Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management
This episode features Julie Zhu, former Head of Design for the Facebook app and author of "Making of a Manager." She shares insights on career growth, overcoming imposter syndrome, effective product review meetings, and strategies for hiring designers.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
Julie Zhuo's Journey to Product Design
Navigating Imposter Syndrome and Career Growth
Transitioning from VP at Meta to Startup Founder
The Impact and Habit of Writing
Strategies for Building a Consistent Writing Practice
The Genesis and Impact of 'The Making of a Manager'
Evolving Communication: Long-Form Writing to Twitter Threads
Developing Product Sense and Product Thinking
Balancing Founder Intuition with Data and Research
Facilitating Effective Product Review Meetings
Best Practices for Giving Feedback to Designers
Advice for Aspiring Managers
Hiring Designers in a Competitive Market
5 Key Concepts
Imposter Syndrome
A pervasive feeling of not deserving one's achievements or position, often accompanied by a fear of being exposed as a fraud. Julie explains that this feeling is common, especially when in new, uncomfortable situations, and often coincides with periods of intense personal growth.
Writing as Self-Therapy
The practice of using writing to organize thoughts, clarify thinking, and process complex ideas, effectively serving as a personal reflection tool. Julie describes her writing as 'letters to myself' to give herself advice and improve her ability to express herself.
Product Sense
The intuitive understanding of what makes a product successful, how users interact with it, and the impact of design decisions. It is developed through consistent observation, curiosity about user experiences, dissecting existing products, and validating assumptions with data.
Jobs to Be Done Framework
A mental model that helps categorize and prioritize product feedback by focusing on the fundamental 'job' a particular feature or product fulfills for a user. This framework helps ensure that core user needs are addressed before focusing on other aspects.
Feedback Prioritization
A structured approach to evaluating product feedback by categorizing it into a hierarchy of importance: first, value (does it solve the problem?), then ease of use (is it accessible?), and finally, joy/pleasure (is it delightful?). This ensures critical issues are addressed in the right order.
8 Questions Answered
Julie initially pursued computer science, believing her career options were limited to doctor, lawyer, or engineer. She discovered her passion for digital art and building websites, but it wasn't until her first day as an engineering intern at Facebook that she learned 'design' was a profession, leading her to find her 'tribe' in the design team.
Julie advises recognizing that feeling like an imposter is normal when doing something new and often indicates intense growth. She recommends asking for help, seeking support from mentors or peers, and being vulnerable about struggles to foster deeper connections and receive valuable advice.
Julie began writing as a New Year's resolution to overcome her fear of speaking up in large meetings, aiming to publish one opinion piece weekly. This practice helped clarify her thinking, improved her communication skills, and unexpectedly led to her writing a bestselling book and connecting with a wider community.
Julie suggests focusing on action-oriented goals, such as a daily or weekly word count, rather than aiming for immediate quality or audience reception. This approach, inspired by programs like NaNoWriMo, helps overcome the initial hurdle of a blank page and builds discipline.
Founders can trust their intuition more when they are the target customer or have an extremely deep, minute-to-minute understanding of their users. However, as the user base expands or if the founder is not the primary target audience, data, experiments, and extensive customer interviews become crucial to validate assumptions and reduce bias.
The most effective feedback focuses on clearly identifying and articulating the problem, rather than immediately proposing solutions. Explain where you are getting stuck or why something is unclear, allowing the designer to leverage their expertise to find the best solution collaboratively.
First, communicate your aspirations to your manager and understand the required skills. Then, proactively seek opportunities to practice management-like tasks as an IC, such as mentoring interns, leading onboarding, or improving team processes. If growth opportunities are limited, consider a different company environment.
Companies should demonstrate a genuine commitment to design by investing in high-quality design work (e.g., through agencies or contractors) and by having leaders who understand and speak the language of design. Founders and PMs should immerse themselves in design culture, do their research, and build relationships within the design community.
17 Actionable Insights
1. Embrace Discomfort for Growth
Embrace uncomfortable situations where you feel unprepared, as these periods coincide with the fastest and most intense personal and career growth. Approach these challenges with curiosity, recognizing they force you to learn and improve.
2. Seek Support & Be Vulnerable
Actively ask for help from peers and mentors who have navigated similar challenges to gain support, empathy, and advice. Be vulnerable and open about your struggles with managers and reports to foster deeper connections and collectively solve problems.
3. Use Writing for Clarity & Skill
Adopt writing as a self-therapy tool to organize thoughts and clarify thinking, approaching it as “letters to myself.” This practice significantly improves your ability to express yourself and think better.
4. Practice Short-Form Communication
To enhance clarity and conciseness, intentionally practice communicating in shorter forms, such as Twitter threads. This forces you to strip away ornamentation and focus on the core idea, improving your day-to-day communication.
5. Develop Product Sense via Observation
Cultivate product sense by observing your own emotions and assumptions at every step when using new products or services. Extend this by discussing product observations and critiques with others to understand the impact of design decisions.
6. Validate Product Hypotheses with Data
Deeply engage with quantitative data by running and studying A/B tests, and learning from other teams’ experiments. This helps you understand causal relationships and patterns, developing your instinct for what works and what doesn’t.
7. Align on User & Problem First
Before synthesizing product feedback, ensure all stakeholders are absolutely clear and aligned on the target audience and the most important problem the product aims to solve. This alignment helps categorize and prioritize feedback effectively.
