A few years ago, I decided to leave my career as an Architect, took a leap of faith and dove into the digital world to become a Product Designer.
At the time I have very little knowledge about the tech industry, and what a “Product Designer” actually does. So it was a huge learning curve. Luckily, one of my best friends inspired me with his journey (which you can read about here).
For me, it was
Take the leap of faith. If you don’t love what you do, change.
Learnt as much as I can from my peers, and the glorious internet about the tech and digital design industry.
Did an internship with a start-up incubator called Lightning Lab. Crash course on start-up culture and product design.
Scored a job at PWC digital (formerly known as Optimal Experience), as a UX Designer. PWC was one of the sponsors of Lightning Lab, so the internship paid off
Repeat point 2… and don’t stop learning.
I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences, and how did you transition?
Originally I graduated as an industrial designer with a packaging design mayor. I started to work as a graphic designer. I mostly worked on print and sometimes I had web design jobs as a freelancer. I wanted to be better in the digital design and after a few years working in publishing industry as an art director I felt bored about my tasks. So I enrolled in a UX design course. I really liked it and I felt this is the future. After the course, I asked the agency that made the UX course if I can work for them as an intern for free. They agreed, so besides my full time job I started to work half time as an intern. After a month they offered me a half time paid position. Then a full time. So I needed to decide to leave my art director position what I did finally. Since then I have been working on gradually bigger and more complex projects and I really enjoy it. It’s such a good feeling making people’s life easier. I’m really happy for making the decision and change my career.
