Leslie Yang on hiring Product Designers, generalization vs specialization, and strengthening collaboration with PMs

Product State Q&A

Leslie Yang is a Sr Manager of Product Design at Lyft. She was formerly Director of Product Design at OpenTable. She previously held roles at Pivotal Labs, Awasu Design, and PolicyLink.
Leading Product Design / LinkedIn

EC: What are you looking for in Product Design portfolios from candidates these days?

LY: I’m looking for portfolios that show a balance of process, craft, and a clear understanding of the user — and the business. Overall, the key elements I look for in portfolios are:

• A core user pain they’re solving for and why solving this acute problem creates business impact

• Concise, clear written storytelling

• Consistent, data-informed decisions, based on qualitative and quantitative inputs

• Evidence of cross-functional collaboration

• Multiple examples of quality of craft in their designs

I also assess portfolios based on fit for the specific role we’re hiring for. A portfolio is a balance of show and tell. I’m looking for a representation of a candidate’s thinking, approach, collaboration, iteration, approach -- and I’m also looking for clear writing about user problems, business goals, research performed, and decisions made along the way. I will likely pass on candidates that over-index on a Dribbble or Behance showcase that doesn’t do that kind of show and tell.

Product designers looking for a new role need to focus on presenting themselves for what they want to be hired to do. Specifically, if the role is for a product designer, then there’s no need to share brand or print work unless their product design case studies don’t show strong visual design. Their website, portfolio, and professional online presence should be geared for the role they want to do.

Once a designer is in interview mode, the art is in the storytelling. For a product designer, it’s important to share project stories that best represent the type of work they want to continue to do. The best way to do well on interviews is to practice their presentation with experienced designers and iterate through critical feedback. I cover much more on this topic in my article, What a hiring manager looks for in product design portfolios and presentations.

EC: Do you think we will see more or less specialization in Design moving forward?

LY: I define specialization as being paid for a focused set of skills. In medicine, there are general practitioners who treat common medical conditions and there are specialists with a specific focus such as the heart or the brain.

Looking at layoff numbers and lower funding rounds, I think designers will be generalists, at least for the next couple years, that pick up specialist skills because they won’t be able to bring on specialists to their teams.

Specifically, I think we’ll see less specialization for the next one to two years as teams contract in size but are compelled to expand their skill sets to cover specializations like user research and growth design. That said, the types of experiences we design for will also expand, such as creating an ever-increasing number of AI-driven offerings. Speaking of offerings, Figma’s latest product direction to go after more technical users that code is a smart one, as the line between designer and engineer continues to blur. At early stage startups or on scrappy teams, teammates wear multiple hats, each becoming a generalist that is constantly picking up new skills.

If a designer is at an early stage startup, they make pitch decks in the morning and code interactive prototypes in the afternoon. It’s unlikely, although it’s possible, that this designer ships production quality code. It’s more likely that a baseline understanding of variables helps this designer set up their files to offer seamless collaboration, and hopefully higher quality code, in Figma with their engineering team.

Depending on the needs of the team and the business, it can’t hurt to learn the basics of how to code, but I don’t think designers will need to specialize beyond a general understanding.

EC: What may new Product Designers learn and practice to improve their collaboration with PMs?

LY: I’d recommend new product designers do two things, which both lead to a strong working relationship with PMs. 

Make the implicit, explicit. New product designers, and frankly all product designers, should first talk to their PMs, and ask how they like to work and then be specific about how they like to work. It may feel awkward or unnecessary but PMs and designers often have different communication skills and collaboration styles from working on different teams and companies.

For example, some PMs may be used to owning strategy and product direction for large product areas so they may not be used to collaborating closely with designers while other PMs love to be in FigJam with their designers. Meanwhile, some designers might need solo heads down time, or they might need daily to weekly collaboration time depending on the project. Having this conversation early will help the partnership be successful from the beginning. 

Understand the business. I encourage designers to have empathy for the fact that PMs are held responsible for hitting OKRs and contributing to business goals. They balance an ever-growing number of requests from the business while driving alignment with stakeholders and maintaining team momentum. It’s a tough job. All this means they can’t always support our design ideas. The best advice I can give is to work together to prioritize the most acute user problems that lead to the greatest business impact. Doing this will ensure you’re both making the biggest impact on the customer and the business. 

“I think we’ll see less specialization for the next one to two years as teams contract in size but are compelled to expand their skill sets to cover specializations like user research and growth design.”
- Leslie Yang, Sr Manager of Product Design at Lyft