8. Prioritize Product Feedback Sequentially
Structure product feedback by first addressing core value (is it solving the problem?), then ease of use (is it accessible?), and finally delight (is it joyful?). This ensures fundamental issues are resolved before focusing on enhancements.
9. Give Problem-Focused Feedback
When providing feedback to a designer, focus on clearly identifying and explaining the underlying problem, rather than immediately suggesting a solution. This empowers the designer and ensures collective alignment on the core issue.
10. Communicate Managerial Aspirations
Make your manager aware of your desire to become a manager, bringing them into your hopes and dreams. Collaboratively identify the specific skills needed and create a plan to develop them.
11. Practice Management Skills as IC
Actively seek opportunities to practice management skills like hiring, mentoring interns, onboarding new hires, or leading process improvements while still an individual contributor. This helps you learn if you enjoy these tasks and demonstrates your capabilities.
12. Consider New Environments for Growth
If management opportunities are limited due to your current company’s lack of growth or available roles, consider moving to a different environment. Sometimes, a change of company is necessary to further your career goals.
13. Demonstrate Commitment to Design
To attract top design talent, genuinely demonstrate your commitment to design by investing in quality design work (e.g., good agencies, contractors for V1 product or marketing site) even before hiring a full-time designer. Prospective designers will evaluate your existing design quality.
14. Immerse in Design Culture for Hiring
To effectively hire designers, immerse yourself in design culture by researching tools, nomenclature, interviewing designers, and following top designers on social media. This helps you understand their values and speak their language, making you more attractive as an employer.
15. Trust Gut if You Are User
If you are building a product for yourself or your direct target audience, you can trust your instincts and gut feeling more. Your deep inherent understanding of the user’s needs will often guide you correctly.
16. Spend Time with Customers if Not User
If you are not the target user of your product, dedicate significant time to interviewing customers and trying to do their job yourself. This immersion is crucial for building reliable product understanding and reducing bias in your intuitions.
17. Gather Diverse Product Feedback
Collect comprehensive product feedback by holding multiple review sessions with various groups, including design audiences, direct product teams, unbiased external individuals, and target customers. Each group offers valuable and distinct perspectives.
6 Key Quotes
Being in an uncomfortable situation, being in a position where you feel like, hey, you know, do I really know how to do this? I'm not prepared for it. It's kind of coincides with the fastest and most intense periods of growth, you know, in one's career.
Julie Zhuo
If you're going to do anything new for the first time, how are you ever going to feel totally comfortable, you know, totally prepared, right? Every time there's something new that you hadn't encountered before, you know, it's always going to be a little bit rough.
Julie Zhuo
The act of writing allowed me some quiet time to just sit down and try and organize those different threads of thoughts, right? And I always, I approached my writing then and I still do now as letters to myself.
Julie Zhuo
The hardest part is just getting started. You know, it's just getting past like the blank screen and the first page.
Julie Zhuo
The number one advice that I always have for people when talking about product sense or product thinking is, it's just really about observation and it's about curiosity.
Julie Zhuo
The most important feedback I would say is focus on identifying the problem and making it really clear for the other person, you know, the person you're giving feedback to, what is the problem, right?
Julie Zhuo
4 Protocols
Developing Product Sense
Julie Zhuo- Observe yourself: Reflect on your emotions and assumptions at every step when using a new product or service (e.g., why you tried it, moments of confusion, actions taken).
- Observe and share with others: Discuss product observations and critiques with other people, dissecting decisions made by creators and their impact on users.
- Validate with data: Study the impact of specific product decisions through experiments (A/B tests) and quantitative data to infer causal relationships and confirm hypotheses about user behavior.
Facilitating Product Review Meetings (Feedback Prioritization)
Julie Zhuo- Clearly define the target audience and the most important problem the product is trying to solve for them.
- Prioritize feedback on 'Value': First, address whether the product is valuable, solves the core problem, and performs its intended job correctly.
- Prioritize feedback on 'Ease of Use': Once value is confirmed, focus on whether the product is easy to use, if people are confused, or if there are performance issues (e.g., slow loading).
- Prioritize feedback on 'Joy/Pleasure': Finally, if the product is valuable and easy to use, consider feedback related to aesthetics, animation, and delight to exceed user expectations.
Giving Effective Feedback to Designers
Julie Zhuo- Focus on identifying the problem: Clearly articulate what you perceive as the problem with the design, such as where you're getting stuck or why something is unclear.
- Avoid immediately proposing solutions: Refrain from jumping straight to suggesting specific design changes, as this can disempower the designer and bypass a shared understanding of the root issue.
- Provide examples and context: Show the designer where the issue lies and explain your reasoning, allowing for collective brainstorming of better solutions once the problem is aligned upon.
Path to Management for Individual Contributors
Julie Zhuo- Communicate your aspirations: Make your manager aware of your goal to become a manager and ask what skills you need to develop.
- Identify and practice skills: Work with your manager to identify specific management skills (e.g., recruiting, mentoring, process improvement) and find opportunities to practice them as an individual contributor (e.g., mentoring interns, leading onboarding, improving processes).
- Evaluate fit: Use these opportunities to determine if you enjoy management tasks and if your manager sees your success, potentially leading to more responsibility.
- Consider a new environment (if needed): If your current company lacks management openings despite your readiness, consider moving to a different organization where opportunities exist.