Learn 3 takeaways from 3 designers who got a UX design job without a design degree

You’ve probably already heard of the field of UX Design, or User Experience Design. After all, it’s the field responsible for designing the end-to-end experiences of the apps and websites you love.

UX Design has become increasingly important for companies, and the field also pays quite well. However, if you’re like most people (and like me), it’s likely that you didn’t take up a design-related degree in college, and you haven’t had a full-time UX job yet.

But that shouldn’t be a concern for you at all, and it doesn’t mean you can’t land a job in UX design. Many UX designers came from having no background in design as well, yet they were able to make the leap.

How were they able to do it? We can learn from three designers who’ve made the jump. These three are Christine — a young Chemistry graduate and YouTuber, Gemma — a 39-year-old former IT professional, and Kyle — a former property management professional.

They’ve each made the switch to UX design and have written openly about how they did it. Although reading each of their stories and tips are valuable, here are three takeaways I took from their stories that are essential for anyone looking into getting a UX job without a UX background.

1. Know Why You Want to Pursue UX Design

Christine’s most popular video on her YouTube channel

Christine Chun graduated with a degree in Chemistry. Fresh from graduating, she decided to work at a skincare company as a community manager.

After almost a year, she decided to quit her job, even if she didn’t have a job lined up for her. 

“I was certain that retail marketing was not the career path I wanted to invest in further. I wanted to do something creative that involved critical thinking, but was utterly lost as to where to pivot next,” Christine said.

Even if she was lost, she at least knew that she wanted to do creative work that involved critical thinking. So to answer this for herself, she grabbed coffee with numerous professionals, trying to figure out which job she would enjoy the most next. And after talking to multiple designers, and reading a lot of resources about UX, she was “convinced that this was the field I wanted to break into.”

So before you set out to get a job in UX design, make sure you have a strong passion and interest in it first. And make sure to develop it as you go along the way too. Passion is what will allow you to keep learning and persisting, so it’s important to know where your motivation comes from, just like Christine did.

After a lot of hustling and many rejections, Christine was able to land a Product Designer job, and she’s now a Product Designer at Instacart. She’s also built up her YouTube channel along the way, where she makes beauty and career-related videos, and now has over 8,000 subscribers.

2. Build A Good Portfolio of UI/UX Work

A photo from Kyle’s article

Kyle Miller had a job as a Senior Leasing Consultant for a property management company. After a couple of years in the industry though, he wanted to quit. But he was scared. He wasn’t sure what he would do next. Through some soul-searching like Christine though, he figured out the field of UX could be for him.

But first, he had to build a UI/UX portfolio. After all, companies would want to see his work, and he needed to showcase he was good at it even if he hasn’t had a job as a UX designer.

Kyle went through 2 methods to have case studies of his UI/UX design work.

The first was taking General Assembly’s User Experience Design Immersive course, which Christine took as well. The program is a 10-week, full-time program that teaches you UI/UX design and has you build actual designs and prototypes.

However, it will cost $10,000–$15,000 depending on where you live, but they do have a cheaper online version. Nevertheless, Kyle valued how the course gave him a great foundation in UX, and helped him network and find great mentors to help him.

Kyle’s second method, which might be more realistic for others who can’t drop $10–15k, was doing freelance UI/UX work. He put himself out there and got connected with the startup community. Through this, he was able to do usability recommendations and host design studios for his clients.

In the 3+ years since leaving his property management job, Kyle has worked as a UX designer at multiple companies, including the Fortune500 company Capital One. He’s also now the co-founder of a startup called GoodFynd.

“I was scared to quit my job in the property management field to pursue a career in UX design, but it has been one of the most satisfying decisions I’ve made in a long time,” Kyle said.

3. Never Stop Learning, and Be Patient & Persistent

Gemma’s bio from her portfolio

Gemma Sweeney had been working in IT roles for 17 years in the U.K. But like Kyle and Christine, she wanted to do something more creative. And after discovering the field of UX, she made a plan to switch career paths — at 39.

