Design Leadership: Levelling up a junior design team

What has worked well for me when “leveling up” a design team with less experience

It’s never an easy thing to figure out how to level up a design team that is junior level. Unfortunately, in today’s fast-moving startup world, most companies don’t want to invest in junior designs simply because the investment cost is too high initially. So how can a design leader set up a design practice that allows that junior designer to level up their thinking and craft? How can a design leader pave the way for junior designers to become senior designers?

Here are some things that have worked for me in the past. Of course, sometimes I didn’t need

to do everything listed here to see results but combining these things always worked. As for the inspiration from where these came from, I observed and got inspired by design leaders like Tanner Christensen, Jehad Affoneh, Julie Zhuo, and countless others who I reported to as a designer.

Design Pairing

- Pair junior designers with more experienced ones. Let them shadow them, get mentored, give feedback on files, evaluate design candidates for hire, write job descriptions, and do more things that make up a designer. - Organize working sessions for designing interfaces, wireframes, and brainstorming ideation sessions. You…

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