long time and being a manager was such a new territory. So definitely I was very scared too. Yeah, I'm actually curious. What were some of those scary moments as you moved into management?
And then how did you get better? What were, another thing I'm noticing right now is my not only minority of companies have very clear support and career paths set up. For their design teams, the majority just seem to throw themselves in and then sink and figure out.
So I'm curious was there, when you think back to the first time you, weren't now a manager of a team what were the hairy, scary moments. So for me, I knew I could manage people, but I lived with a fake personality for a long time as an IC designer, because I'm very extroverted, very outgoing.
I speak my mind, like not scared of talking in front of other people. And just the scary thing was that speaking English as a second language, And that really made me really scared. What if I make mistakes? What if people don't understand me? Like it was just like the back of my head all the time. So I acted like a very introverted person who doesn't speak for a long time.
And then one day one of my one of the managers from the executive group saw me struggling with my presentation for the Toastmasters club that my company had. And after that, he told me he wants to talk to me and he told me basically, Misook, no worries. Everybody wants you to succeed.
And, everybody's here for you. You can make a mistake, don't worry about it. We are all here to see you succeed. It's okay. And when I heard that, there was the moment and I was like, okay, I'll be fine. I know what I will not talk about. I know I was structured to talk about, and I was very sure that what I wanted to present was really meaningful and strong. So that was the beginning. Love that.
How about you Dimitri?
So far myself? My first formal design management role was really me pushing my comfort zone in all kinds of ways.
So I came in to start a design team at an organization that had no history of one. It was an AI machine learning startups. And incredibly complex product lots of PhDs on staff. Really not a lot of attention paid to the user experience as part of the company culture. And to top it all off I was doing it all remotely.
My first year was really just a constant trial by fire as I. Juggled the hats of a leader of a new team building out the team, interviewing and hiring people while working as an IC while I'm trying to drive a culture change in the organization, all of this. As one of the few remote employees in the organization, it was an incredible amount of work, incredible amount of stress.
And it really took me probably a year to get to anything resembling being comfortable in this role. But it was like I said, it was a trial by fire. I don't know if I would do it again. I knew everything that this entailed but it definitely helped me grow as the design manager very quickly.
Yeah, that, that sounds like you, you literally put yourself in the deepest upends, right? When we say throw yourself in the deep end, too, to learn the fastest that, that sounds like a deeper end than most situations. I definitely have been in. What what are some of the things you wish you had?
No. Before you get yourself, yourself into management or leadership, and I think the underlying question here is did you feel like that was, that should be your path or, that's something you wanted or would you have liked to explore other options, a few different paths for you as a designer?
So for me, like I became an associate creative director in an organization where I have been there for a few years. So the transition, when the transition happened, people already knew who I was and, What I could do. So I didn't really have difficult time there, but soon after I got promoted, I had some personal reasons to leave.
And then I started a new job a few months after all year after, like I had to take time off a little bit because I had some health problems at the time. So when I started a new job at a new place, which was a lot smaller. And. That's when I realized that I did not have any strong management skills or knew how to lead a team at a new place, I was really shocked.
And the new designers, like totally didn't in my opinion at the time, probably because I was not a great leader, was a strong leader at all and they knew. And so my weirdness and. I just went through a lot of deep Kerr challenges to overcome. And that's when I realized that, Oh, I wish I studied a little bit more about how to lead a team, how to manage a paper on, spend more time to really understand leadership skills and practice.
It's hard, but that experience made me invest in learning about becoming a better leader quickly, but also really surprised, like it was a huge surprise.
I had a similar experience a couple of years after going down the path of management. Where I realized that my management skills were less than adequate for the challenges before me. And I think that my realization w my big realization there was that there was no one size fits all management style.
So naturally, I tend to over-index on being a mentor or a coach to my team members. I'm a big believer in hiring good people in them getting out of their way. But at one point in my Management career. I realized that was just not sufficient either to deal with folks who were not performing well or with team members who really needed more direction and more feedback on their performance.
Then I was comfortable with giving. And so that has really led me to adopt a more contextual management than leadership.
Appreciate you both sharing that. I'm curious. What does your typical day look like these days?
Generally, my days are like three parts. Like as soon as I wake up, I actually try to spend some time to study. Like actually I'm studying leadership skills. We do the Michigan Ross executive program.
So it's like very small, tiny classes or I take some courses from LinkedIn or read new things I wanted to read. So that's what I do. And then I started working, generally there are some standard meetings almost every day. I'm freelancing currently. I'm about to start my time job, but this place We do have clam meetings like once a week and, have to work on different projects.
And then around, I have to feed my kid and, work all day. And then at the end of the day, I also generally Monday through Wednesday, I mentor I'm a member of ADP lists. So I started getting a lot of members who request. So I try to make sure that I have time for mentoring people. And it's actually a great opportunity for me because I get to learn a lot about all different kinds of people and, sometimes I'm related to them, but sometimes I just learn from their own challenges and it makes me think about, it just makes me.
