4 Comments

Oh, if only I had read the Raised by Wolf section when starting out 20 years ago. In hindsight, my learning curve during the first 10 years as a digital designer at a small advertising (and very much not digital) agency was terrible.

I did almost everything on the list (not so much AI for obvious reasons) to improve my skills but one main problem with self-learning is the lack of feedback. It's hard to ask questions about a subject, being corrected, or being challenged. Several times I discovered that I misinterpreted an idea or a method.

Years later I joined a digital agency with many smart people, with many different angles on how to solve a problem which improved my skills significantly.

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Any advice for someone who found UX later in their career (around 28 yo) and went solo for the first 6 or so years (startups) based on the “credibility” of 1) age; 2) previous work experience in graphic design?

By the time I joined orgs with UX teams I was considered senior (eventually super senior) because of the same reasons mentioned above, combined with some success stories at the startups. But my imposter syndrome is quite vocal: “You didn’t learn it the right way, how can you coach younger designers?!”

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As someone working solo at startups for 2 years and having the same imposter syndrome, I recommend looking at the evidence of your successes. It takes conscious efforts to rewrite the story you tell yourself. Another thing to do is to find other senior uxers who worked solo and get them to share their experiences. Chances are you will see yourself in their struggles. You will be able to look at your own situation from the outside and get a different perspective. Meanwhile, you will connect with another senior ux person and the two of you may tag up once in a while to help each other out.

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I'm a little shocked to see the phrase "solo too early, you'll fail." Regardless of the challenges and frustrations being the only UXer, I became grateful for my solo experience because of the significant skills growth over many areas in a short period of time. I want to hear the definition of the "fail" the article is referring to. Can anyone help explain the kind of "failures" you have witnessed solo career starters experienced?

For background, I started my career working solo for 4 years now. I tend to assume other designers who started off solo are very self-motivated learners and problem solvers. I think these are important traits of designers who can create quick impacts at organizations they join. What do you all think defines a good designer?

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