Brian Warren, UX
A designer who transformed the way people shop for their loved ones.
Hello, could you please introduce yourself ☺️
Howdy, I'm Brian Warren, a principal designer at Chewy. I’ve been here nearly a year, splitting my time between helping customers and growing the design studio at Chewy. Prior to Chewy, I spent some time in the FinTech space at Stripe. And then before that, I worked for about five plus years at Amazon, a Seattle-based retailer that you might have heard of :) I have also worked at a few startups and agencies throughout my past and even a non-profit. If you go back even further, you’ll find me making a mess at my university printing press. That about sums up my 25 years of working on various interesting products.
Could you share your experience between Agency vs. In-house?
One of the things I loved about agency work was working on a bunch of different types of projects. The work ranged from media companies like MTV to product makers like Nintendo and musicians like They Might Be Giants. This allowed me to develop agility and thoughtfulness, as well as provided opportunities to interact with a wide range of people. However, the one thing that bothered me about these projects was having to say goodbye to the work once it launched. I became very attached to the work, which made it difficult to let go, especially as the projects decayed over time. I eventually realized I was becoming more interested in product design, and made the switch after moving to the Northwest. This new passion brought me to working at startups and Amazon, where I could constantly improve and iterate based on customer feedback and metrics.
What are the main criteria you consider when interviewing with a company, given your experience transitioning from at Amazon to Stripe and Chewy?
It's a deeply personal process. I spent a lot of time considering a company before even really evaluating a particular job. And that can be very challenging. I first wanted to fall in love with a company before I fell in love with the work. Initially, when I considered leaving Amazon, I sought out a company that I could connect with and whose mission resonated with me. I focused on whether the company had a clear vision and knew the kind of company it wanted to be. In my experience, working at companies that constantly shift focus can be invigorating for some people, but it did not suit me. I also considered the company's size and growth stage. While I received numerous LinkedIn messages from rapidly growing startups, I preferred to work for a company that was a little further along in its growth. Larger companies often have basic functions and processes in place, which provides opportunities to focus on specific parts of the company and then transition to other areas without starting over at the micro level. Once I had a list of companies that met these criteria, I began to think about the specific job opportunities. What's the team going be like? How do team members operate? What are the values in the organization? How does work get done? What's their culture as a design team and how do they work with products? And, What kind of impact will I make? Will I be able to see the results of the work that I do? The questions helped me identify the types of companies that aligned with my goals, particularly after my experience at Stripe. I knew I wanted to work at a B2C company that focused on creating value for customers.
As I narrowed down my options, I had two companies that were great opportunities. To help evaluate the best fit, I created a tool to help with this decision (image below). I made a spreadsheet with values for each of the categories that were crucial to me. Using this tool, I could compare and contrast the two opportunities to help make an informed decision. The spreadsheet had 15 different categories of things that were important to me, such as manager, clarity of role, clarity of product space, and chance for impact. I also assigned a weight multiplier to each category, based on how important those things are to me (”Work/Life balance” is more important to me than “Perks”, for instance). I scored both companies in each category on a scale of 1 to 10, (1 being the lowest and 10 the highest). The idea with this exercise was that after adding up the scores, the company with the highest score should be the best fit. For me, the two companies that I was considering were very close in terms of their scores, like just a couple points difference. This validated my process for finding the right company, but perhaps a little frustrating I didn’t have a clear winner! After much thinking and discussion with my spouse, I decided to accept the offer from Chewy because I felt that it was the best long-term fit for me.
Brian has made this spreadsheet available via this link, in case anybody finds it useful for their own journey.
How do you determine if your potential manager is the right fit during the interview? Which specific questions do you typically ask?
This is a great question. When talking to potential managers, I ask about their management style and how they measure success with their designers. I also ask about the frequency of one-on-one meetings. These questions can reveal a lot about the company culture and whether or not it is a good fit for me. For example, if a manager says that they don't do regular one-on-one meetings, that would be a red flag for me because I value regular feedback from my manager. Ultimately, the best way to find a job that is a good fit is to trust your gut and have honest conversations with potential employers. I have found that the most important thing is to find a company where I feel like I can thrive and grow.
To be successful in my job, I believe it is crucial to have a clear understanding of what I need to do. This is especially important with the person I work with and spend the most time thinking and working with. In the past, I've worked at companies where there was varying degrees of clarity on what success looked like, which made it difficult for me to assess my progress. Currently, I am in the process of setting my goals for the next year and quarter, which is a challenging task for me. For instance, I am currently working on the Chewy app, and my goal is to increase user engagement and create memorable experiences. In reality, it's abstract to quantify these goals, so I work with my manager to come up with specific goals that are measurable and achievable. This process helps me stay on track and ensures that I am making progress towards my goals. It also builds trust with my manager because we have clear expectations and an external reference point for evaluating my performance. I've had experiences in the past where my manager criticized my performance without clear goals or guidance, which was unproductive and demotivating. Overall, having a good relationship with my manager is pretty important, both for career development and my overall mental health.