Then my experience with people in different situations. So I did that. I guess that's about it. And I enjoy my life after 6:00 PM, yeah a little bit similar of a schedule although no day is quite exactly the same. Am on Eastern time. I have worked with a lot of folks who are in central Pacific time in North America. As well as a few who are Europe and a few who are in Australia. What that affords me is the ability to spend my first 30 to 60 minutes every day.
Learning doing reading understanding what's going on in my organization, what's going on in the industry, keeping up with that sort of thing. And then I I dive into my actual work Reviewing designs reviewing artefacts from product management, things that engineering might have billed and so on and so forth, providing feedback and later on in the morning to the afternoon, my day becomes completely filled with meetings of all kinds, whether it's one-on-ones team meetings critiques leadership syncs with folks in other product areas or in other functions. And then like you said 6:00 PM rolls around and it's time to wrap up for the day and then do it all over again.
The next day I do some mentoring as well through the Play-Doh platform. I tend to book about 30 minutes every couple of weeks. For a men's brain time slots. And that really allows me to give back a little bit to folks earlier on in their careers or folks were curious about what the design was.
Awesome. And to wrap this up I'd love to know, thinking back to when you entered the design industry and the state that it was at the time, what excites you about the future of design as an industry? I personally have met. So many incredible folks that are just graduating that are so impressive and I can see them, being future leaders. how are you thinking about that?
And what's exciting for you.
Yeah, I think for me, it is very much the next generation of designers and next generation of design leaders that excites me. And the reason for that is because they have the opportunity to build on what previous generations have done and stand up on the shoulder is not a giant cause I think that's a very egotistical thing to say, but standing on the shoulders of those who have of those who came before them and really, I think learn from the lessons of design leaders of the last however many years in terms of.
Making design a core function within organizations making design, a strategic partner to other functions like engineering and product management and really build on top of that. With skill sets that are often very multidisciplinary that often span, traditional design disciplines, as well as.
Technical disciplines as well as business and entrepreneurship and so on and so forth to, to really take the field to the next level and to really get us to the point wherein 10 or 20 years we don't even need to advocate for a design as a core function within organizations. We don't need to advocate for a seat at the table.
The strategic relevance of design is crystal clear. And we can really scale our impact. Yeah. I get extremely inspired by a lot of young designers. Because they are very vocal, like the ones I've experienced in New York area. And also like my current contracting work, the agencies in Colorado, and they hire designers from like Canada, all over the world and America.
And one thing I noticed about them is that they are very vocal about their value. And one of them told me she worked in at a very well known, very famous place and she did not like it at all because she. Realize that her value was not lying to what the company was doing. And I also really like impressed because, that's something that I still struggled when I looked for a new job, new opportunity, I get so alerted by these big names and also like a dislike, very Superficial thing.
Oh, what if people see me getting a job from this place instead of that place. Or they might look me down. Which just doesn't make any sense. That's not why you are a designer. And like, when I hear this kind of decisions that these young designers made, I'm like, I'm very impressed by them.
You are influencing me like you're helping me make better decisions about my path as well. And money is important, but it's really important for all of us to what we want to do that is aligned with our personal values and vision. I embrace the hoard is Does getting a sit in the at a company that's equal to business strategy or other executive decision-makers, I embrace that design is very valuable and design thinking is very important.
And I believe in embracing it in my. Entire career, because I knew that it was very important, but at the same time, I stopped seeing living all the downside of that. That really makes me worry. Is that. Because designers start thinking like business people, which is important, actually designers are losing what designers do really well.
And especially the product design world. I noticed that the quality of product design is not it's not really there. A lot of product designers actually don't didn't really learn about typography or the fundamental design things that. We studied a score and all those things are very awkward because they are based on many studies and psychologist studies certain typographic decision, you don't need to do AB testing because it's been proven, but a lot of young designers actually don't know that.
And. And, but the great business thinker, the way they make decisions, the way they research sharp, like sharper than. I like a lot of times. But like I keep worrying about this core thing that, designers supposed to do. And that's something I worry about. In my opinion, business skills are extremely important, but you don't have to do it.
You can partner with the business, people who can do, but you can influence. But, as a designer that doesn't have to be your core thing, at the core of a creative people need to be creative. So that's something I think about a lot. Industry-wise, the exciting thing about being a designer is that you never know so many things are changing all the time, so I don't know what's going to come next.
That's the most exciting thing. Yeah, for sure. This past year has exposed so much in so many things have changed. And after the initial shock of the first couple of months of the pandemic, then just all of these new technologies and companies started springing up and.
Here we are recording a podcast remotely when we used to do this in person, just a couple of years ago. And I love that both of, you mentioned, being inspired by the younger generation. I've actually accepted a couple of more junior folks into the fellowship because.
I just, couldn't not give them a place. When I met them, they were just miles and light years ahead of folks in more, more experienced folks that I've met. Wanted to give them the opportunity, everyone has a unique perspective and a story.
Thank you both so much for doing this experiment with me today and jumping in on short notice. We'll wrap it up here and excited to hopefully turn this into a series with with some incredible designers. Thank you both.