First 10 years of experience in design
This year marks my anniversary, of 10 years in the field of design. This timeframe is typically considered sufficient to become a serious professional, and I agree with that. It’s challenging to build a career in a way that you don’t become an experienced professional within 10 years.
I would like to share a brief story of my career and then discuss some mistakes and missed opportunities that slowed down my progress for several years.
A Bit of Storytelling
I worked as a marketing manager in a small online store. Prior to that, I had experience working on website development projects from the client side and as a sales manager for a design studio in Odessa.
The Beginning
With this background, I left my previous non-design job and wondered what to do next. I randomly decided to try my hand at designing a landing page for an imaginary project, and that’s how it all started.
For about a couple of years, I found clients through social media and acquaintances. During that time, I also started teaching courses for beginners. It’s important to mention that besides design, I also did web development, so I delivered fully-coded landing pages with functional feedback forms.
From Landing Pages to Websites
After about 3 years, I gradually transitioned to designing full websites. I can say that this transition wasn’t easy because my past cases limited the potential projects that came my way.
Design School and Mentorship Experience
Somewhere between projects, I decided to create my own online course on web design. It turned out to be a wise decision as it allowed me to quickly improve my understanding of fundamental design principles and establish myself as an expert. Throughout the course, I probably taught over 60 designers. In addition to that, I mentored more than 50 newcomers in web development.
Relocating to Kyiv
Afterward, I moved to Kyiv. Immediately after the relocation, I enrolled in a UX design course at KAMA and then joined another course on UX data mining & analytics at Projector.
First UX Project
Even before completing the courses, I landed a job as a UX designer. It was probably my first full-scale project related to interface development. I worked at the company for almost a year and then continued working on various projects as a freelance designer.
First Leadership Experience
Within one of the projects, I collaborated well with the founders of a small outsourcing team, and I offered myself as the design lead. I started recruiting designers and learned how to delegate tasks and handle projects through others. Over the course of a year, we completed many projects together, and I thoroughly enjoyed managing the design work, so I decided to continue doing it.
I want to mention that I had the desire to have my own team and delegate design work for quite some time, but it wasn’t easy to achieve. However, the increasing number of tasks that didn’t interest me personally and the overwhelming workload made it physically impossible for me to handle everything myself.
Design Buddy
Organically, my processes evolved into an independent team, which led to the establishment of Design Buddy. This was probably around the sixth year of my career, in 2020. My team grew to about 4 people simultaneously, and we had several long-term projects. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, our work progressed well.
Entering the Corporate World
After two years, I realized that I wanted to immerse myself in something highly complex from various perspectives, so I joined EPAM. In our Kyiv office alone, we have nearly 60 designers, and there are probably over 200 across Ukraine. Each one brings a wealth of experience and something to teach. In my opinion, this step was also crucial for my career and understanding of how design should be done.
During my two years at EPAM, I’ve gained even more confidence in my professionalism. Additionally, the experience of working on large-scale projects solidified my previous expertise and merged it into a cohesive and stable skill set. Now, I’m not afraid to take on projects of any complexity, domain, or team composition.
What’s Next?
What can one do with such career development? Most importantly, it’s about bringing maximum value to the people and projects I collaborate with. I’d like to share more about my plans separately. In my next post, I will discuss the mistakes I could have avoided and the opportunities I missed to achieve greater success within the same timeframe.