How would you define a Principal Designer?
I believe that it is a role with a lot of agency, in which you can shape your own responsibilities.
Lately, I have been tackling more complex problems than before. It's not just about completing the immediate task at hand, but also considering the strategic and long-term aspects. Rather than simply solving the problem once, the focus is on developing a set of guidelines or frameworks that can address the issue in the future and for a broader scope. There is a strong emphasis on strategic thinking and business acumen when breaking down the problem at hand into both short-term and long-term goals.
Aside from the hands-on work, a significant portion of my time is spent mentoring, coaching, and helping build our design community at Chewy. We try to encourage and foster mentorship at Chewy; and I recently created principal office hours, where people from across the company can book time with us. In summary, my work involves tackling complex problems, thinking strategically and with a long-term focus, mentoring and coaching others, and scaling my impact and influence within the design community.
“There is a strong emphasis on strategic thinking and business acumen when breaking down the problem at hand into both short-term and long-term goals.”
Let's go deeper into the mentorship topic. How do you measure the success of a mentorship relationship?
This topic is worth exploring! Not only am I passionate about it, but I also approach it with an open mind. I have been reflecting on the meaning of mentorship for both the mentor and the mentee, particularly for the mentee who seeks to improve in a specific area. One point I try to make is that mentorship is not just about having a life coach who provides advice indefinitely. Rather, it should be focused on a specific goal, such as improving presentation skills, becoming a better writer, or learning how to design for mobile. By identifying a specific goal, one can find a mentor who is skilled in that area and work towards achieving it. The mentee can then measure their progress and determine whether the mentorship was successful. It is important to keep the mentor updated on the results of their mentorship, too, so the mentor can know if they’re making a difference. I believe that mentorship can be a valuable tool for personal and professional growth if approached with the right mindset and goals in mind.
Have you worked on a “principal project” before getting promoted? If yes, mind sharing your story?
I was working on the mobile homepage at Amazon when I was promoted to principal. We were redesigning the Amazon.com mobile homepage, and I wanted to make it more personalized for customers. Our data showed that shoppers are more likely to have a positive shopping experience when they see familiar items. This finding was not particularly surprising, but it gave me confidence knowing these patterns when approaching my design. I also began sketching early on during this process. During that time, I had a bi-weekly meeting with our product director, and I would bring him my sketches to get his feedback. It became his favorite meeting! He loved our meetings because they were less about reading reports and more about being creative. One of the things I wanted to do was make the hero area of the mobile homepage bigger. I thought it would be better to use the hero area for personalized content, like upcoming deliveries or items on a customer's wishlist. I worked through redesigning this area, removing the layers of banners and adding more personalized content throughout the rest of the homepage. The requirement to consistently factor in both the customer's needs and the complexities of managing a sizable corporation like Amazon required lots of collaborating and evangelizing this idea throughout the company, making this project at the Principal-level. The project took a long time to complete, but it offered me the opportunity to work at a higher level than ever before and with a much broader scope.
What steps can a designer take to become a strategic partner?
In product development, your involvement and contribution may depend on how early you join the project. Sometimes, you may find yourself in meetings with people who lack a clear idea of what they want to achieve, such as setting a vague goal to increase engagement with a specific product feature by a certain percentage. As a strategic thinker and design leader, it's your role to explore various approaches to solving the problem and collaborate with the product team to develop ideas. By doing so, you can become a key member in the process long before you begin designing interfaces to address the challenge.
Another approach that can be slightly subversive but effective is to start by identifying existing customer problems or uncovering new ones through user research. By working with a researcher or delving into existing data, you can identify product needs that even your product leaders may not have considered. From there, you can formulate product ideas from a strategic standpoint, taking into account design, business, and product perspectives to address current and future goals. This differs from just focusing on improving interface design in tools like Figma, where the design project's scope may not be clear yet. In essence, being strategic means considering customer problems and how to solve them holistically, with a long-term perspective.
What excites you about being a designer in the next few years?
It may sound a little overly optimistic, but I truly design has a chance to be a force for good in this world. We as designers know this, because we care about little things that other people don’t. We know that a well-chosen typeface or using smart quotes actually does makes a difference in a design. In product design, we shine the light on the customers and the struggles they face to help make good product decisions. Taking that a step further, we must care about those less privileged and make intentional decisions to combat racism and inequality. It’s not enough to make an even playing field for all, but we must be radically intentional about using our privilege to improve the world for others. That is humbling, challenging, and very exciting.
