Kit Lin, UX
A designer who delves into the realm of cutting-edge mobile experiences, empowering individuals to effortlessly shop online.
Hello, could you please introduce yourself ☺️
I was born and raised in Taiwan, and before moving to the United States, I worked as a UX designer in both Taiwan and China for a few years. Now I'm a veteran in Amazon with 10 years tenure and work in the app innovations area.
Amazon has noticed a trend in our own customer base, where they engage at a more leisurely pace on desktop and prefer bite-size sessions while utilizing mobile apps. As a result, all Amazon teams are now designing product with a "App first" mindset. Unlike other Amazon teams that focus on vertically specific areas like Product detail page or Cart, App innovation team develops horizontal end-to-end customer experiences, addressing a gap in the current vertical ownership model of our primary customer journey surface areas.
My team drives notable improvements that delight Amazon mobile app customers by leveraging unique app technology capabilities and customizing industry design patterns to ensure customers receive a best-in-class shopping experience.
How would you define a Principal Designer? Could you share your personal experience and journey when you were promoted to this position?
Before getting promoted, I did work on some "principal level" projects like launching a high impact program on Amazon, but none of them landed me a promotion. Instead, the projects listed in my promotion doc didn’t have that high visibility or scope, but they got me promoted.
I understand most designers, especially those currently chasing for promotions, believe that they must work on a principal level project in order to get promoted. I would say yes and no.
People make this assumption likely because they do not understand how the promotion process works. Yes, working on a large project can increase your visibility while also providing good material for your promotion doc. However, instead of participating in a principal level project, reviewers are more interested in whether what you did had a principal level impact on this project.
A big project does help you get more attention in front of people, but the attention is toward the project, not you.
You may have done an amazing job and received numerous compliments from partners. Congrats! However, if the solutions you provided, the impact you made remained at the "Senior designer" level, that would just prove you're a high performer at your current level, which has nothing to do with the promotion. You may have heard this: You must demonstrate you're already acting as a principal in order to be promoted to principal.
You don't need to work on a principal level project, but you need to create a principal level impact. That's actually good news, after all, principal level projects are not everywhere.
In fact, there're 3 types of projects that aid in promotion:
Create a large-scale project and ship it, like an entrepreneur
Work on a large-scale project and make a principal level impact on it.
Work on a not-that-large project, but level it up to make it a principal level project
Now you may wonder what exactly the “principal level impact” is. When I was at my previous level, I kept hearing people saying that “Influence" is the key skill for a Principal UX designer, and that's correct. However, people interpret "influence" differently, with the majority believing that it means “Start talking, quit hands-on, and give feedback everywhere”. Well, at least that's not how I got promoted
In 3 types of projects I mentioned earlier, my case is #3. I was working on a feedback providing tool that allows customers to quickly provide the product feedback by choosing one of a set of emojis.
When digging into the iconography, I discovered there're numerous reaction icons both inside and outside of the Amazon shopping app. Besides, over 5 of my sister teams were planing to experiment their own reaction icons in parallel. Some icons they created had similar metaphor to those I made for my project, but not all of them. I could choose to ignore the inconsistencies, or only focus on the ones that overlap, but I had a feeling it will become an endless debates for longer time. As a result, I decided to step in and interviewed these sister teams to understand their unique needs and details, and then wrote a document addressing all hotly debates along with the potential solutions and my recommendations.
This document not only helped leaders in quickly understanding these debates in order to make a decision, but was also a perfect opportunity for me to demonstrate that I can (1) articulate the needs and debates among my and other teams' projects, as well as the similar features that currently exist outside of the Amazon app. (2) provide corresponding recommendations that works for all Amazon teams that use reaction icons. What I did expands my scope and eventually benefits more teams, and that, in my opinion, is the key skill "influence" for a Principal UX designer.
A Principal UX designer has sharp eyes to spot the opportunities, and deliver first-class design. Meanwhile, he/she never forgets to look around the corner to ensure the solution is scalable.
“A Principal UX designer has sharp eyes to spot the opportunities, and deliver first-class design. Meanwhile, he/she never forgets to look around the corner to ensure the solution is scalable.”
Was there a moment where things clicked for you that you decided to stay on the IC track?
I had a few years of people management experience when I was in Asia. Unlike in the US, there was no separate career path for IC and managers in Asia (Not sure about today, but there wasn't at the time). As a recognition, the high-performing IC eventually would be "promoted" to a manager, which is how I became a manager. Not because I have potentials or interests to be a manager at all. The career path in my previous companies back in Asia was like:
Do you see the problem? I might drive the design directions, owned large-scale projects, or even influenced the project scopes when I was a very senior IC, but after being promoted, all of the sudden, I was forced to give up what I was good at in order to take on some entry-level management works such as managing my reports' schedule and workload. I felt immediately "downgraded" when being promoted to a junior manager.
