The Hidden Shift: When Your Design Career Becomes About Influence
Planning Beyond Your Next Sprint
Most mid-level designers I know are laser-focused on what's happening in the next two weeks. Can't blame them – there's always another deadline breathing down your neck. But once you start moving into senior roles, you realize your decisions have much longer tails than you thought.
That design system component you're building? Someone's going to curse your naming convention six months from now. The way you've organized your Figma file? A new team member will either thank you or spend their first week completely lost.
I've started treating future-me (and future teammates) like actual stakeholders in my work. Here's what that looks like practically:
Before I close my laptop each day, I spend five minutes cleaning up my Figma files. Not because I'm obsessive, but because I know how frustrating it is to inherit a mess.
I keep what I call "decision logs" – just quick notes about why I went with one direction over another. Sounds nerdy, but it's saved me countless hours of re-explaining my thinking.
When I spot early signals that we might change direction, I speak up. Last quarter, I had a hunch we'd sunset a pattern we were heavily investing in. Sharing that early saved three other designers a week of wasted work.
When Everything Goes Sideways
Here's something they don't teach you in design school: everything will break. The product will pivot just as you finish the perfect user flow. Your favorite design tool will crash during your biggest presentation. The org will restructure and suddenly your project champion is on a different team.
I used to get rattled by this stuff. Now I expect it.
I've gotten into the habit of stress-testing my designs beyond the happy path. What happens when the API is slow? What if our budget gets slashed and we can't build that fancy animation? I build fallback states into my prototypes now, not just the hero scenarios.
The biggest shift though? I've learned that people remember how you handle failure way more than the failure itself. Stay calm, help the team regroup, and you'll earn more respect than if nothing had gone wrong in the first place.
Making More Heroes
This one's hard for recovering perfectionists like me. It's always faster to just do it yourself. But I've realized that "faster" isn't always better, especially when you're in a senior role.
Last month, I gave a mid-level designer full ownership of a feature redesign. Could I have done it quicker? Probably. But watching them present their work in the design review – seeing their confidence grow as they defended their decisions – reminded me what this job is really about.
I've started inviting junior designers to present work in meetings where I'd normally take the lead. I make sure to celebrate the small wins publicly, because recognition builds confidence faster than any tutorial.
Your legacy isn't the interfaces you designed. It's the designers you helped become better.
The Question That Changed Everything
A PM I respect asked me something last year that stuck: "Do people want you in the room when things get complicated?"
That's when it hit me. At some point, your value stops being about your portfolio and starts being about your presence. Are you the designer who makes everyone else better? Do engineers actually look forward to working with you? Do other designers seek out your feedback?
I started auditing myself honestly. Would I want to work with me? I asked a few peers for real feedback on how I show up in meetings, in Slack, in critiques. Some of the answers were uncomfortable, but they helped me course-correct.
The Real Upskilling
Learning new tools and frameworks is table stakes. The real growth happens when you accept that your job has fundamentally changed. You're not just making screens anymore – you're setting culture, building resilience, mentoring others.
The hidden shift is influence. Once you embrace that, you'll not only become a better designer but help create the kind of design team everyone actually wants to join.