🧂Stop hiring the wrong designer for your product

The wake-up call

Back in 2017, I landed my first product design job at a Silicon Valley startup. I had five years teaching graphic design in college and similar experience freelancing UX/UI work.

The market was hot—I was getting recruiter emails every week, feeling like the designer everyone wanted to chase.

One email caught my attention. It was personalized, funny, respectful—and the recruiter's third follow-up. So I replied: "Sure! Let's chat. Here's my portfolio."

Days later: "Sorry, I shared your portfolio with my team and they don't think it's a good fit."

Wait, what? If you don't like my portfolio, why chase me through three emails like I'm the hottest designer in Silicon Valley?

That rejection got me thinking: If they're looking for a product designer and my portfolio earned an instant "no," what was I missing?

Three years later, after failing Meta interviews twice, I finally cracked the code. I landed competitive offers from Meta and other unicorn companies. Looking back, I realized that 2017 portfolio wasn't even close to what real product designers do.

The fundamental difference isn't what's shown—it's the thinking and experience behind designing for world-class tech products.

(Oh, and that recruiter? I learned they blast email sequences to thousands of designers based on LinkedIn keywords. I wasn't special after all.)

The core problem: Different games, different rules

Here's what founders miss: hiring a visual designer for product work is like hiring a magazine photographer to shoot a documentary. Both use cameras, but they're solving completely different problems.

From a user's perspective: It's the difference between stopping someone's scroll versus helping them accomplish a task.

When users see a social media ad or browse a website, they are in discovery mode. Something needs to grab their attention and stop them from scrolling. The goal is visual storytelling—make it interesting enough for people to pause and engage.

But when a user open Slack? They are in task mode. They want to check messages, respond to their team, and get back to work. They need the interface to be clear, readable, and fast. They are already convinced—now help them accomplish their goal efficiently.

Same user, completely different mindset. That's why these design disciplines require completely different philosophies.

When I train visual designers to work on UI, I often tell them: "Use fewer colors, leverage different levels of grey, don't treat backgrounds like art. The goal is readability, not visual wow. You want people to sit down and patiently navigate your product."

When I give feedback to product designers working on websites, I often say: "This isn't visually compelling enough. Think storytelling. Leverage color, typography, and white space to grab attention."

The business impact: Conversion vs. retention

Ads and websites are about conversion and activation—bringing new users to your door and convincing them to sign up.

Products are about retention—keeping users engaged long enough to find value and come back.

Retention determines if your business lives or dies. That's why companies spend more money refining their products than marketing them. It's also why product designers get paid more than graphic or web designers.

In larger companies, product R&D is completely separated from marketing. When they're serious about hiring a product designer, they won't waste time looking at marketing portfolios.

Too many designers don't get this distinction.

The designer's perspective: Surface vs. systems

It's not just about portfolios—it's about the thinking behind them.

I was lucky to land that first product role, but I struggled transitioning from visual to product thinking. My visual skills were strong, and I believed in my creativity and divergent thinking.

But product design isn't just about ideas—it's about feasibility. I'd propose creative solutions and hear "But how?" from founders. I'd get stuck because I only knew how to generate ideas, not implement them.

Visual designers care about surface, look, and feel. Product designers care about the connections between experiences and what's actually buildable given team constraints.

Without deep experience building tech products, designers never develop this systems thinking. They don't understand that solving one seemingly simple problem involves countless dependencies and edge cases.

Product designers know that prioritization—what to build now versus later—matters more than having the prettiest solution.

The costly mistake

Don't hire the wrong designer. A designer who only shows web or branding projects likely can't fulfill your product design role. You'll regret it—I've seen this happen repeatedly.

But here's the flip side: Don't assume your product designer can handle your website, branding, or social media either.

There's a massive gap between designers who can do different things, and it's hard to close. Even coming from a visual background, when I focus on product design, I lose the patience and muscle memory for visual work. That’s why I built my visual team to support all of our products. It's like learning a language but never practicing—you slowly forget.

For designers reading this

Don't use one portfolio for all roles if you have multiple skill sets. And never load up on landing pages or visual examples when applying for product design roles.

Show the thinking, not just the pretty pictures.

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