Shilpa Bhat , UX

An AI whiz and empathy ninja who transforms teams, one design at a time.

Hello, could you please introduce yourself ☺️

Hello! I am Shilpa Bhat, Principal Designer at AWS AI/ML. I moved to California about 10 years ago from India, and I live here with my husband and our 7 year old daughter. I have 18+ years of UX experience, including IC and design management in Europe, Asia and North America. I enjoy good food, cooking with my daughter and traveling. I am a big believer in emotional intelligence and working on personal development to be successful in life, and in any career or level.

Could you share further on your thoughts about emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence involves possessing the understanding to navigate situations that may not always be convenient or comfortable and determining how to respond to them in a manner that fosters positive and productive outcomes.

Do you have an example of practicing emotional intelligence?

Yes. In a recent conversation, things took a turn towards conflict due to differing opinions. The discussion became increasingly heated as the other person grew aggressive, pressing me to explain my differing viewpoint. I sensed my rising emotions and the threat of saying something regrettable and recalled Julie Zhou's advice on diffusing such situations. Instead of reacting impulsively, she suggests using the "magic incantation" of postponing the discussion to the next day, allowing time for emotions to settle. By employing this approach, I avoided exacerbating the conflict. Taking a step back and refraining from immediate responses gave me the opportunity to gain perspective and respond more thoughtfully the following day. Julie emphasizes the importance of self-awareness in recognizing escalating emotions and the potential negative impact on the situation. The "magic incantation" approach allows me to assert that I had more to contribute to the conversation while suggesting a more opportune time for further discussion—ultimately, gaining trust through more positive and productive conversations.

How can one earn trust effectively?

Earning trust involves consistent and transparent communication, ensuring your intentions are easily understood. I also have to check on myself on a regular basis. This is something I'm working on myself too. If you don't give that feedback and try to improve the situation, you might start to avoid certain things. You might go down a path and might lose trust from someone. I think as you become a senior and principal member, it becomes your job to give feedback to people so that situations can improve. Rather than either taking it on yourself to figure it out or trying to avoid the situation. It's about having the responsibility to provide your point of view on a topic and to earn trust by showing your care about the situation.

“I think as you become a senior and principal member, it becomes your job to give feedback to people so that situations can improve. Rather than either taking it on yourself to figure it out or trying to avoid the situation.”

How would you define a Principal Designer?

Principal designer is a role model in the company, they set standards for design craft, product thinking and expertise in teams and orgs. They have one or more technical areas of expertise. They are sought after for their advice on design. Principals have the important job of influencing without management authority. Principal designers are not people leaders. We don't have people reporting to us. So I believe to be a successful principal, it is definitely about earning trust and respect of people around you. People tend to come to you more because they will feel that you will genuinely give them the right advice without having some other ulterior agenda. There is a selfless element to being a principal where you want to help the company, the community, and the customer.

Have you worked on a “principal project” before getting promoted? If yes, mind sharing your story?

I truly believe any project can be a “principal project” because you can demonstrate force multiplier effect through any project by creating design durables. The promo process is not necessarily only looking at big projects, big launches, or major visibility in media. The promo process is looking for evidence of how a candidate tackled situations and made an impact across various parameters like ambiguity, execution, influence. This can be done in a project of any scope. For instance, in one of my Tier 2 projects - our team was launching 2 distinct features led by 2 different PMs at the same time which were not connected to each other. The customers wanted both the features as part of an offering, and through concept testing - I brought anecdotes to the team and was able to get this prioritized for launch. I rapidly evolved the design to deliver the integrated experience and this launch made it to the VP keynote. I worked on projects of varying scope while at AWS, and I created design durables like problem statements, customer journeys, personas, design recommendations and feature ideas from usability studies and concept testing.

Was there a moment where things clicked for you that you decided to stay on the IC track?

I have tried people management in my previous stints and while I really enjoyed building design teams, and elevate design in organizations - I felt it was emotionally draining at times. Since I joined Amazon in 2020, I wanted to go deep into design expertise and build my skills as an individual contributor (IC). I also want to build empathy for designers at senior level by being one so as a design leader I can solve for some of those challenges. Eventually my path may circle back to design management, a prospect that excites me as I find joy in fostering teams and shaping design culture.

Based on your observations, what trade-offs or risks should designers know about before continuing down the IC path?

The main challenge is to influence without managerial authority. It is relatively easy to influence designers if they report to you but being a principal would mean that you will be expected to elevate the quality of design for your team org, and there could be multiple junior designers working on projects and how do you have visibility to what they are doing, review their work and give feedback which improves the quality of design. This is a little easier to do as a design manager.

“Principal designer is a role model in the company, they set standards for design craft, product thinking and expertise in teams and orgs. ”

Could you share your framework to be more impactful?

Start by asking what is the outcome you want to achieve. In this context, it's necessary to re-frame the perspective and consider the desired result. By identifying the outcome I aim to attain, I can then take appropriate actions to accomplish that objective. This was a big realization for me and is an ongoing process. Oftentimes, we think working hard and doing my best is what will help make an impact. But a lot of times, it may not make a measurable impact. By starting first with an outcome in mind, you can steer your actions towards that outcome. In practice, I use the SMART goals framework to define my goals. And then it makes it easy to identify what's the result I'm trying to achieve and in order to achieve that result, who do I need to influence?

How do you find a mentor to support your career growth?

Pay attention to someone whose career you admire, or who has made an impression on you through their talking style, knowledge, or someone who demonstrates the qualities you wish to inculcate - these could be people who would make good mentors for you. Set-up intro call, go prepared with your goals, mission and vision to establish common grounds and identify opportunities for mentoring. You need to do some ground work to identify areas where you need help so you and your mentor can work together in helping you achieve your goals or bridge some gaps. You get what you put in your mentorship sessions, the onus of being prepared lies on the mentee.

What advice would you give to a senior designer who is trying to decide between the IC track and management track?

I want to talk about the important skills first. The abilities to create and visualize are incredibly powerful skills, and ICs and managers must remember this. While anyone can compose a document to bring people into alignment, it is only when a designer translates these ideas into visuals that the true dialogue starts. The ideas may not be uniformly understood by all parties. Thus, to foster a shared understanding among diverse stakeholders, including engineers, and product managers, designers have a uniquely influential position in crafting a shared vision. Embrace the skills of creation and visualization by reflecting on your aspirations for the next five years. Think about what you wish to accomplish, and then strategically consider the path that will lead you to those goals. It can feel daunting to choose between tracks, but I also find that it is easy to switch back if the chosen path is not working out for you. At Amazon, there is flexibility within the company to try career paths which is great because sometimes it is not easy to know at the onset how it will pan out. I would say think about your goals, and go with your gut feel, knowing that this is a 2 way door decision.

What excites you about being a designer in the next few years?

Designing for and with GenAI is exciting in the future. It feels like the next big tech shift since the internet, it's exciting to see how AI can supercharge people to be more efficient, making time to be more creative. It is exciting that GenAI is also democratizing the field with consumer use cases like you can brainstorm yard design ideas with ChatGPT. My daughter who is in second grade brought home an exercise she did in school on “ChatGPT: Friend or Foe” - which is cool because young children are learning about it, and have opinions about it.