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The rise of IC roles in UX and Product Design

And why you donā€™t need to be a design manager to be considered successful anymore

Melody Koh šŸ¤”
Prototypr
13 min readApr 19, 2023

Thanks Austin for the picture.

There is nothing I hate more than bad managers who breathe down your neck as youā€™re trying to design something.

ā€œI think itā€™s better if you put that button thereā€ or ā€œWe should use orange for this graphic because it feels betterā€ are just some of the comments that would make me want to grab my managerā€™s hand and make them do it themselves.

It feels even worse when your manager isnā€™t from a design background.

So with the fact that design managers do exist in the market, we would ideally love a dedicated spokesperson for the design team, right? Someone we can count on and someone who speaks the same language as we do.

Well, it turns out life, as usual, isnā€™t that simple.

Managers come in all shapes and forms, so sometimes it is a bit difficult to pin-point what traits exactly are bad and which are good because depending on the mixture of pros and cons you get, you will have very different conclusions on whether someone is a good manager or not.

Being a good manager is not easy, and itā€™s not a job everyone is suited for.

I do not wish to generalise, and thisā€¦

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Published in Prototypr

Prototyping, UX Design, Front-end Development and Beyond šŸ‘¾ | āœļø Write for us https://bit.ly/apply-prototypr

Written by Melody Koh šŸ¤”

Senior product designer ā­ I write provocative things because I am a provocative person | Follow on LinkedIn: https://shorturl.at/fwyQ0

Responses (4)

What are your thoughts?

Great read! Detailed and thoughtful articulation about this topic. Awesome job! āœØ šŸ‘šŸ¼

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I appreciate the thorough and detailed comparison of various roles (some of which Iā€™ve never heard of TBH.)

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This was an interesting read giving much clarity about designer roles. I liked the facts shared about Management and IC roles.

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