Gemma didn’t want to spend the money or time needed for a 10-week UX bootcamp like General Assembly’s, so she found a cheaper and shorter alternative. She also read as much as she could about UX online.

“I set aside 10 minutes in the morning to read various articles, and also set myself a goal of sharing one UX related article on Twitter each day,” Gemma said.

Gemma set out a year-long plan on how to transition from IT to UX. And through taking a cheaper UX course, reading as much as she could, building her portfolio, and going to meetups, she immersed herself immensely into UX.

Today, Gemma now works as a UX designer at Ocado Technology, and she has a great-looking portfolio of her UI/UX work. And Gemma shows us that it’s never too late to make a switch in your career.

Will You Make The Leap Too?

All in all, these three UX designers have shown that making the leap into UX is possible. And the three key ways to do this are to know your why, build a great portfolio, and have patience and persistence.

None of them said it was easy, but as they’ve shown and said, it’s definitely possible. Moreover, it can be an extremely rewarding and worthwhile journey.

Connect Deeper

If you have any questions or comments about this article, feel free to comment them below!

I’ve linked the articles in which Christine, Kyle, and Gemma share their journeys and tips to breaking into UX design here:

My co-workers and I at Stampede have more interesting articles and insights to share for you, so if you enjoyed this article, like our Facebook Page or follow us on Medium. Until then, keep dreaming and hustling, and I hope this article was insightful or inspiring for you.

The post Make the Leap —How to Get a UX Design Job without a UX Background appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

Me (on the left) with my eventual supervisor, Zo-Ee.

A story on how attending a conference, some serendipity, and writing articles led to me interning remotely for Stampede

Hi there, I’m Brian Tan, a 4th year student from Manila here in the Philippines.

It’s been 4 days of me working as a UI/UX apprentice for Stampede, and it still feels surreal. How did a young student like me get to intern remotely for an awesome foreign company like Stampede?

Let me tell you about the crazy story of how I got this internship.

It starts with some Googling

It all started when I was randomly searching for design conferences online. I had never been to a big design conference abroad yet, so I just went searching on Google.

I eventually found the website to the UXSEA Summit, a 3-day design conference in Singapore held in November 2018.

I got excited. I wanted to see if I could land a UI/UX design job in Singapore to work in after I graduate, mainly because of the higher pay and better quality of life. The design and tech industry is also much more mature there than in Manila.

Getting a Student Discount

I saw too that the price of the conference was quite affordable compared to other international design conferences. But I thought to myself — what if they’re willing to give a discount to students?

So I went ahead and messaged the UXSEA Summit Facebook page, asking if I could be given a student discount. To my surprise, the organizers were willing to give me a 50% discount.

It gave me even more reason to go, and I told my parents about it. They were supportive of me going, with my mom offering to pay for the flight ticket using her miles. I also asked my cousin, who works in Singapore, if I could stay over at her place in the few days I’d be there, and she said I could.

Amazing, I thought. I had my flights and accommodation covered, and I got a huge discount for the conference! I didn’t care anymore about the fact that I had to miss a couple days of classes. I knew this conference could be the key to networking my way into a job there after I graduate.

Finding The Lucky Seat

Fast forward to after flying from Manila to Singapore, I arrived at the first day of the conference a few minutes late. Most of the seats had been filled up already, but I found a vacant seat next to a table in front.

I sat down on that seat, and little did I know that I’d be sitting next to my future supervisor for my internship. Beside me was Zo-Ee Chee, UX Strategist at Stampede.

Me with Zo-Ee and my fellow Filipino tablemates.

She told me about how Stampede was a Malaysian UX design and software agency, and how their founder brought their whole design team there.

I ended up spending the rest of the day talking to Zo-Ee and my tablemates, who were also from Manila surprisingly, and doing the hands-on workshops. Zo-Ee and I even designed a wallet for each other as part of the Design-A-Wallet workshop there, and we got to know each other more through the stories and ideas related to what we wanted in a wallet.

