Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management

Jun 7, 2022 1h 11m 17 insights Episode Page ↗
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.
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.