Product & Growth at Instagram, prev. Headspace, Red Bull. Making Sunshine Shop. Vocalist for Monk.

Frank Bach

It’s definitely going to be a challenge, but you can build on what you already know and use it to transition into design. For instance, your front-end experience could give you an edge in understanding Figma’s dev mode or the structure of a design system built from engineered components.

There are roles out there that blend design and engineering, like Design Engineer or Design Technologist positions. They’re not super common, but they do exist.

One approach could be to land a hybrid role at a startup, where you can gradually lean more into the design side and hire a junior engineer to support you. Over time, you might decide to move away from the engineering aspect altogether and focus on being a designer with strong technical skills. Just keep in mind that larger companies often need to categorize you into one discipline—design or engineering—since it’s rare to report to both.

It’s definitely going to be a challenge, but you can build on what you already know and use it to transition into design. For instance, your front-end experience could give you an edge in understanding Figma’s dev mode or the structure of a design system built from engineered components.

There are roles out there that blend design and engineering, like Design Engineer or Design Technologist positions. They’re not super common, but they do exist.

One approach could be to land a hybrid role at a startup, where you can gradually lean more into the design side and hire a junior engineer to support you. Over time, you might decide to move away from the engineering aspect altogether and focus on being a designer with strong technical skills. Just keep in mind that larger companies often need to categorize you into one discipline—design or engineering—since it’s rare to report to both.

Does this help or harm if someone is switching from engineering into design at mid level career ?

Frank Bach

Advice from someone switching into design career from engineering bg?