femke.design on YouTube · Open on YouTube
Senior product design: owning outcomes · Proficient · Lesson 58 of 99 · 15 min video, then about 2 hours of practice
Operating at senior scope: ambiguity, priority and judgement
After this you can describe the behaviours that mark a senior designer (framing before solving, prioritising by impact, managing up and across) and audit your own work against them.
Why it matters
Dreyfus's 'proficient' stage is about perceiving what matters most in a situation instead of weighing everything equally, and that is exactly what separates senior designers. They spend more time on the problem and less on the pixels; they drop polish that does not change the outcome; they communicate early and in writing; they make the call when the brief is unclear instead of waiting. Watch with a notebook and list the behaviours, then compare them to your last month of work. Trap: treating seniority as a title to be awarded for tenure. Promotion committees look for evidence that you already operate at the next level.
How to use this resource
A working senior designer on the four non-craft skills that most change how seniors are judged. Concrete enough to audit yourself against. Published 2022; the expectations are stable.