Thanks for the episode

wow. just wow. what an episode!

loved every bit of it!

very insightful conversation

I really like the advice to disregard your first idea to create something better. It makes me appreciate feedback differently, seeing it as an opportunity to improve.

Really high quality advice

very misleading titile.I was expecting a lesson showing how to prototype vs people talking about concets like variables and tokens ie Show dont tell! Wasted 30 min of my time.

24K Gold

She’s absolutely awesome!

good stuff.

I didn't pay full attention but it seems that for a product designer (for the most part of his trade), I've not heard user research or tests once but graphic design a million times.

this is a masterclass

hello! can I join your design group on discord please! I'm just starting out, would love to learn from watching what experts do

Excellent guest, keep making these 🔥

Curious if the engineer test used leetcode examples

Act 1: Learning the Craft (01:35 - 02:10) Focus on shipping (01:35 - 01:40): "Move fast and iterate based on user feedback. In the early days, resources were scarce, so we needed to get things out the door quickly." Early Facebook culture (01:40 - 02:10): "It was a scrappy, fast-paced environment. Designers were expected to wear many hats and prioritize shipping over extensive design refinement." Act 2: Scaling Design (14:32 - 15:10) Importance of Speed (14:32 - 14:45): "As Facebook scaled, we needed to optimize design workflows to keep pace. This meant streamlining processes for collaboration and prioritizing features that could be shipped quickly." Design for scale (14:45 - 15:10): "We shifted from individual ownership of features to a more collaborative design approach. This allowed for knowledge sharing, consistency, and leveraging the strengths of different designers." Act 3: Building a Design Team (15:41 - 16:14) Hiring for impact (15:41 - 15:50): "We prioritized recruiting top talent who could significantly influence the product. We needed designers who could think strategically and understand the product vision." Shifting mindset (15:50 - 16:14): "As I transitioned into a leadership role, I realized my greatest impact would come from building a strong design team. I championed mentorship, knowledge sharing, and empowering designers." Code literacy (28:35 - 28:45): "In today's world, some understanding of code is essential for designers. This allows for better communication with engineers, prototyping, and testing ideas quickly. Software Ergonomics (28:45 - 29:00): "Effective software design should feel effortless, similar to how video games are designed. We should consider both physical and mental ergonomics of user interaction. Alignment with Company Strategy (30:00 - 31:10): "Great designers understand the bigger picture. Their work aligns with the company's overall strategy and business objectives. Design should be a strategic driver of growth, not just an afterthought. Hiring for Talent and Trajectory Looking beyond experience (34:13): Soople emphasizes evaluating a candidate's ability to learn quickly ("time to proficiency") rather than just years of experience in a specific field. Liking those who ask about what they'll learn next (35:37): Soople values candidates who are curious and eager to learn new things, highlighting this as a reliable signal. Lee Byron (35:46): Hired as a data scientist, but his talent and collaborative spirit led to him being recruited for product design. He wasn't satisfied and went deeper into the codebase, which led to him co-creating React and GraphQL. This exemplifies Soople's point about looking for people who move horizontally across disciplines and are curious about how things work. Tips for Candidates to Stand Out (42:15): Ship projects and gain experience in the new paradigm (42:27): If you're targeting a new field like AR, design experiences within that space to showcase your skills and passion. Be remarkable and create something memorable (42:55): Soople looks for candidates who've shipped something unique and thought-provoking that makes him want to talk to them.

Interesting interview. I tried Amie yet it wasn't sticky to me as it felt a little too clunky to me in terms of ux. I reopened it as I watched this interview and then I got reminded why I also dropped it: The auto updated that results in an empty screen without any info on what is happening is quite a bad design choice. I ran into it several times and always thought my mac crashed.

We're working on such a tool you were lacking where designers can contribute to production. The way Julius talks about engineers reminds me of industrial designers... as they are traditionally in the same manner as architects.

Wonderful and insightful conversation. Thank you!

Amazing podcast 🔥, learned so much especially if one wants to think how the product design role would change in the years to come

gold. do the thing!

Amy’s a boss. Understands a problem. Understands and implements user research. Great communicator and storyteller. Willing to put in the work and iterate to get the wanted outcome. Can define a solution. I’d hire. ❤

Very insightful, I came here through the storytelling topic blog and I'll be looking out for more!🎉

Really timely episode for me. A lot of great advice. Thanks for sharing!

The line about consulting-invented layers is so true. So many made-up touchpoints to generate churn & extend contracts. Source: I used to be a design consultant.

Keep up the fantastic work, Ridd! Getting so much actionable value from all your videos.

So if he was solo during yc but didn’t code the entire thing himself, who coded it?

Loved it! An hour truly well spent watching the entire episode.

is john on a treadmill?!

It would be awesome if the resources, like articles or work that was talked about in the episode could also be shared within the video description. I'd truly love that! ✨ Apart from that, incredible episode and Jenny was a great guest here! 🫶

maaan this design + code series are being so much inspiring to me! the last 2 years I've been working on a company that without me knowing to code, started to assign me front end tasks, I struggled so much with the technical side like git, branch, npm, commit, but now I see how much useful It was to understand more about the implementation side and actually gave me some hints about how to bring those concepts to the design side on Figma. since then I've keep learning more about how to bring my UI to life. thanks a lot for this material!

I'm one of these guys. Its hard for me to meet other like minded people or find jobs in this area. My tutors that code usually make things for fun, they stick to figma and Arduino for fun. I'm in classes integrating APIs and making stuff that could rly be useful. I love the product thinking behind it but these different titles try to pigeonhole me. Hopefully after my postgrad studies I'll fit in somewhere.

Idk how every designer is not subscribed to this channel

The flashing rectangles during testing Figma prototype got me rolling on the floor 😂

Is that Zuckerberg on the painting in the background 😂

Oh boy, I need to do a round 2 on this to begin unpack it’s value. Brilliant discussion 🤯

cannot wait to tune in and listen to this. 💿🔊🦾

Love this new transition of design merging into programming. The things people that know both are doing are amazing. It is going to be even more impressive with a few years of growth as an industry.

This talk was truly inspiring and eye opening. Don’t have a technical background, but lately I’m drawn to be able to BUILD your vision instead of just having it mocked up in Figma. But the developer world is quite overwhelming for me, git, npm packages, different programming languages, etc. Really have no idea how to traverse this space to ensure that at the end I’ll have the ability to build the idea that I want.

Love it! Got so much knowledge from here

Nice episode. I love how Alex articulates his thoughts and way of working. Really admirable

This video is GOLD! One question is better than the other one, the same goes for the answers! Thank you so much!

Thanks for this interview, very valuable! A question on 'building rapport' by asking people specific questions on their background, I feel that in some cases it may backfire as participants may think one is being nosey or paying too much attention to what their background looks like of-course this is subjective and responses may vary. It would work seamlessly if it was a fake background. Thoughts?

hi andyyyyy‼️

This is so underrated 🤌🏻

Nailed every point!-a very insighful dive 💡

Fire!! 🔥

Outstanding, HH is a weapon. Might actually be working with Offmenu in June.

Awesome video!

I loooooved this episode, the tone of the conversation felt pretty casual and comfy It was in the vercel episode were one of the guests mentioned the evolution of the design/engineer role as just "builders" and here Alex I think that mention a similar idea talking about the importance of having a team of 90% of people who can build. Really interesting :D