femke.design on YouTube · Open on YouTube
Orientation · Explorer · Lesson 3 of 99 · 16 min video, then about 45 min of practice
Reading the product design career ladder
After this you can describe what changes between junior, mid, senior, staff/principal and design manager, and which of those you are aiming at.
Why it matters
Most beginner content stops at 'get your first job', which leaves people unable to tell what 'good' looks like two years in. The ladder is not a ladder of craft. From senior upward, the difference is scope: how ambiguous a problem you can be handed, how many people your decisions affect, and whether you are trusted to decide what gets built rather than how it looks. Focus on the shift from executing well to choosing well. Trap: assuming management is the only way up. Most mature design orgs run a parallel individual-contributor track (staff, principal) that is senior to most managers in influence; decide later, but know it exists.
How to use this resource
A working designer laying out, concretely, what juniors and seniors each do differently (ownership, ambiguity, communication) rather than years-of-experience thresholds. Published 2021; the expectations it describes have not moved.