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Alena's avatar

This is the kind of a breakdown of a no-junior-designers-roles problem that quiets one's anxiety and rethinking the whole design career choice. Agreed, it is structural, not personal. I'd qualify it as a mini-wicked problem.

Many things discussed resonate. I personally found early start-ups opportunities approach *fruitful (*if you don't mind getting paid in networking, real-wold problems etc. only).

Aside from that, really niching down and genuinely contributing/expressing your expertise really do help.

My biggest ache is How to develop the kind of networking that one would get when working within a bigger design team? Since start-ups design teams tend to me non-existent/AI design builder.

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Patrick Morgan's avatar

Thanks for reading!

Yeah the networking and mentorship piece is really hard to replicate, even for me! It's part of why I started writing 3 years ago and putting myself out there in the broader design community. I just couldn't get the kind of support and connection I was seeking from other people in my company because so few of them shared my role.

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