I had a lot of fun getting to know Zo-Ee and my tablemates, and Zo-Ee introduced me to Shaza Hakim, the founder of Stampede. I had no idea that I would be interning for her, and I wasn’t even searching for an internship at the time.

I have classes this semester, and I was unsure if I wanted to juggle that with an internship. I didn’t even know that interning remotely for a foreign company was an option. I was just curious about their team, and I asked Shaza a few questions.

The Power of Writing Articles

After each day of the conference though, I made sure to compile my notes from each session/talk for the day. I knew that I could write articles doing a recap of the Summit, so that’s what I did. I ended up writing one article for each day of the UXSEA Summit, and posted them on Medium and LinkedIn.

My article on UX Collective.

Suddenly, I got a comment from Shaza on my LinkedIn post about the article:

I was so pleasantly surprised. Wow, she’s offering me an internship? But before deciding if I wanted to do this, I did my research first about Stampede.

I ended up being really impressed looking through their website and social media. Stampede has a long list of clients from all over the world, and they have numerous case studies of their work on their site. They’ve also already been around since 2006, and their team works fully remotely, which impressed me.

They also have a blog where they’re so open about their culture and team. I was also impressed reading about Shaza, who is a local leader for the Interaction Design Foundation, and her open posts about Stampede, such as this slideset about how she manages to make remote working great for Stampede.

Landing the Job

I thought to myself that this is a one-of-a-kind company, and I’d be stupid not to try interning for them. So I decided to message Shaza, telling her how I was really interested to intern for Stampede and sent them my UI/UX portfolio.

I also told her though that I could spend only 15 hours a week working remotely for them, since I still would have classes during the internship. Shaza was okay with this and she scheduled a call with me, where Zo-Ee joined, and it ended up becoming an informal job interview.

By the end of the call, Shaza and Zo-Ee were willing to hire me, and I was pleasantly surprised. They were so willing to trust me based on my portfolio and articles, and how I answered their questions in an audiocall.

I started to see there the generosity of Shaza, and the willingness she had to trust and mentor young designers like me.

Within a week, I got sent a paid internship contract, and I accepted and signed it. This was definitely a “Hell Yeah!” opportunity for me.

4 Days of Learning

Shaza sharing some books she recently got in our team-wide videocall.

Fast forward to today, and it’s only been 4 days, but my internship’s already been great so far. Compared to my previous internships, Stampede actually had a more structured and better onboarding process, even if I was being onboarded remotely.

Shaza and I even had a 2-hour videocall where she discussed to me about Stampede’s Why and their core values, and discussed to me about their design process. I’ve already learned a lot from just a few days of talking to my teammates and observing Stampede’s processes as a UX design agency, and I can’t wait to learn more.

Filled with Gratitude

All in all, I don’t expect this high I’m feeling of being able to intern for Stampede to last the whole way. I’m sure that the work Stampede will give me might be difficult to juggle alongside my schoolwork, since I’m still taking a full load of classes this semester.

But I know that if I ever find myself stressed, bored, or not as passionate about working for Stampede, I just have to take a step back and remind myself how grateful I am to have this opportunity.

I’m grateful that I got to attend the UXSEA Summit, that I got to meet Zo-Ee and Shaza, that I get to work with and learn from this whole team, and that I get to learn what it’s like to work at a remote company.

It’s only been 4 days, but I’m already so thankful to be here. And I hope I’ll continue to be until the end of my internship in April.

Connect Deeper

I’ll likely be writing a couple more articles for Stampede, so if you enjoyed this post, like our Facebook Page or follow us on Medium!

My teammates and I have interesting articles and insights to share for you. Until then, keep dreaming and hustling, and I hope this article was insightful or inspiring for you.

The post How I Got the Crazy Opportunity to be a UI/UX Apprentice for Stampede appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.