Meanwhile, when I was in Asia, "Manager" was considered to be a higher level job than IC. The pressure from society pushed me to stay on as a manager because that is the most common way people evaluate if a you are successful at your job. That was supposed to be the moment I decided to stay on the people management path, but it wasn't. That was my thought at the time until I started working in the US.
Because Amazon is the only company I've worked for since moving to the US, I may not have enough data to speak for all American companies, but I found Amazon has designed very clear and distinct career paths for IC and managers. In contrast to Asia, I rarely see a manager make top-down decision to ICs here. IC and managers are more like two different job functions with distinct responsibilities. Being said that, that doesn't imply that there are no levels in Amazon and everyone is treated equally. My observation is people are given different levels of respect not because of their job functions (manager or IC), but the seniority of their expertise.
This was encouraging because it meant I'd have more career options. Everyone including myself knows I'm good as an IC so that's where I'm now. However, as I grew in seniority, I began to be assigned some people management duties from time to time, such as mentoring juniors and evaluating team members' performance. I realized when becoming a very senior IC, you're also expected to be able to handle the management jobs at certain level because a very senior IC and manager are considered as "leaders".
Unlike my previous management experiences, this time I'm not hating it as I expected. I guess the main reason is that I was not forced to take on this role full-time as a "promotion", and instead, management is only a small portion of my works and I always can communicate with my managers to decide whether or not to add weight on it if I feel interested. So far, I'm still enjoying being an IC, but I wouldn't be surprised if I eventually became a manager.
Could you share your framework to be more impactful?
Honestly, there's no quick way to make you more impactful unless you really have insightful thoughts prepared. However, there is a trick to make people around believe that most of your words counts - Don't talk too much 😆.
I've seen designers trying to make an impact quickly by aggressively expressing their points of view in a meeting or jumping right into the design details. The bias for action is appreciated, but the level of impact is measured by quality rather than quantity of designs you created or words you said.
Before expressing my opinions in a meeting or translating them into design details, I would force myself to take a step back and see the project/discussed topic from a higher level. Sure, details matters, but I'm sure most people would point them out anyway, and I don't need to be another "+1." Meanwhile, looking at things from a higher level fosters me to discover more details from other teams/areas that are relevant to my project, allowing me to avoid working in silos. Although it will take more time, the end result will help level the questions I can ask and the opinions I will make.
Talking a lot won't make you more impactful, but talking on point will. Every time when you speak, make sure it counts.
How do you find a mentor to support your career growth?
I have a few mentors, some of whom are UX designers, but the majority are not. The crucial part, in my opinion, is how to “find the right one" rather than just “find one”
There're various types of experienced people in a company. Each of them has unique superpower that has shaped him/her into the person he/she is today. You never want to be advised to do things that make you awkward, or to act as someone you don't want to be, so before starting the mentor search, I would ask myself who among these people I expect to be my next role model. Usually, the ones I'm thinking about have something in common with me (e.g., culture, personality, specialties, the ways of doing things), so I can imagine how I could naturally become any of them without completely changing myself to be a different person.
What advice would you give to a senior designer who is trying to decide between the IC track and management track?
I'm sure you've gotten a lot of advice from senior people or design articles on how to make the decision by matching your interests and the role, so I'll skip that part. I only have two reminders:
Don't choose one path because you want to avoid the responsibilities of another
I've often heard designers choose to be an IC ONLY because they don't want to deal with people, or managers because they are tired of being hands-on. As you grow, it's impossible to avoid communicating with people, and as I mentioned earlier, when becoming a very senior IC, you're eventually expected to handle the management duties at certain level because an very senior IC is also considered as a "leader”. On the other hand, being a manager doesn't mean you can quit hands-on. That only means you're shifting to more hands-on tasks that aren't directly related to actual design works. You still must maintain your design sense and instinct. After all, "Design" is still in your title, right?Chill, this isn't a one-way door. You always can change your mind after making the decision
Set expectations with your manager together when transitioning from one role to another, and never hesitate to call for help if needed. Whether you succeed or fail in the role you have chosen, that doesn't mean you have stay on it for the rest of your career.
What excites you about being a designer in the next few years?
As the technology has grown rapidly lately, I can't believe I'm going to/am witnessing that we can work with AI's support, which excites me. However, what thrills me the most is actually the opportunity to work with younger designers who have fresh perspectives and energetic vibes. I know it feels like I, as a senior designer, always carry and guide the young ones, but I'm also learning a lot from them. After all, the younger generation will become the primary customers of our products, right?
